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Sony PRS-505/LC Blue Digital Book Reader | 
| Brand: Sony
List Price: $299.99
Buy New: $272.99
You Save: $27.00 (9%)
New (9) from $272.99
Rating:  81 reviews
Media: Electronics
Operating System: Windows XP Professional Edition
System Memory: 0
Memory Type: SDRAM
Native Resolution: 6"
Modem: None
Display Size: 6
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 0.3 x 4.8 x 6.9
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: PRS-505/LC
Model: PRS-505/LC
UPC: 027242723658
EAN: 0027242723658
ASIN: B000WP2RC2
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Easy to read display - e-paper display with quicker page turns | | • | Premium design - Simple, yet sophisticated with easier navigation | | • | Compact and lightweight | | • | Integrated eBookstore with 20K titles | | • | Up to 7,500 page turns on full charge |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Experience the joy of reading a variety of your favorite books?all stored digitally in one compact device. The slimmer, redesigned Reader Digital Book lets you carry a stack of books in one hand. The Reader Digital Book holds about 160 eBooks or hundreds more with optional removable memory cards. Its portable size makes it the perfect travel companion, allowing you to read a variety of books whenever and wherever you want. With thousands of eBook titles available at The eBook Store from Sony, you can choose to download new releases, classics and popular book titles as well as view other document formats such as Adobe PDF10, RTF, TXT, BBeB and Microsoft Word. Its long battery life lasts up to 7,500 continuous page turns, and the amazing paper-like screen technology is easy on the eyes. Screen Size - Approx. 6 Measured Diagonally; Resolution - Approx. 170 Pixels Per Inch; Gray Scale - 8-Level Grey Scale Up to 7,500 page turns on full charge Audio and picture playback Dual SD Card and Memory Stick(R) Pro Duo Expansion Slot Mountable USB Drive Charges via USB Unit Dimensions (Approx.) - 6.9 x 4.8 x 0.3 (175 x 122 x 8mm) / Weighs 9 ounces Includes Tan Soft Case, USB Cable, Quick Start(TM) Guide, CD-ROM Limited Warranty - Labor- 90 days from the date of purchase; Parts- 1 Year from the date of purchase
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| Customer Reviews: Read 76 more reviews...
 Promising, but not good enough November 19, 2007
J. Li (LA, CA USA)
84 out of 117 found this review helpful
I got it as a birthday gift. Initially, I was estatic as I just got back from a long trip and had lugged around a few heavy books in my backpack. A thick and heavy travel guide and a couple of equally heavy books to read for leisure. I also had my laptop with me with a few PDF books on it. So I had wanted something light and portable to replace all of them.
So far, not so good. Let's get to the good part 1st:
1. It is small and thin. Easily portable;
2. The UI is decent, pretty intuitive;
3. The file transfer is simple and it reads lots of formats (although it converts all of them). Oh, and the free 100 classic books offer is pretty decent;
4. Dual memory support: SD and MS pro duo.
5. decent internal memory;
6. Massive selection of titles.
Now the bad:
1. Poor contrast. As you read my review, you can see that your LCD screen is back-lit and the page is white. Thus the black text stands out and easy to read. On the ebook, the screen background is grey and the text is not black enough. It is difficult to read under normal lighting and impossible under poor lighting;
2. Poor zoom. The PDF books of magazine are displayed too small on the screen. I zoomed in to max and changed viewing preference to no avail;
3. Small screen. The screen is too small. As such, I think the reader formats the texts to its porpotional size to fit. Even zoomed to max, it is still too small. How about some of that touch screen drag feature or simply make it bigger? Combine this with poor contrast and poor zoom, it will place great strain on your eyes to read from ebook;
4. Battery is suspect. I had only used it very lightly. Most of the time, I either had it shut down or had the cover closed (it auto turns off afater a bit). Yet I think it drains battery even when turned off. Combined with its size, I think the battery is simply way too small.
The concept is sound. But in reality, it still can not compare with real paperback books. I would buy it if I am going to be assigned to a remote outpost with no computer access. Otherwise, I will stick with the old and true paper books and even read from my laptop screen.
