[Shoka]

I still regularly use my PRS-505 as my work reader. Though it's got a few scratches and dings in the casing from six years' use and the battery is rather woeful now, having to charge it at least once a week it does the job. I bought an AC charger for it so even that's not a problem.

I bought the Kobo Touch when W.H.Smith had it available for an impossible-to-ignore £29.99, and I use that as my reader at home, because to be fair it does have a better higher contrast screen and its response time is far faster. But I've got to say the interface isn't a patch on the 505.

The 505 is nice and simple, it's a reader, nothing more nothing less, no extra fluff, and it has PROPER BUTTONS. I don't understand this modern proclivity towards touch screen interfaces. They just aren't as usable.

The Kobo has touch sliders for its font size and page position, and page turning functions (with just one iPhone style back button) and they're just a faff to use. They do have step + or - buttons but the steps are so small you might as well just have a go with the slider and see how you get on.

Whereas the 505, you can just type in the page number with the 0-9 number keys and hit OK. Couldn't be simpler.

And the page turning, press the right half of the screen, you step forward a page, left half you step back, but there's a space in the middle if you hit it it brings up all the options and menus. You get used to it, but compared to nice solid forward and back keys, it's a real step backwards. It's too easy to nudge it by accident, or double step a page one way or another.

Yeah I do miss proper high quality readers with physical buttons, and metal casings. Yeah, the 505 was nearly £200 when it was new, but I tell you what, you can tell.