After adding some of my ebook to the reader (most of them in lrf format), and disconneting the unit, it needed 30 minutes to digest the library.
And now going to the menu from a book, adding a bookmark or opening a new book take a minimum of one minute.
Everytime I charge the unit with usb it need another 30 minutes to start working.
And I added only 1989 books, just a small fraction of my library, I hoped to be able to use a memory stick 8g and an sd 2g and filling it all, but I'm worried of the slugginess it will add.

But I have to say, its still better then the PRS-500, it was slower with only 400 or so books.

Suicide does seem a rather drastic option.

Why not experiment with a soft or hard reset or even removing some books? I store most of mine on the computer and just keep about 30 current favourites on the Reader. And I still have the will to live.

And I added only 1989 books, just a small fraction of my library...
:rofl:

Did you add them using Sony's software, or just toss them on to the USB card?

Suicide does seem a rather drastic option.

Why not experiment with a soft or hard reset or even removing some books? I store most of mine on the computer and just keep about 30 current favourites on the Reader. And I still have the will to live.


It's just that I wanted to bring my entire library in my pocket, I will soon depart for a year long photograpic job, deep in the jungle nearly without human contact for the whole time, I need my books to be able to remain sane :)
The reset don't work, it's just that the library database is more than 40mb and the prs-505 can't cope with it

:rofl:

Did you add them using Sony's software, or just toss them on to the USB card?

With the sony software, I don't want to thing how much worse it will be in the other way...

The reset don't work, it's just that the library database is more than 40mb and the prs-505 can't cope with it

I think that you've correctly diagnosed the problem.

The solution is to chose favourites up to 40mb, or to learn extreme patience.

Honestly, how many books are you likely to read per year? (- particularly in adverse conditions when you will have a lot of other things to do.)

Could you include some books worth re-rreading?

It's just that I wanted to bring my entire library in my pocket, I will soon depart for a year long photograpic job, deep in the jungle nearly without human contact for the whole time, I need my books to be able to remain sane :)


Even if you could read a book a day, you'd only need 365 books for a year. Couldn't you be a little more "selective" in your choice of books?

Since you're going on a photographic trip, won't you have a laptop with you to view and process your pictures? Why not keep the books on that, and just put what you're reading on the Reader?

I have to agree with Patricia, though, that suicide is a slight overreaction. Probably better to reduce the number of books on your Reader.

Thank you for this information. I think you have very effectively warned me away from putting more than a couple hundred books on a Reader. I have nearly 300 on mine now and though it feels good knowing I have them with me all the time, it really is pointless to do so even though I refer to several of them often. Carrying an entire library on one is just not what it was designed for.

The reset don't work, it's just that the library database is more than 40mb and the prs-505 can't cope with it

What is slow... the menu of books? Or, actually reading a single book?

I wonder if you make a bunch of collections it might work a bit better. This way, the reader only needs to load a list of collections rather than a list of thousands of books.

Did you call Sony about this? Seems like a bug to me... they should be doing some type of paged access rather than reading the whole list every time.

BOb

One other thought--Get a few small, very cheap SD cards and put a portion of your collection on each, perhaps in categories. You can probably get 256 or 512 MB cards practically free (or literally, if you know people who've upgraded to larger cards). That can speed things up, perhaps.

One other thought--Get a few small, very cheap SD cards and put a portion of your collection on each, perhaps in categories. You can probably get 256 or 512 MB cards practically free (or literally, if you know people who've upgraded to larger cards). That can speed things up, perhaps.I'd suggest that too. You can still find 64MB cards on the internet for less than two bucks each and there are slide organizers that you can store SDs in. With about 20 cards you can have a pretty hefty library.

I'd suggest that too. You can still find 64MB cards on the internet for less than two bucks each and there are slide organizers that you can store SDs in. With about 20 cards you can have a pretty hefty library.

Yep....cheap cards out there now.....I just picked up two 2GB SD cards for $10....TOTAL at ecost.

Thank you for this information. I think you have very effectively warned me away from putting more than a couple hundred books on a Reader. I have nearly 300 on mine now and though it feels good knowing I have them with me all the time, it really is pointless to do so even though I refer to several of them often. Carrying an entire library on one is just not what it was designed for.

I have about 800 books on my reader and so far it loads just fine. Don't get me wrong it took awhile for it to process my library on my SD card but once it got going it works fine now.

Well, that could be it: do you have the books on the reader or on a card? 800 books on a card seems to work fine for Amothea, maybe it's just an issue with loading a large number of books into internal memory?

Well, that could be it: do you have the books on the reader or on a card? 800 books on a card seems to work fine for Amothea, maybe it's just an issue with loading a large number of books into internal memory?

