Product Description

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 from the CONNECT eBooks Store, 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.

Product Details

• Brand: Sony
• Model: PRS-505/LC
• Dimensions: 6.90" h x 4.80" w x .30" l, .56 pounds
• Memory: 0MB SDRAM
• Native resolution: 6"
• Display size: 6

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

Customer Reviews

Great at What it Does
A few months back I started reading up on electronic ink devices, and since we funnel most of our weekly purchases (groceries, gas, etc.) through a Borders credit card before paying it off each month, I started saving up the reward points to get this device.

Having saved up enough cred, I bought the unit in late May (2 months before writing this review). I've absolutely loved it. I haven't purchased any books through the Sony store, but I have downloaded more than three hundred public domain books through feedbooks, manybooks, munseys, and mobileread. Since any book older than 100 years (in America) or 50 years past the author's death (in England) is free for reproduction, the selection of books on those sites is a liberal arts education ready to be plucked. For someone like me, who likes old books more than new, the greatest thing about this unit is being able to carry around Saint Thomas's entire Summa Theologica, Augustine's City of God, Spenser's Faerie Queene, all of Shakespeare's plays, the histories of Livy, the essays of Montaigne, the Federalist papers, the novels of Mark Twain, and all the dialogues of Plato in a unit that weighs less than one volume of any of those great works.

The display really is like reading from paper, and an automatic viewing history function makes the bookmark feature helpful but not necessary; if I get tired of reading Cicero, I can simply return to the main menu, read some Nietzsche, come back to Cicero, and pick up where I left off. I have not tried Calibre yet, but the Sony e-library program, while inelegant, does fine for organizing the titles into whatever categories suit me. (Right now I've got them sorted by historical and geographic categories--Greeks, Romans, medievals, Renaissance, Enlightenment, etc.)

I've recommended this unit to a number of friends, and I've taken it with me on the road, to doctors' offices, and just about anywhere I go. Great purchase.

Sony EBook reader
I currently own several (3) of the PRS-505 Ebooks by Sony, and am generally very pleased. I have purchased many ebooks in the last few months (love to read, any chance I get), and love to brag to others about my ebooks. The book is lightweight, about the same size as a regular (printed) book, and easy to transport in a pocket or backpack. The selection of book on the Sony ebook site is generally OK, with a few authors that are cutting edge, and many that were completely unknown to me before I took a chance on their books. The "Free" 100 classic ebooks is not very valuable, as all of these books are available for free on many internet sites, however you do save a small amount of money and help the environment by buying ebooks verses printed books.
I would love it if SONY had installed a backlight, but they didn't. I have had some issues with the Sony Ebook though. One of my books had a screen failure, so have had the unpleasant experience of dealing with their customer service department in Larado, Texas. They neither care to hear from you, want to talk with you, or care what your issue is. I sent the broken book to them June 8th ($29.00 + shipping), recieved a recycled ebook from them 2 weeks later that did not work (error 3-013), and sent it back for repair again. As of today, July 13th, the ebook replacement is still not back yet.
In summary, I love my Sony Ebooks, can't wait for the PRS-510 if it ever comes out (backlight, better book selection, improved customer interface), and personally believe their customer service department is poorly managed and run.

Sony Reader
I really like this gadget. I can have hundereds of books at my fingertips without any cluttered shelves. It is very portable, light weight, and best of all...it reads just like a paper page. If you like to read, this may be just the ticket for you. After using this electronic reader for a couple of months now I can honestly say prefer it to a traditional book; so light and easy to handle, and very easy to carry around.

The Sony ebook store has a very large and good selection of books to choose from. The pricing seems reasonable to me.

The sony reader is not a PDA. It does one thing. It allows you to read elctronic books and does it well. the e-ink is just like reading a paper book. I highly recomend it.