[recycledelectron]

I bought a Sony PRS-505 Reader and love it. (I'm usually no Sony fan.) This is a different animal from the PRS-500.

I'm amazed how fluffy most "main-stream" reviews are. I'm even more astounded how many comments here say the Sony Reader can not do things that my PRS-505 does on a daily basis.

Here's the review that I wish I would have read before buying the thing:

It's usable, and not as proprietary as you might think.

1. Getting Started
* Pull it out of the box, and plug the included USB-A to USB-Mini-B cable into your reader and a PC. Let it charge a few hours. Then, unplug the charging cable and turn it on. If it stays blank. charge for another hour or so. Yes, you do have to unplug the charging cable to turn it on.
* When you insert a card, there will be (very slowly) spinning arrows in a circle in the middle of the screen. This means the reader has stopped responding until it has read the contents of the card. You can not get it to do anything until it finishes.

2. Connectors
Lanyard connector
USB-Mini-B (charging & data)
5.2V tip positive (charging)
Headphone jack (standard, 3.5mm)
SD Card (2GB max)
Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo (8GB max)
Every connector is standard, and it works as you would expect. There are no proprietary, patented, sorry Sony-@$$ connectors on this thing. (I once lost a $500 Vaio sub-notebook to a broken $300 ac adapter - the plug broke, which was a POS to begin with, then Sony had patented the POS and refused to sell an AC adapter for less than $300. They refused to honor the the warranty. The plug by itself was a $295 part from them. It took 10 years before I tried this second Sony product.)

3. Supported Formats (w/o conversion software)
* Audio: .MP3, (and .AAC w/o DRM?)
* Books: .PDF (but this looks really small), .TXT, .RTF, (and LRF?)
* Images: .JPEG, .GIF, .PNG, .BMP
* You can convert from other formats, such as MS Word .DOC, .LIT, .HTM/.HTML, .CBZ,. .CBR, & RSS using 3rd party software. Sony claims that their software converts from .DOC to .RTF, but that's only if you have MS Word installed. (that reminds me of the claim that diet & exercise, with my "amazing weight loss crystal hat" will make you loose weight.)
* The best way to go is to use your software to convert anything to .RTF (text only) or to .PDF (text & graphics.) With PDF printer utilites (like Adobe's Distiller, or many free clones) you should be able to get anything onto the Sony PRS-505 Reader.

4. User Interface
* The system shows menus, and has intuitive (in portrait mode) buttons labeled 1-9 and 0 to allow you to select options. You can also page up and down with the flip-a-page buttons. This gets less intuitive in landscape mode due to the placement of the buttons.
* Everything is a book (.PDF, .TXT, .RTF) an audio file (.MP3, .AAC) or an image (.JPG, .BMP, .GIF, .PNG) to the Sony PRS-505 Reader. It will not even show you unsupported files.
* All browsing is done without the aid of directories. I’m talking about directories and subdirectories you create on a memory card (SD or MSPD) You must select books by Author, Title, or Date Copied. If there are more than 30 items, they are broken down alphabetically (0-9, A-C, D-F, ..., W-Z, Other.) Images & Audio are only available by title. With hundreds of books on an 8GB card, you're going to be flipping down lots of pages.
* The included software might let you create "Collections" but I have no interested in putting that CD in my machine and being root-kitted BMG music style. I only use the SD card to transfer files.
* Some people whine about hitting buttons with the included case closed. I have not found that to be a problem, but I did stain the heck out of my included case the first day.
* You can follow links in .PDF files to jump from a table of contents. The Sony PRS-505 Reader even seems to detect where the TOC is.
* Volume is controlled by a rocker next to the headphone jack.

5. Battery Life
* Weeks if you only read on the screen.
* Hours if you listen to Audio (not all day)
* You can charge off any USB port (including the little cigarette lighter adapter to USB chargers, or the little wall wart USB chargers.)
* You can charge with a (fairly standard) +5V DC wall wort, that is not included. Only the USB-A to USB-Mini-B cable is included for charging.
* Charging via USB cable takes a few hours.
* When charging via USB, you can not use the Sony PRS-505 Reader.

6. Price
* $299 + tax @ Fry's Electronics with the Reader, a USB cable, a CD, and a case.
* Memory cards are extra. I've seen 2GB SD for $17.99 + tax and 8GB Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo for $129 + tax. (Those are the largest that it will take.)
* I paid $347 out the door for a PRS-505 and a 2GB generic SD card.

7. Warranty
* Fry's offered a 30 day money back guarantee. This will vary with your vendor.
* Sony CLAIMS a 2-year warranty. Has anyone ever seen Sony live by a warranty?
* The metal case and cover seem rugged enough that I'm not worried.

8. MP3 Player
* You can play MP3s while reading other material.
* You can fast forward or rewind in an MP3, by increments.
* The volume is OK, but not terribly loud. This is definitely better for audio books than for heavy metal.

9. Annoying "Features"
* Small Text: The Sony PRS-505 reader has a a 6" screen. The text in PDFs inteded to be 8.5"x11" is tiny. You can rotate it to landscape mode, and even eliminate a bit of margins, but it's still small. Despite the button with the magnifying glass, there is effectively no zoom feature. The small text will be responsible for a large number of returns if people don't want to hack their files by enlarging the text size.
* Slow: This thing can take several seconds to boot up. Page flips take several seconds. Even hitting a button can show no response for a second.
* The reader's security code protects it (a bit) from being used after it's stolen, but the code is visible on screen as you type it in, and it's a pain to type it in.
* There's no text entry.
* The audio file you last selected shows that it's still playing, even when you stop it. Given the way audio eats battery life, there should be an icon showing audio playing or no audio playing.
* Often, suspending the reader (by hitting the power switch) will not let you resume where you left off in a .PDF.
* (I think) It misreads .DJVU and .PDF then locks up. It does get the page count and such right, but the first page will not open.
* When charging via USB, you can not use the Sony PRS-505 Reader.
* Short battery life when playing audio.

10. My Wish List: Bug fixes & New Features
* Zoom in and let me move around arbitrarily deep on any document.
* Show me when a file is playing or not.
* Stop taking 5 minutes to index every SD card I put in. Let me use the thing, and navigate directories.
* Provide a programmer's API so we can develop our own format reader software to go on it.
* Let me enter text to search, using the 0-9 keys like a cell phone's text entry.
* Let me work while charging via USB

11. Things I need to research
* I was worried that larger .PDF files would not work. I've been well over 20 MB without a problem. I'll try 600MB + files.
* I need to try formatting my files for a very small page size (3.5" x 4.8",) and see if that improves things.
* Will it let me charge via DC power jack while reading? If so, can I build a battery pack that fits on the back?

Andy