They are on the card, and I also got a fast one toob
Maybe I will have to get a bunch of 512mb cards and split up my library.
But surely its a disappoint, I was looking for 10gb of books all online in my pocket, I'm too compulsive to choose in advance what I want to read :D

But what I found out looking in the card itself is this:
The reader ditched the library created by the connect reader, the 42mb one, and created another one of only 7mb (after resetting itself 3 or 4 times).
This happened also on my brother's reader.
Really strange.

I can sympathize with Azhad -- I, too, wanted to carry my entire library with me because I can never know what I want to read next. But I was able to compromise, keeping some permanent authors such as Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and a few others on the internal memory of my 500 and I have placed some larger book files (mostly music books either converted entirely from PDFs at GoogleBooks or from html files at PG) on my memory stick.

I think the idea of the collection of smaller cards is a wonderful way to have the entire library available more easily.

Perhaps when Sony releases the 510 (don't jump on this suggestion and start looking on-line for it, it's just my guess about what the next model number will be) they will build a bigger memory cache into the thing with a permanent and large spot in non-volatile memory in which to store the library file listing all the books and collections, to speed up the processing of larger collections.

It seems silly to me to increase the potential add-on memory capacity to a total of 10GB and not to increase the ability to quickly and easily process the sorts of libraries which can be stored on such memory capacity.

I look forward to the day when I can carry the equivalent of the entire PG libary with me without a tag-along case of memory cards and be able easily to select the next book to read on the spur of the moment without having to plan in January what I'll want to be reading in December.

The real problem is that the reader use a single database for the book titles, authors, formatting and bookmarks, this is madness.
MADNESS?
NO, THIS IS SONYYYYYY!!!

Never seen a clever software solution from sony, I think all their programmers are old cobol ones that switched language but not workflow :D

Using separate databases will simply solve this problem

Hi, first post. I just ordered the 505 and don't even have it yet but this thread is a little distressing. These things (ebooks in general, not just Sony's) are advertised as carrying your entire library in your hand yet if you add more than a few hundred books your device doesn't work? Any way, as a somewhat techie, I'd say the good news is that since these readers are Linux based, there could be a lot of flexibility in firmware updates. Perhaps they will resolve the database issues.

Hi, first post. I just ordered the 505 and don't even have it yet but this thread is a little distressing. These things (ebooks in general, not just Sony's) are advertised as carrying your entire library in your hand yet if you add more than a few hundred books your device doesn't work? Any way, as a somewhat techie, I'd say the good news is that since these readers are Linux based, there could be a lot of flexibility in firmware updates. Perhaps they will resolve the database issues.

Well, they didn't resolve it from the prs-500 to the prs-505. The fact that the prs-505 is faster is only based on the fact that the new one got more ram, and maybe a faster processor.
The device isn't inusable, when you manage to open a book it work flawlessy (if you don't want to put a bookmark, that will cost you a minute o two waiting on a locked screen)
The only waits you get is on opening or closing a book, and putting or deleting bookmarks (one or two minutes for all of them); and the excruciating wait (30 minutes) when you toggle the memorycard or when you use an usb based recharge method.
You can live with it, but is surely a pain.
I will surely love to ditch the current firmware and using something like the ubook reader (the best ebook reader I've ever used, for pc or windows mobile devices), but alas, whe have to cope with sony corporation, wich is famous about total uncaring to his customers.

These things (ebooks in general, not just Sony's) are advertised as carrying your entire library in your hand yet if you add more than a few hundred books your device doesn't work?Well, you always have to take what the marketing types say with a grain of salt. :wink:

Still, 100 books is a fair sized set of books, most of us have found that once we have the thing in hand, putting more than a few books on it is more than we need.

Of course ... most of us also don't have the extra need imposed by extended travel away from our technological crutches. That does tend to affect how important such details are to a person. :nice:

Ahzad, from what you're describing, I really do think there might be something funky going on with your unit. :chinscratch:

Azhad, from what you're describing, I really do think there might be something funky going on with your unit. :chinscratch:

With two different units?
And anyway, I had the same problem with the prs-500 only much worse :)
Mine was just a rant, and a warning to new purchasers

With two different units?Ah, yes, missed that detail -- that would tend to suggest that it's not a defect. :rolleyes:

Yeah smaller cards might be the better way to go. But on the up-side, that might help with organizing your collection more accessibly, and SDs aren't very big, they'll still fit in your pocket. :nice:

Hi, first post. I just ordered the 505 and don't even have it yet but this thread is a little distressing. These things (ebooks in general, not just Sony's) are advertised as carrying your entire library in your hand yet if you add more than a few hundred books your device doesn't work? Any way, as a somewhat techie, I'd say the good news is that since these readers are Linux based, there could be a lot of flexibility in firmware updates. Perhaps they will resolve the database issues.

People exadurate everything.

