[Kieron]

Thought I'd start this one off. Bought the Wife a Sony 505 reader and it's been fantastic. Takes SD cards and can store thousands of books - saving progress on each book should you wish to flit between them.

Screen is great. Ignore the naysayers - from experience I could read the pages all day long with no strain whatsoever. It really looks like ink on a page.

Battery life is weeks rather than hours. The only battery drain is to change the e-ink on the page, once the page is present there is no more power required - the beauty of the e-ink system.

I'd recommend one to any book fan in your life!

[kav]

Thanks Kieron, have been interested in these for a while, though being stingy I will probably wait till they're closer to £100! What's the range of books like? Is everything you want available? And how does the cost of downloaded content compare to buying the paperback version?

[thariq]

To be honest I prefer using the Iphone, as you dont need another device to carry around, My favourite at the moment is the Stanza app for the Iphone, the screen is ok for reading and you can adjust the text size as well, and best of all Stanza recognises all reader formats, as well as having an online catalogue which you can buy from as well as well free book sites, ie Projectgutenburg.

The best part is if you have a load of ebooks you have bought for other devices ie mobipocket, ereader, microsoft reader ,pdf, doc, rtf . if you load the PC/Mac client on your machine and have wireless at home, you can open all the books, and then open the app on the phone and you can download the lot straight to the phone. Other good things about the app is you can create your own covers and assign to the book or it picks it up on its own.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by kavanf1

Thanks Kieron, have been interested in these for a while, though being stingy I will probably wait till they're closer to £100! What's the range of books like? Is everything you want available? And how does the cost of downloaded content compare to buying the paperback version?

We got 100 books free with the reader, the range of books though is massive - costs are cheaper - it really has transformed my Wife's book reading (she's a massive book fan)

Screen size is just perfect for easy reading. Find it *much* easier than using a backlit DS/iPhone etc - there is literally no strain on the eyes at all with E-Ink

Take a look at Waterstones online for costs and range etc

[hutch]

Hi Kieron I was looking at buying a 505 for my wife but someone told me that it doesnt work with Macs and you can only use ebooks downloaded from the Sony store which are quite expensive, is that right?

[gavan]

I believe that the Sony Reader software which used to come with it isn't available for Mac (yet).

I've never used the Sony software myself so I can't say if you are missing much - for managing my digital books and uploading them to the PRS-505 I use Freeware called 'Calibre' on my PC and it's also available for the Mac.

Download calibre 0.6.11 - Free e-book library manager that can view, convert and catalog e-books in most of the major e-book formats - Softpedia

You can also manually copy files to the eBook or to a memory card even without special software.

It means you can't buy books from the Sony site but that's no great loss as I find that other stores offer more choice and lower prices plus I have absolutely no interest in purchasing DRM locked titles in a proprietary Sony format. I buy most of my eBooks as mobipocket files, use a processing script to clean the nasty restrictions on how I want to read them .. and then translate them to ePub and upload them using Calibre.

I also buy some books in .lit format (Microsoft Reader) and use a similar process but I don't think that would be possible on a Mac as the required software for the .lit stuff is Windows specific.

Also, if you go to google books you'll find many public domain titles available to download as ePub.

[thariq]

One of the writers at a national newspaper that I work at was reviewing the 606 and asked me to help set it up to the PC and Not to be negative but I think the sony ereader will need to improve a lot more before it will becomes popular with people, My biggest gripe is thats its too slow , the only thing I did like about it was it is light with a big screen .

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by hutch

Hi Kieron I was looking at buying a 505 for my wife but someone told me that it doesnt work with Macs and you can only use ebooks downloaded from the Sony store which are quite expensive, is that right?

Originally Posted by gavan

I believe that the Sony Reader software which used to come with it isn't available for Mac (yet).

I've never used the Sony software myself so I can't say if you are missing much - for managing my digital books and uploading them to the PRS-505 I use Freeware called 'Calibre' on my PC and it's also available for the Mac.

Download calibre 0.6.11 - Free e-book library manager that can view, convert and catalog e-books in most of the major e-book formats - Softpedia

You can also manually copy files to the eBook or to a memory card even without special software.

It means you can't buy books from the Sony site but that's no great loss as I find that other stores offer more choice and lower prices plus I have absolutely no interest in purchasing DRM locked titles in a proprietary Sony format. I buy most of my eBooks as mobipocket files, use a processing script to clean the nasty restrictions on how I want to read them .. and then translate them to ePub and upload them using Calibre.

