Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Reviewing this device is a bit hard - why is that ?
Because it is the best eBook reader on the market currently BUT it has problems , but again on the other hand it has less problems than any other device :)
So let's begin :First you need to know about it is that it's NOT LCD screen. Why this important ? - Two reasons:
a) I and many people can't read from LCD , the back lighting gives me a headache and my eyes get tired after several minutes , with this device I can read as any paper book. It has just white (well actually bit gray) screen and text looks black on it.
b) The battery holds much longer, and I mean really longer, with regular PDA or cell phone it runs out after 3-5 hours (depending on device and battery) but here it can sustain the device for month. How this happens ? - well this eInk technology does not require power to keep image on screen, just to draw it so battery get used mostly only when you turn the page and believe me you can finish several books with one charge.I previously owned earlier version of this device called PRS-500 in this version they had fixed several issues I had with previous one.
- They made it appear as "Mass storage device" when connecting to computer so you can just drug-and-drop files there.
- They moved page turn buttons to the right side of the device so now you can hold it with both hands and pressing the buttons right hand is more intuitive.
- They moved the menu selection buttons from bellow the screen to the right so they match software menu positions - a much welcome change also since the right hand is closer to them and it's more intuitive, like in some ATM machines :) Also "Size" button (controlling the text size) moved to more convenient location.
- The bad thing is that dropped the charger from the set, you can still buy it separately but its a downgrade. Anyway , option to charge it from USB is still there :)
- The device use 2nd generation of eInk technology called Visuplex, with it screen looks much whiter , texts looks more vivid, updated much faster and it does not suffer from the "artifact" leftovers problem PRS-500 had (actually it only sound serious, they were visible only if you look for them)The device is light, easy to handle and convenient to use.
It's a book reader, so what types of books can you read on it ?
1. You can read Sony's own .rlf and .rlx format files (books) bought at SonyConnect store.
2. You can read TXT files.
3. You can read PDF files (here there is a small problem since most PDFs are created in A4/Letter page size and displaying them on 6" device even in highest magnification looks too small, but you can hold "size" button for several seconds and it will rotate the screen 90° - now everything fits and looks nicely but amount of text on page of course reduced). Also turning page on PDF a bit slow.
4. You can read RTF and DOC files (DOC files actually only loaded thru Sony's software that convert then in a second to RTF)
Personally I use program called "BookDesigner 5.0" to convert everything I want to read into Sony's .RLF format and there are a lot of other converters. SonnyConnect is not the place with best book prices, at least not yet , may be now with some competition from Amazon's Kindle they might reduce prices. Also there are a lot of free stuff on the internet.
Now what the most impotent things about book reader ? - Well book reading experience :)
The device provide a very good one, the 6" screen for me when I first read about sounded too small but after actually using it it's a good size, ideal for traveling but at home (to replace paper books totally) I would prefer to have something like 8-9" , but again it's a minimum to feel comfortable even at home.
As for a negative sides one can mention that when you turn page it kind of "flashes" inverting it content, probably it's a technology thing , that' the way eInk screen clears itself and you do not notice it when reading but if you not reading but reviewing device :) you might notice it.
Also the page turning could be faster, its not too slow but it touches "bare minimum" of the time one need to read comfortably, especially this true for PDFs.
Device also can show gray images and play MP3 and AAC music (in music case running your battery out pretty fast , I guess no eInk for sound :)
There are two versions of the device - silver and "dark blue" (it's so dark that hard to notice it's blue and not black :) ) Personally I recommend to get the blue one - text looks much clearer in dark surrounding.
The cover also rather good, you feel that it actually protects the device and it feels good in hands.
Also if you are not English user there are firmware modifications to make this device show your languages. It's not thanks to Sony but to community of users (they added a lot of modifications also like clock, different icons, navigating pages with joystick etc) but at least this option exists. Bottom line:
Adding the wireless, increasing speed a bit, supporting full unicode languages range and cutting price by 1/2 :) would make this device ideal.
Also it would be nice to have it in 8-9" flavor.
May be having it with touch screen would be nice as well, but sure not with ugly keyboard as on Kindle.
But anyway on my opinion it's the best device for reading eBooks, for example Amazon's Kindle looks ugly with all this buttons,weights more support only rather rare formats and huge page turn buttons that should make it easier to use easily pressed by accident (there is more but we not reviewing Kindle here :))
Click Here to see more reviews about: Sony PRS-505/LC Blue Digital Book Reader
Sony PRS-505LC Dark Blue Portable Digital E-Book Reader System - Sony PRS505LC
Click here for more information about Sony PRS-505/LC Blue Digital Book Reader
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