02-23-2009, 07:37 AM | #1 |
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Sony 505 - New Owner, First Thoughts
Hi all,
I've been a lurker here for awhile. I have to admit I've used a lot of the info across these boards to help me make the decision on the reader I wanted. I started out wanting a Kindle, hating the Kindle 2, taking a good look at all readers before I bought a K2, and realize the one I wanted was really a Sony 505. I pulled the trigger yesterday afternoon. I picked up a Blue Sony 505 from Borders, took it home, ripped open the packaging and spent the rest of the day getting it up and going. The software: Meh. It reminds me a lot like iTunes, which was a good thing at first. Then it started having problems and freezing up. I realized it wasn't really freezing on me, but just became ultra busy loading, process, etc. Still kind of a pain. I tried calibre, it worked better but had it's fair share of issues. I have a feeling most of these 'issues' will go away once I get used to using the software, and since I can just load books onto a SD card directly from my laptop, I probably will end up not using the software that much at all. The sony store was useable, but not that fantastic of an experience. I used it mainly for the 100 free ebooks, and it wasn't a pleasant experience. I couldn't imagine actually spending a lot of money there. On the other hand, I bought 4 magazines I'd wanted from Fictionwise, and it couldn't have been easier or quicker. Highly reccomend it to people. Overall, I think most of my frustrations with the software came from loading and converting dozens of books I'd already had. I used to read tons of books on my PDA, and have accumulated quite the library to convert. Once that's all done, and I'm just using the software to add or conver the odd book, I'll probably not mind it or notice it so much. The reader: Fantastic. Once it got charged and I got some books on it, I played around with it. Pretty cool. Easy to use after just playing with it a few minutes and exploring the functions. It feels good in the hand and is easy to hold. One thing I'm putting before the crowd to see what's going on: I've read here, in the wiki, and other places, that the 505 can have a 2gb SD card and an 8gb memory stick duo. Everything says it only error checks up to those amounts. I was reading my manual, and it actually says a 16gb SD card and a 16gb memory stick duo, and that it only error checks up to 16gb. Is this an improvement other people haven't caught up with, and is anyone out there running memory cards up to 16gb that are working okay? Great forum! |
02-23-2009, 09:40 AM | #2 | |
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Quote:
While you can have many more than that using cards, the Reader's UI isn't really that useable when you get that many books to deal with, so it's probably better to either just use a PC & Calibre, or if you really need them on cards, stick to 1MB ones & have different cards for a first-level of categorization. |
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02-23-2009, 09:52 AM | #3 | |
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Quote:
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02-23-2009, 09:56 AM | #4 |
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Welcome Renaldo. I concur with the other posts. It's better to not keep a very large number of books on a card in the reader. It becomes awkward and slow very quickly. I actually have a 512 MB memory stick (that was what I had) and have over 100 books on it in my PRS-500.
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02-23-2009, 07:46 PM | #5 |
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Good to know, I hadn't thought about the slow down. I'm running a 2gb SD card and I don't get any lag that I notice without it, so I'll probably just keep it.
I've got calibre, what are the other 'must have' programs, converters, accessories for this device? |
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02-24-2009, 09:11 AM | #6 |
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If you only use the PRS-505 for reading properly formatted Ebooks (ie not huge pdf files), then I really don't see any use for any kind of memory card over the included 500 megs.
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02-24-2009, 09:52 AM | #7 |
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Congrats on the new Reader! I used to use a 2GB card in my old Reader, which I left on a plane, or may have been stolen from work. Since getting my new Reader, I'm not planning on getting another memory card since I find it so easy to manage the device from calibre.
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02-24-2009, 12:40 PM | #8 |
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Also, the battery seems to discharge faster when you have an SD card plugged in.
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02-25-2009, 03:31 AM | #9 | |
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I've been reading etexts in various forms for about 10 years, and I've got around 2000+ I'll be putting on the 505. So, additional memory is a must. |
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02-25-2009, 03:35 AM | #10 |
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I've heard conflicting statements from users on this, so I'm remaining open to see what my experience is with it. If it turns out to drain faster, that won't bother me so much, I don't see a situation where I won't be able to recharge it when I need to.
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02-25-2009, 09:41 PM | #11 |
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Congratulations, Renaldo! Now you need to update your profile - you're not a "none yet" owner anymore.
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02-26-2009, 01:29 AM | #12 |
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Regarding SD cards and draining batteries--I think that the type of SD card may make a difference. When I put a micro SD card in my cell phone, the battery drained noticeably faster. I swapped out SD cards with another brand and haven't had a problem since.
I've not experimented with my Reader. I've had a 2gb Kingston card in there, with only a few things on it and don't notice much of a difference in battery life. dordale |
02-26-2009, 06:11 AM | #13 |
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Even if you can put 2000 books into you reader, I doubt you'll be able to find anything you want. The navigation is neither particular clever nor particularly swift. It's just more hassle than it's worth. Unfortunately.
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02-27-2009, 12:16 AM | #14 |
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I'm also a new owner of the 505, and am curious about this issue too. Couldn't you set up collections? From what I understand, you need to use Sony's software to do that (shame), but wouldn't that simplify organization? Can there be nested collections?
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02-27-2009, 02:57 AM | #15 | |
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Quote:
Collections only provide one axis of organization, and they can't (so far as I know) be nested. So if you've got more than a hundred or so collections, you have a large flat list to search through, like the large flat list of authors and titles, and that takes a while. And if you have a smaller number of collections, then each collection has necessarily a larger number of books, so you still have all the searching, but a couple of button-presses later. On my computer, I organize books into a hierarchy of folders: fiction/nonfiction -- genre -- author. For me, it would be great to be able to do something similar on the PRS but, so far as I know, there is no way. I don't find it particularly burdensome to be limited to a hundred or so books on the PRS. I am a programmer and I sit in front of a computer a large part of the day, so it's not a big deal for me to feed the PRS occasionally. But given that memory is cheap and ebooks are small, it is sad that support for large collections hasn't been properly thought through. Apple iPods have the same problem with MP3 files. I once discussed this with somebody who worked for Apple -- how you can have an MP3 player that will store 50,000 MP3 tracks, and no way to organize them except into flat lists. And his response was : we intend the large capacity for video; in practice nobody can afford to buy more than a thousand or so MP3 tracks lawfully. Which I thought was a pretty brain-dead response. Sony could argue the same way -- that the PRS supports memory addons so you can use it as an MP3 player, not to store large numbers of books. But, whatever, it's pretty slack in my view. The lack of organization/navigation facilities is the only thing, in my view, that lets down an otherwise excellent device. |
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