I also buy some books in .lit format (Microsoft Reader) and use a similar process but I don't think that would be possible on a Mac as the required software for the .lit stuff is Windows specific.

Also, if you go to google books you'll find many public domain titles available to download as ePub.

Ian, I was just going to say - use Calibre, it's much better than the official library software. You can get books from a variety of sources too as gavan says. Can't recommend the reader highly enough

[Sonic67]

Asus eBook reader could have two colour screens

FiveFWD - Asus eBook reader could have two colour screens by The Gadget Show

[huxley]

For anyone with a Sony 505 who wants to save a few pennies, pick up a psp mains charger. Its the same charger and half the price

[Ruby Eyed Owl]

The Sony E-Reader PRS-505.

Does anyone know if it will read back to you and you can listen to it via headphones?

Thanks
S.

[JayLaFunk]

Looking to purchase a ebook reader but don't know whether to wait a few months to see what the Asus offers, don't fancy the Kindle, quite like the Sony & the Nook...

Anyone that has an Ereader, couple of questions, I know that you can bookmark an ebook but can you bookmark more than one and if you upload an audio book to the device, can you bookmark that file?.

Cheers Jay

[shodan]

Would love to get one of these but why the hell are they so expensive??? Surely the software isn't that expensive and although they mostly look nice and well built, I doubt they cost more than a few quid to mass produce.

But the Sony 505 is sexy...

[gavan]

Originally Posted by shodan

Would love to get one of these but why the hell are they so expensive??? Surely the software isn't that expensive and although they mostly look nice and well built, I doubt they cost more than a few quid to mass produce.

But the Sony 505 is sexy...

The e-Ink display isn't going to be anything like as cheap as an LCD and the hardware is bespoke (although it shares some commonality of design with a PDA/large smartphone I suppose).

Given that they aren't mass producing them in anything like the numbers of a popular smartphone the asking prices aren't unreasonable at the current time, IMO.

I picked up a Sony PRS-300 (to complement my 505) for £130 in the post-Xmas sales which was very reasonable I thought.

If you want a 505 I wouldn't wait too long - it has been discontinued in other markets in favour of the 300 and 600 models and will certainly go the same way here soon, if it hasn't already done so.

[Crocodile]

Originally Posted by huxley

For anyone with a Sony 505 who wants to save a few pennies, pick up a psp mains charger. Its the same charger and half the price

Is it? Looking around it seems that the PSP charger is 5.0V whereas the PRS is 5.2V.

I bought a generic USB mains charger but my PRS-600 won't charge from it (all other USB devices do), which seems to suggest that extra 0.2V is critical.

[gavan]

Originally Posted by Crocodile

Is it? Looking around it seems that the PSP charger is 5.0V whereas the PRS is 5.2V.

I bought a generic USB mains charger but my PRS-600 won't charge from it (all other USB devices do), which seems to suggest that extra 0.2V is critical.

It's not the voltage - the device needs to be enumerated by the USB port that it's connected to. i.e. It will only work from a computer USB port that picks it up, not a simple USB charger. Otherwise it will go into USB transfer mode and waste power.

If you want to charge on the go without a computer then you need a PSP-type charger. This also has the benefit that you can continue to use the eBook when charging, normal USB connection brings up a 'USB connected' screen and you can't read.

[Crocodile]

Cheers Gavan - again.

It's not so much a case of wanting to charge when mobile as only having laptops in the house. It's a PITA having an eReader tethered to the laptop when you're trying to use it & hardly environmentally friendly leaving the laptop on just to charge the Sony.

I've found a cheap USB to DC jack cable for the PSP on Ebay which should get round the issue. I really want to avoid another single purpose AC adapter/charger if I can.

[Crocodile]

If it helps anyone else who already owns a USB charger, the cable works a treat. I bought this one for the princely sum of £1.65 delivered!

[aguilas389]

Hi Gavan,could you tell me how to install the Calibre reader programme please, I have downloaded it okay but can't seem to install it on my Windows XP.
Many thanks
aguilas389

[gavan]

I just ran the installer - it worked fine.

I do seem to remember reading something in the FAQ or readme file about needing a certain version of Sony drivers.

[Crocodile]

On my laptop (XP Pro SP3) it takes an eternity to do a disk space check prior to installation & then takes almost as long to load the programme each time. I just timed 0.6.37 & it was 70 seconds to load, so it may just be a case of being patient.

If it won't load take a look here.