MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Hello Sony, stuff missing in the PRS-505

tgl · 11-07-2007, 10:44 AM

Hello - this is my first post since I just bought the 505 model about a week ago.

I am very impressed with this forum - nice community and large number of posts and
general enthusiasm give me hope that this device will be around for a while.

Here are my thoughts about the device (it is only a week but I already have a very clear opinion about both positives and negatives - I do have experience with many gadgets and perhaps have somewhat different and more aggressive expectations do to my professional background as software developer and IT manager - but even though my list of negatives is long I want to stress that I do like the current device very much anyway - much more than I anticipated since I used to reject the very idea of having dedicated ebook reading hardware (used to believe this should be done on laptops or tablets but I now see clear benefits, especially regarding the screen technology).

Positives:
1. Great basic functionality - it really is easier to hold and read small books on the reader than the book itself!
2. Great size, weight, battery life
3. Good screen but can still be improved (brighter and more contrast, color - one can dream?)

Negative:
1. Connect software is the worst software package I have used in a very long time.
It has already crushed several times during the first week of use. Seems random - several times while I was browsing the connect store and several times when I was trying to load my SD card
(my SD card is new, and recently formated and works fine for other things I tried to use it for). Also, sometimes (random as well) connect software completely ignores the SD card (does not even show it is present).

2. No native Mac and/or Linux version of connect sofware - inexcusable (this is the 21st century?)
Especialy bad if you know that the operating system on the device itself is Linux!

3. Slow navigation of device - I don't mind the page turn short delay but going through menus and navigating books is painful (I loaded all 100 books from the free connect store package to start with and it is not fun to wait for device as you are jumping from page to page trying to list them).

4. Poor PDF performance - I did try to convert the PDF's using pdflrf and it works fine but it is a pain to have to go through this every time (and have to mess with settings).

5. Poor selection of fonts - this is a computer so it should be possible to have many more fonts rather than S, M, and L.

6. Not possible to read in the dark - biggest drawback. I know about the screen compromise and have no problem with that. But why not integrate some type of folding light (perhaps narrow strips of lcd light that can be folded into the screen edges).
Of course these lights would use the internal battery but that is the compromise that would make sense since power would be used only as needed so in normal use battery life would not be impacted).

7. No built in dictionary - big omission as it seems it should not be too hard to add one more button that allows you to jump from word to word and by clicking on it pop up a box to show the dictionary entry - does not have to be any more sophisticated than that although some type of mouse like button would be even better).

8. Very poor selection of books in the connect store - fiction selection seems fine but very poor availability of education, reference, and mostly everything else.

Anyhow, this is more than enough for the first post - it's time to do some reading.

11-07-2007, 10:44 AM	#41
tgl Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: Sony PRS-505	Hello - this is my first post since I just bought the 505 model about a week ago. I am very impressed with this forum - nice community and large number of posts and general enthusiasm give me hope that this device will be around for a while. Here are my thoughts about the device (it is only a week but I already have a very clear opinion about both positives and negatives - I do have experience with many gadgets and perhaps have somewhat different and more aggressive expectations do to my professional background as software developer and IT manager - but even though my list of negatives is long I want to stress that I do like the current device very much anyway - much more than I anticipated since I used to reject the very idea of having dedicated ebook reading hardware (used to believe this should be done on laptops or tablets but I now see clear benefits, especially regarding the screen technology). Positives: 1. Great basic functionality - it really is easier to hold and read small books on the reader than the book itself! 2. Great size, weight, battery life 3. Good screen but can still be improved (brighter and more contrast, color - one can dream?) Negative: 1. Connect software is the worst software package I have used in a very long time. It has already crushed several times during the first week of use. Seems random - several times while I was browsing the connect store and several times when I was trying to load my SD card (my SD card is new, and recently formated and works fine for other things I tried to use it for). Also, sometimes (random as well) connect software completely ignores the SD card (does not even show it is present). 2. No native Mac and/or Linux version of connect sofware - inexcusable (this is the 21st century?) Especialy bad if you know that the operating system on the device itself is Linux! 3. Slow navigation of device - I don't mind the page turn short delay but going through menus and navigating books is painful (I loaded all 100 books from the free connect store package to start with and it is not fun to wait for device as you are jumping from page to page trying to list them). 4. Poor PDF performance - I did try to convert the PDF's using pdflrf and it works fine but it is a pain to have to go through this every time (and have to mess with settings). 5. Poor selection of fonts - this is a computer so it should be possible to have many more fonts rather than S, M, and L. 6. Not possible to read in the dark - biggest drawback. I know about the screen compromise and have no problem with that. But why not integrate some type of folding light (perhaps narrow strips of lcd light that can be folded into the screen edges). Of course these lights would use the internal battery but that is the compromise that would make sense since power would be used only as needed so in normal use battery life would not be impacted). 7. No built in dictionary - big omission as it seems it should not be too hard to add one more button that allows you to jump from word to word and by clicking on it pop up a box to show the dictionary entry - does not have to be any more sophisticated than that although some type of mouse like button would be even better). 8. Very poor selection of books in the connect store - fiction selection seems fine but very poor availability of education, reference, and mostly everything else. Anyhow, this is more than enough for the first post - it's time to do some reading.