Sony PRS 505 Hints

[sirmaru]

I just received my Sony PRS 505 and learned a few tricks by experimentation.

1. If one buys the NIV Bible, do NOT try to click on the footnotes. If you do, it will format the internal disk and a new sync from the PC to the Reader will then be required. When formatting that way, it takes a Reset to stop the process. This is a firmware bug and, hopefully, it will be fixed on the next firmware upgrade.

2. Sound is only available using the headphone jack on the bottom. There is no speaker inside the unit.

3. If reading a PDF file using eBook Library, one gets a better view using the External Viewer icon on the bottom which activates Adobe Reader.

4. When one is done using the Reader connected to eBook Library, click the icon next to the reader before disconnecting the USB cable and it will close the hardware to prevent damage to the files on the Reader Internal Memory. Thus, using the Safe Remove Hardware icon on the Taskbar is unnecessary.

5. The books are contained in \My Documents\My Books\eBook Library.

6. The indices are contained in \Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Sony Corporation\eBook Library\Database

7. Page locations can by synchronized by having the font size the same for the Reader and eBook Library. Then one can use the slider on the right of the eBook Library screen to jump to a specific page and type in the page number on the Reader screen and then <Enter>.

8. If one is going to purchase a new Reader or PC, one should first unregister the units at the Connect Sony eBook Store.

9. There is 203 Mb free for data on the Reader Internal Memory if all books, pictures and music are deleted. Each purchased book appears to take up about 5 to 10 Mb. Thus, without any memory cards added there is room for about 25 books. The disk size is actually 210 Mb with about 7 Mb being used for housekeeping files. However, one should not add more than about 15 books since some of the disk must be reserved for temporary files which are built in the \Cache directory there. Otherwise page turning and other tasks could be slowed down.

10. Large fonts on the Reader in Portrait Mode is the same size as Small fonts on the eBook Library screen using a 24" HD LCD Monitor set at 1024 x 768 pixel resolution.

[kezza]

What books are you buying that are 5-10 mb? All my Connect bools are 500kb-3mb, my RTFs are about 1-5mb. I have 94 books on internal memory, and about 90 mb free.

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by kezza

What books are you buying that are 5-10 mb? All my Connect bools are 500kb-3mb, my RTFs are about 1-5mb. I have 94 books on internal memory, and about 90 mb free.

I purchased the NIV Bible which is 9.631 Mb and Pearl Harbor which is 4.745 Mb. I saved Wuthering Heights from the Reader which is 1 Mb. I also have the User's Guide on my Reader which is 4.9 Mb.

[gwynevans]

The latter's a PDF with quite a lot of images, which will bulk it out a fair bit (http://www.docs.sony.com/release/PRS505.pdf), while an SF novel downloaded from Baen, for instance, seems to typically be ~0.5 to 0.8Mb in .lrf format (less, if you strip out the cover image), just to provide some notes from the 'other end' of the range!

[DrMoze]

I also agree that most books (like regular novels) are well under 5 MB! Even longer novels I've purchased or dl'd from various sources are generally under 1MB. A quick check of the lengthy Sony upload subforum here would verify that.

Also,what do you mean by #8??

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

I also agree that most books (like regular novels) are well under 5 MB! Even longer novels I've purchased or dl'd from various sources are generally under 1MB. A quick check of the lengthy Sony upload subforum here would verify that.

Also,what do you mean by #8??

If you fail to unregister your unit, you will only be able to read your books on up to six units. Thus, if you are discarding or giving away your Reader and/or PC, it pays to unregister them first from the Sony eBook Store (Connect).

[DrMoze]

Originally Posted by sirmaru

If you fail to unregister your unit, you will only be able to read your books on up to six units. Thus, if you are discarding or giving away your Reader and/or PC, it pays to unregister them first from the Sony eBook Store (Connect).

Ah, got it. Unregister the OLD unit if you buy a new one. Unless you're keeping both, like me. (One is for the gf, but both link up thru my pc.)

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

Ah, got it. Unregister the OLD unit if you buy a new one. Unless you're keeping both, like me. (One is for the gf, but both link up thru my pc.)

One of my biggest gripe with the connect store is that you can only unregister a PC from that PC, a major issue if you have to reinstall Windows. It's not really an issue for most people, I suppose, but it is a problem for me given that I've had to call twice to get them to unregister a pc that had windows reinstalled. Quite frankly, I can't see the rational for this requirement.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

I also agree that most books (like regular novels) are well under 5 MB! Even longer novels I've purchased or dl'd from various sources are generally under 1MB. A quick check of the lengthy Sony upload subforum here would verify that.

It's illustrations that make books large. My biggest book so far is the fully illustrated version of Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop" that I recently uploaded here. It has 72 illustrations in it and the file is a shade under 10MB. For comparison, the same book file without the illustrations was about 800kb.