"OH JESUS IT TAKES SOOOOOOO LONG TO TURN PAGES!!" - takes less time than turning a page in a real book

"ITS GOT SUCH SMALL MEMEORY!! I WANT TO KEEP 800 TRILLION COPIES OF WAR AND PEACE ON MY READER!!" - You dont.


I have around 50 books on my reader. I take off ones ive read. It works wonderfully. Be abit patient.

I say find the sweet spot, the number of books you can keep on a memory card and have your reader operate well. Then buy several cards and organize them with your books. You can carry all the memory cards in a case and pop them in and out as needed. Good not to keep them all on one card anyway in case it gets corrupted.

There is one software fix that Sony could implement to fix this:

Change from title / author / data indexing to allow us to browse through directories manually.

While they are at it, they could let us manually select what type of file to open something as (e.g., open a .csv file as a text file, which the 505 can read, so I can tell a student her grade.)

Between this and the battery life, I think it's time for a recall by Sony.

Andy

People exadurate everything.I'm assuming you mean "exaggerate" :wink2:

... exadurate ...


Dude! I thought I was going to learn a new word today. Alas, it is not in the dictionary.

BOb

It's in the Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=exadurate). :wink:

It's in the Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=exadurate). :wink:

Well, at least they got the definition right! ;)

Well, they didn't resolve it from the prs-500 to the prs-505. The fact that the prs-505 is faster is only based on the fact that the new one got more ram, and maybe a faster processor.
The device isn't unusable, when you manage to open a book it work flawlessly (if you don't want to put a bookmark, that will cost you a minute o two waiting on a locked screen)
The only waits you get is on opening or closing a book, and putting or deleting bookmarks (one or two minutes for all of them); and the excruciating wait (30 minutes) when you toggle the memory card or when you use an usb based recharge method.
You can live with it, but is surely a pain.
I will surely love to ditch the current firmware and using something like the ubook reader (the best ebook reader I've ever used, for pc or windows mobile devices), but alas, we have to cope with Sony corporation, which is famous about total uncaring to his customers.
I have to disagree with you BIG TIME! I have a 505 and it takes almost no time to bookmark a page. It in no way takes a minute or two to bookmark a page. Even removing a bookmark does not take long at all.

If you have used Ebook Library to populate the memory card, the only wait is when you insert the memory card as the reader has to scan for all the content. If you have not used Ebook Library to populate the SD card, you eill have to wait for the reader to handle some of the ebook formatting that your computer and Ebook Library would have done.

Page turning is faster with the 505 then the 500 due to the Vizplex screen being faster. I don't find the 505 to be excruciatingly slow at all. Granted if I was to load content onto it as though it was a mass storage device, I would have to wait for formatting. But once that was done, I would not have to wait again for that book.

When you plug the 505 into the USB port and then unplug it, you do have to wait maybe a minute for the 505 to be ready to go. That's not a big deal. in NO WAY is it 30 minutes or even close.

I'm sorry there is so much misinformation being spread here.

I have to disagree with you BIG TIME! I have a 505 and it takes almost no time to bookmark a page. It in no way takes a minute or two to bookmark a page. Even removing a bookmark does not take long at all.

Try putting nearly 2000 books in the reader like I did, and you will have it

If you have used Ebook Library to populate the memory card, the only wait is when you insert the memory card as the reader has to scan for all the content.

I used the Ebook library to populate the reader.


When you plug the 505 into the USB port and then unplug it, you do have to wait maybe a minute for the 505 to be ready to go. That's not a big deal. in NO WAY is it 30 minutes or even close.

I'm sorry there is so much misinformation being spread here.

Next time read the whole thread before making assumption, I'm talking about excruciating wait when you put too many book in the reader, maybe 1000+, or as Sony stated "All your library"

I've noticed that the larger the file, the longer it takes to come up but once up it moves fairly well. If you've loaded your Sony to the max you're going to have problems if you're not using the ac adapter and charging it, instead, off your computer. The device thinks you've loaded new material and does a re-boot. The more stuff you have on the device the longer it takes. Once done, however, the time it takes to open a book is strictly dependent on the size. Page turning isn't affected. My average size e-book for my 505 is around 1 MB and I don't keep more than 15 e-books on it at any one time. More than that is clutter. If you've loaded your device to the max because you're going away for some time (like more than a year) then I have to assume you don't have your laptop available which means you have an ac adapter.

Personally, I have no problems with my device. The books that are on it are the ones I'm reading. My library is on my desktop. There are no boot problems, page turn problems or charging problems. No, I don't own the ac adapter.

Azhad,
If I have the time to read 2 books per week (400 or so pages each) I can then assume I'll read 100 per year (that's a lot for me). 2000 e-books on the device would be 20 years of reading for me. I don't think Sony ever envisioned anyone doing that and didn't allow for it. The extra space is likely for MP3's and picture files. Not sure this helps.

I see a library as your collection of books and not the books you are planning to read all of. I think Sony then used the wrong term if they meant all the books you were going to read.

