Well, I can honestly say that I am a computer geek/nerd/what-have-you.  And this affliction spreads throughout my purchasing habits, calling me to buy gadgets that are shiny and serve some vague function around my life.

In the case of the Sony PRS-505, it was the love of the book.  I am an avid reader and I travel quite extensively.  The unfortunate part of traveling is that you can bring at best one or two books with you before they become unweildy.  The added weight alone tends to keep me from bringing any more than that.

Some else is that I read about two pages a minute.  This means that on long flights I chew through books at an astounding rate that a book or two simply doesn’t satify.  I hunger to read on these trips, and was looking for something with a good battery life and would allow me to read the books that I liked.

Now, these are all well and good but I’m not a huge fan of repurchasing books to throw onto a digital gadget that is going to cost me ~$300.  Now, over the years, I have acquired many, many books in digital form so this device would have to accept these digital books with a smile and not too much work.

From Sony

“The Reader Digital Book provides a new way to experience reading. It boasts an impressive 6-inch display utilizing breakthrough e-Ink® technology that’s almost paper-like, making it easy to read even in bright sunshine. In addition, the screen allows for high contrast and high resolution, with a near 180° viewing angle. The text can also be changed between three different font sizes.”

“A perfect travel companion, the Reader Digital Book offers a unique, on-the-go reading experience. With a compact and lightweight design, you can take it almost anywhere and read whenever you want. More compact than many paperbacks, it weighs just nine ounces (without cover), is only half an inch thin and holds up to 160 eBooks. You can easily hold it in one hand, and with its rechargeable battery you can turn up to 7,500 continuous pages on a single charge.”

All of this is interesting and is accurate: the damned thing is actual good at what it does: reading books.  I’m not a huge Sony fan, but it does what it claims (not quite sure about the 7,500 page turns, but it does last for a long while).

The Device

Some basic stats on the PRS-505.

It also runs Montevista Linux which makes me happy, but also means that it can be hacked (maybe).  Also, you really don’t have to worry about running out of space.  12GB of books is substantial.

What Does It Do?

It is an electronic book reader.  It reads .LRF and .LRX files (these are Sony’s proprietary BBeB format, the first being unprotected and the second protected), rich text files (.RTF), Acrobat files (.PDF), text files (.TXT), Microsoft Word Documents (.DOC), JPG files, GIF files, MP3 music files, and AAC files (low-complexity).  It displays books, pictures, and plays music.

I don’t let the PRS-505 convert (or Sony’s software for that matter) any of my documents, relying upon libprs500 from Kovid Goyal to put it in the PRS-505′s native BBeB format.  Also, PDF reading on the device is poor due to the fact that it is not close to an 8.5″ by 11″ piece of paper – everything seems a touch too small and is hard on the eyes.
The Book Part

The reading part is good.  The display is like reading off a newspaper with slightly better contrast.  There is no backlight to this device.  Just like real books, it relies on ambient light to illuminate your text.  This is a drawback in the sense that you either have to read with light already available in a room or purchase a book light.

This is outweighed greatly by the fact that it is ink on paper.  This technology vastly reduces eye-strain compared to reading off of active matrix screens and LCD panels.  If you have ever read an entire novel from a Palm, you know that your eyes are a touch tired after the journey.

The Music Part

Now for the music and pictures.  If you have an iPod, don’t sell it quite yet.  The music player does work, but it seems almost like an add-on.  I really didn’t use it due to the fact that there are already superior devices out there that “do music.”  I recommend sticking with it due to the fact that playing music and reading books suck the the life out of the battery much faster than reading alone.

The Picture Part

It’s a black and white screen.  It’s convenient, but it wasn’t designed to do photos.  If you want to show some quick snaps of your family, I’d suggest sticking with that iPod you hopefully haven’t thrown away yet.

Getting Books - The Sony eReader Store

Well, the good news is that when I bought it, I received 100 free classics.

However, after a bit of reading, I came to realize that I was craving something a bit more, well, recent.  Now, before you throwing stones, the eReader store where you purchase books through is only accessible through the eReader software that comes with the PRS-505.  The program only runs in Windows.  For you Mac people out there, no soup for you (kind of).

Prices are a touch steep, but I own a lot of books and I hate having to spend $5 – $15 to get a digital copy of these to put on my reader.  However, this is the average cost of new material at the store.  Your credit card is going to hate you for it.

Getting Books – Via the USB Connection

To get any books on the reader (other than using the eReader software via USB), you can place them directly on the PRS-505 by either hooking it up to your computer, or loading it onto a MS/SD card.  If you have Word Documents, or text files, etc., the PRS-505 will convert them when you try to access them on the flash card.

Getting Books – Converting from Other Formats

Honestly, this section is the one I dread typing.  Not because the process is not interesting or the software really that hard to use.  It’s because someone else had to write it.  I have many, many books that vary in formats long passed and I would love to import them to my PRS-505 and I have one man to thank for it: Kovid Goyal.

Kovid Goyal has put together the swiss-army tool for the PRS-500/505 eBook readers called libprs500.  This allows you to import websites to your PRS-505, convert PDF’s to something that actually reads well on the device, retrieve book information for books, add metadata to books not purchased through the eReader store, along with about twenty or thirty more things.  It also runs on Linux, MacOS X, and Windows XP/Vista.  If it could purchase books from the eReader store at Sony, I would actually buy books again from the eReader store.

Overall

I have 1,000+ digital books.  The reader is immensely useful for me because it allows me to take books that I already own and carry them with me in a very easy to use eBook reader.  The battery life is good, and it does what it was designed to do well: read electronic books.

The selection at Sony.com for books is mediocre at best though with some competition from Amazon.com’s Kindle things should get a touch better.  I found many of the books I enjoy reading, but so many that I wanted to read simply were not there.  I would look closely at the store and its prices to determine whether Sony has the books you are looking for.

It’s unfortunate that the device is so good and the book selection is so poor.  With a better selection of books and better prices I would recommend this eBook reader without hesitation.  However, this is not the case.  If you already have a medium/large library, I would recommend buying one.  If not, I would wait until the Kindle becomes available again and give it a glance.