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This is a short review of the Sony PRS-505 Ebook reader.

Having moved into a flat with 3 children, having a bookcase isn’t really an option, but I still wanted to have a wide selection of books to choose to read when I was in the right mood. Enter an Ebook reader….

Before buying the Sony I checked out a number of different models but eventually opted for the Sony PRS505. In short, if you are thinking of buying an Ebook reader here are the things I think you need to consider about the Sony (I tried to keep this article short, so each point is brief and presented without filler)

Good Points

1. Its in the mid price range for Ebook readers
2. Great looking and feeling (subjective I know) especially if you remove the cover. Its a very solid cast aluminium type case, and feels really nice and thin in your hands.
3. Comes with acceptable software for your PC, but you can install something like Calibre (work also works on Linux) which make using it much easier to transfer books too.
4. Screen uses E-Ink, which is very easy on the eyes, and you can read for much longer periods than a conventional backlit LCD or monitor without getting eye strain. E-Ink has been described as the nearest thing yet to electronic paper.
5. Batteries,  after recharging via the USB cable, last 2 or 3 weeks if you use it an hour or so every day.
6. A huge selection of novels have already been scanned and are available to download legitemately from online books stores, or from less official and less legal sources, such as torrents. (If not too keen on re-buying books in a different format if I’ve already purchased them before.)
7. You can easily read one handed, and of course don’t need to move your body in any way between page turns.
8. Page turning as you would normally read a book works with only a slight pause between pressing the button and the next page appearing.

Bad Points

1. E-Ink screens aren’t backlit so you need to have a light shining on the screen to read it.
2. Can’t search within books, and there is no dictionary.
3. It’s really designed for reading novels, not hopping  around in reference books.
4. If you use a memory card and load up more than a 100 or more  books, it takes several minutes to boot  up (you only need this type of boot after changing the books or memory card, not every time you turn it on, but its still annoying). I now only use it with 50-100 books and leave the rest on my computer.
5. E-Ink screens are not black and white, but black and light grey, not a major issue but higher contrast would be nicer.
6. Ebooks are not yet more cheaper than their original paper versions.
7. The Operating System is ok and fast enough when reading sequential pages, but a little quicker would be nice.
8. First time you open a book after reboot or change the font size, the system can take 30 seconds to  display first page (it needs to internally reformat all the pages or something).

Other Things to consider

1. If you already have some Ebooks make sure you can convert them to other formats and that they will display correctly in the Sony. To make sure it probably best to put them on a memory stick and try them on a real SonyPRS505 in a shop.
2. PDF’s work OK (much better now since some firmware  updates) but they aren’t perfect. If you have a lot of books in PDF format, again test them out on a real machine.
3. I bought mine without actually seeing the real thing, the pictures on the net and pretty accurate and I got what I expected.
4. The pages briefly flick from negative to positive during each page turn, strange at first, but after a while you don’t notice.

To be honest, I don’t really buy many gadgets anymore,  but I  am  happy with this purchase and would recommend it. No doubt technology in this area will move quite rapidly over the next few years but a Reader bought now should still be useful for many years to come, and won’t really need replacing.

Update November 2009

I’ve now sold my Sony Reader on Ebay, and got quite a good price (lost about 20%) of purchase price. The only real problem I had with it was  (and this was the reason I sold it)  it is almost useless for reading PDF manuals and text books. My next Ebook Reader (and I am definitely going to buy another one) must be able to display A4 PDFs, along with it’s  illustrations, fonts and tables, all looking just the same as it does on a computer screen using Acrobat, and preferably without scrolling up and down to see the whole page.

However if you just want something for reading novels I really can’t fault it.

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