Call me crazy, but I consider my library the books on my computer and the reader as an instrument to read such books. I consider the library as storage and the reader as a loaded device with enough material to last me until such time to re-load from the storage. I really don't have a desire to carry every book I've read and will read in the coming years on the reader. Now that being said, I am simple minded and I usually read one book at a time so maybe that is why I can't grasp the reason to carry so many books on the reader.:smack:

Try putting nearly 2000 books in the reader like I did, and you will have it



I used the Ebook library to populate the reader.



Next time read the whole thread before making assumption, I'm talking about excruciating wait when you put too many book in the reader, maybe 1000+, or as Sony stated "All your library"

Fair enough. If you still have 1900 or so ebooks on your device, would you be willing to time the operations and post them to the thread? If you post times as 29 minutes 52 seconds then people (including any Sony techs lurking about) are a lot more likely to take you seriously than if you type 30 minutes.

I'd be very curious what your times are for post-addition processing, post charging processing, page turn and bookmarking.

Azhad,
If I have the time to read 2 books per week (400 or so pages each) I can then assume I'll read 100 per year (that's a lot for me). 2000 e-books on the device would be 20 years of reading for me.

That assumes that one is only reading linear books (books meant to be read from start to finish) and also assumes that one reads the same book through from start to finish. Not everybody wants to use the Sony Reader for for just fiction, and not everybody reads the same book straight through until they finish it.

For instance, the Reader could be an ideal tool for a lawyer, who would be jumping from reference work to reference work constantly, checking citations and precedents as well as reading weekly newsletters, etc.

Similarly, doctors/nurses could use the Reader for things like the PDR and other reference works.

I can see lots of potential for holding a library of 2000 or even 10,000 books for reference, not for straight-through reading. And it is Sony's lack of ability to envision this sort of usage which will forever keep this sort of device in the hands of hobbyists and geekfreak types who love electronic gadgets (like me!) and will keep it on the fringe.

With a bit more insight, a more useful interface for actively navigating through works in a non-linear fashion, useful links in book indices to allow easy, quick jumping around, this device could become something EVERY professional in EVERY field could make wonderful use of -- smaller than a notebook, easy to keep with you wherever you are, having complete libraries of reference works in a single lightweight device.

What Sony should have called it is the "Sony Linear-Book Reader for those who don't jump around within books or between books very often" and then they would have no problem with the truth in labelling commission.:)

There's more than one type of book, more than one type of personal reading style, and any device which a company wants to leap off the shelves into everybody's hand should take that into account.

For instance, the Reader could be an ideal tool for a lawyer, who would be jumping from reference work to reference work constantly, checking citations and precedents as well as reading weekly newsletters, etc.

Similarly, doctors/nurses could use the Reader for things like the PDR and other reference works.


This reader is ONLY good for reading a book page to page. It does turn pages fast enough. However, for Bible Study where one must jump to specific bible chapters and passages, it is way to SLOW. I tried and in the Psalms it just couldn't keep up due to 150 chapters in that Book. A rapid search function would have to be added in the firmware to be able to really excel at this function.

In the NIV Bible jumping to footnotes causes a re-format of the internal disk and requires a re-load of one's books. That may be a bug in the NIV Bible, itself, or the firmware.

Even for reading a 24" LCD HD Monitor is far better. I read my books on my PC using eBook Library and MS Reader. I only use the Sony 505 for occasional reading waiting in offices or other away from home uses. I then sync my reader with my PC for the correct pages on both (one must have the font size equal to do this).

One should only store on the Reader what one is currently reading. Space appears to be required for temporary files to prevent even slower processing.

How strange. I have no trouble going to footnotes and back again.

How strange. I have no trouble going to footnotes and back again.

Patricia,

Was that the New International Version published by Zondervan? Using eBook Library letter footnotes are shown and seem to connect to a DIFFERENT BOOK. On the Sony 505 Reader letter footnotes are shown and connect to nothing. Clicking on them just re-formats the disk.

You may have a different Bible loaded. I am convinced this is a bug in the eBook, itself, AND the firmware reacting to it. There are NO footnotes loaded - only the letters connecting to them on the Reader.

For example, in Matthew 1:11 there is a footnote "a" after the word Jeconiah. Using the Large Font in both the eBook Library and the Sony 505 Reader it is on page 7408 of 9581. In eBook Library it connects to a footnote on page 2597 of 3380 - an apparent DIFFERENT book. That different footnote book apparently exists invisible on eBook Library but is not transferred to or not accessible from the Sony 505 Reader when synchronizing.

That NIV Footnote Book has one footnote on each page and is NOT connected to the NIV Bible, itself. Also, it is not shown as a separate book on my directory. Evidently, the Sony 505 Reader cannot access it at least on my Reader.

Run the same test if you have the same eBook.