Sony Reader Digital Book PRS-505 user reviews (silver)

Pros Relatively light weight with a fantastic screen

Cons Would be a 10 if it had some light source, Adobe PDF's can't be enlarged

Summary This unit is fantastic. The buttons are well placed with the page turning buttons on the right side as well as the bottom left. Great for either hand holding or having it sit flat on the table. The screen and text are very, very legible. The speed of page turning is fast enough that you won't lose any momentum when reading.

The only reason why I didn't give it a rating of 10 is because PDF files still suffer from not being able to zoom enough.

The unit would also benefit from some kind of backlighting, but it's not really necessary since a real book doesn't have one and the screen is very similiar. The anti-glare screen is good, though not perfect. It still reflects light from a certain angle.

Overall I'm really happy I purchased this item. It was a little expensive, but not having to carry two heavy 400 - 700+ page physical books makes it well worth the price. Also, no trees were harmed in order for us to be entertained.

Pros Thin, lightweight, nice "ink" display, open to different formats, nice button layout, big display, great battery life, ability to use SD card or Sony Memory Stick, more ebook choices than Kindle

Cons A little slow sometimes, only Windows compatible, Sony Connect store is limited, ebooks cost more than Kindle

Summary I purchased the "new" Sony Reader, which isn't so new anymore, a few days ago, and so far I am very happy with it. It was a hard choice deciding between this Reader or the Amazon Kindle, but after a few weeks of thought I went ahead and got the Sony instead. It would be nice to have EVDO wireless technology everywhere, access to Wikipedia, newspapers, etc; but I decided I already have an iPhone and I usually carry a computer around, so I might as well get access to Wikipedia and the Wall Street Journal in full color rather than through a reader. My other decision maker was that the Sony Reader looks nice, is thin and has a good button layout, rather than having the poor design (my opinion) that the Kindle has. I do admit that the Kindle does have a nicer selection of books through the first and largest book etailer, Amazon.com; however, with the Sony I can download books from not only the Sony store, but also other ebook online stores, for example, today I purchased 3 books from O'Reily media. With the Sony it's pretty much unlimited where I an download from thanks to its Adobe support. The Kindle does have attractive book prices, usually no more than $9.99, but thanks to DRM I am locked to only buying from Amazon. I can even transfer my PDF's, like IT White papers into the Sony with out having to e-mail anything, simply by transferring it over as if it were a flash drive. The e-reader takes about a second or two to turn pages, but no longer than it would take to turn an actual book page, so I don't know why some complain that it's slow. I am really happy with the Sony Reader so far, but I do recommend that if you don't need one right away, wait 2-4 months for the new Kindle to come out to see what it does. ...hopefully they'll make it easier on the eyes, and open to any store.

Pros New firmware adds ePub and Adobe Digital Editions support

Cons Having to buy charger, no (direct) Mac support

Summary I've had it for 8 months now and I must admit that I really do enjoy it. It is NOT TRUE that Sony is the only source for books (Baen's eBook site http://www.webscription.net/ sells Sony format ebooks). There are also tools (such as Calibre (http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/) that allow users to convert other formats to the Sony format (and Calibre runs on Macs and Linux).

With the new firmware update that allows the reader to use ePub and Adobe Digital Editions ebooks, there are even more options. A friend of mine reports that she was able to download a Digital Editions eBook from the web site of her local public library and read it on her Sony!

The whole charger issue is completely regrettable - especially since my charger failed and now I have to call Sony support for another one.

I like my reader so much that I have been working on converting my entire library to eBooks. I expect to recover at least one entire bookcase - space that my wife will be more than happy to reapportion to other uses.

Pros easy to read, a couple of different font sizes to chose from, light, slim, very portable

Cons page turning take a second

Summary I am a very fast and active reader, I consume everything from the daily print newspaper to a selection of magazines, and of course, piles and piles of books. i absolutely love my 505. First and foremost, a lot of the negative reviews have to do with the expense of Sony's eBook store books. While I agree that compared with Amazon's lower Kindle edition pricing a lot of Sony's are out of whack, I think these reviewers are ignoring the fact that THOUSANDS of public domain books are available for free, legal download at sites like feedbooks.com.

I was skeptical about ereaders before I got my own and now I don't think I could live without it.