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I just got my PRS-505 over the weekend. While I am finding it very nice, I have been unhappy with 2 items. The first is the viewing of PDF files is pretty slow and I have not managed to get them to view in anything but medium zoom.
The second, is not having a back-lit display for reading with low or no lighting is a very bad design choice on the part of Sony. This really should have been a feature of the new device, even if it had to been optionally invoked for when lightening was low or none.
Somethings that would have been nice, would include the ability to highlight and tag sections of a book. The bookmark is fine, but with technical books, it would be nice to allow one to highlight specific areas and then put tags. That of course would me the reader would need to implement a touch screen with a virtual keyboard.
If they could implement a few of the above features, I think they could make a pitch to college students and business folks. Certainly, SONY needs to be smarter on cutting deals with publishers. The e-book cost needs to be 3/4 the price of the printed edition, especially for college text books. Personally, if I were still a student - I would purchase the used textbooks and then scan them into PDF format, just so I would not need to tote around heavy books.
From Sony's perspective - they REALLY should look at how Apple did the iTunes store and push forward to make a mark in this field. They have a VERY nice product with this new reader - albeit some minor improvements. They need to get publishers to push content out at highly discounted prices the way Apple did with music and video. Heck, I would pay $3.00 for some of my old Wrox Technical Books in Sony Format or some other older books. With the big trend on Green and environment, it is a good time to be marketing a technology that can save trees.
So - the short of it, I REALLY do like the reader and highly recommend it.
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