Sony PRS-505 Ebook Reader
I recently purchased a PRS-505 Ebook reader, as I have a fairly extensive collection of ebooks off of Gutenberg, and trying to read them all on the computer is pretty annoying.
Before I got it, I took a lot of time to compare features among the various ebook readers out there. I narrowed it down to the Kindle and the Sony. The Kindle offered a full keyboard and internet browsing, however, it was significantly more, and it was a bit more unwieldly. It also made it difficult to put on third-party ebooks on it, so I ended up going with the Sony.
Having had it for a few weeks now, I can safely say it is the coolest piece of technology that I own. The screen is great, it really is like looking a piece of paper. Battery life lasts for ever, as it only really uses the battery to turn the page. It charges off of a USB port, but it has the option for an external adapter. When it’s plugged in, it shows up as a drive to windows, which makes it very easy to quickly transfer your books over. Sadly, the software that Sony provides to access their store is pretty buggy.
It supports displaying pictures in greyscale, and has a very basic mp3 player as well. It has enough onboard memory for at least 150 books. As for file formats that it supports, it does text, PDF, and Sony’s personal format. It doesn’t handle LIT files, which is too bad, as I had a lof of those. Also, keep in mind that PDF files are rendered to fit a specific size, so they don’t always look right on the reader unless you resize them or place the screen in landscape mode.
All in all, it’s a great piece of hardware, and highly recommended.
You can get it here.
If you want to play with one before buying it, Target sells them, and some of the stores have a display model.