 Very nice device, but with some irritations November 25, 2007
Ivan W. Ong (Charlotte, North Carolina United States)
83 out of 90 found this review helpful
Sony's 2nd generation digital reader makes some perceptible improvements to the previous 500 model. My thoughts:
The display is clear but a little darkish under weaker room lighting. It will be great to make the page a little more white, although that is certainly technologically challenging. Although the reader plays pdf files, the small screen and limited enlargement make certain pdf documents such as text and instruction manuals very hard to read due to the small print. Landscape reading helps some, but it is non intuitive. Although gray scale levels have improved, graphics-intensive pdfs are still slightly not optimal. Page loads and page turning still tend to be a little slow, although not intolerable to the point of irritation.
The eBook library and especially eBook store is a clunky interface strongly suggestive of being designed by some second year engineering graduate with absolutely no concept of marketing and product/user environment packaging. The on-line store is not browser friendly and some title searches seem to go such a long time I wonder if the computer is hung. Overall, the eBook store is not going to be an asset to Sony as they compete with the sexier and more user friendly Kimble environment. There is much room for improvement here. Hint: find another programming team.
Engineering wise, the device is well engineered and very well packaged into a compact light weight design. Dimensional fit of the casing and switches is outstanding. It looks like it will last a long time of use. Definitely not some cheap import crap.
 Stil long way to go but it's best eBook reader on the market November 22, 2007
LKR (Israel)
80 out of 83 found this review helpful
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 :))
Best e reader on the market October 11, 2007
Arthur Camiel Kesteloot Jr. (West Bloomfield, MI United States)
68 out of 76 found this review helpful
I just received my ereader and am very impressed with it's compact size, long battery life, and the extensive number of books that are available for download. I both travel and read a great deal. This will be easy to travel with, and reduce the the need for shelf space for traditional books in my home.
Sony is building an e-reader site for Borders books in early 08. I have no idea when it will officially launch.
This is highly recommended.
Wanted a Kindle......got this for $199 on Sony's website!! January 25, 2008
Amy (Bloomington, IL)
29 out of 31 found this review helpful
Okay, so I fell into the hype of the Kindle.....I wanted one really badly, but I don't like to wait for things so I did some research and ended up getting this Sony since it is available! I read a lot of the "reviews" for the Kindle and saw that mostly they were people's comments that didn't actually own one. I searched through all star ratings to get a feel of what some of the glitches were with the Kindle and decided that if I were to buy a Kindle it would have to be a second generation Kindle which I DEFINITELY don't want to wait for!! Then I read a bunch of tech articles comparing the Kindle to this Sony device. I decided that although the wireless downloading capabilities of the Kindle are very desirable, I wouldn't use it that often to make it worth the more expensive price tag. If I were planning on having newspaper subscriptions where the Kindle would wirelessly deliver them to me daily, then I would have held out on a waiting list for the Kindle. I would only be downloading probably one or two books a month and I guess a USB transfer would be fine for that little use of the wireless feature. PLUS if you order the sony reader from the sony website it is only $299 right now and with signing up for a new Sony credit card you get $100 back on your 2nd statement which makes this reader only $199 from Sony....they also offer 12 month interest free and payment free financing if you want, and $100 free "classic" books downloaded free. I couldn't pass it up! For that value I will be able to use this Sony until the second generation Kindle comes out or maybe by then I will be desperately in love with this one! (mine is this blue one with a free pink "skin" and 14 free romance novels---probably won't read them, but getting more free stuff is always good!!)
UPDATED: 4/16/08
Okay, so I've had the Sony PRS-505 for a couple of months now, and I've got to say that I still LOVE it!! When I ordered it, I mentioned that I wouldn't be reading more than 1 or 2 books a month on it, and it is so easy to purchase and download the books from Sony's Bookstore, that I have read 6 books already!! I have a whole bunch of future books to read in my Wishlist! The battery lasts forever! The book I am reading now is 650 pages in small font and I am 2/3 of the way through it with only 1 quarter of the battery gone. I read a couple hours a day and force myself to put it down. I love to take the reader out of the leather case (which it has never accidentally slipped out of) and put it in a ziploc bag and read in the tub! Some reviews were bummed about no AC charger coming with the reader, but it comes with a USB charger which takes no time at all to charge it with my laptop, or I charge it with my iPhone AC charger if I don't have my laptop handy. If I could change the star rating to a 5 I would. I love the Sony and am not regretting choosing this over the Kindle.
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