New 505 owner - first impressions

[Shadowplay]

Please keep in mind, these are *very* early impressions as I've only had it a few hours while at work so my actual play time has been pretty minimal.

Sony Reader PRS-505 (Blue)

Good:
* looks so very, very slick - love it and the cover
* love how well attached the cover is so the 505 can't fall out
* screen is better than the beat up demo unit I looked at in the Borders store
* flash during page flips is a non-issue, at least for me
* as easy as it gets for transferring files to or from a Windows XP machine

Not so good:
* takes a while for the device to refresh after loading any new books
* menu interaction is a bit awkward because of the slow screen updates (yes that's an e-ink problem)
* buttons require a bit of oomph to really press which could be a nuisance during long reading sessions
* formating of converted ebook files is hit or miss depending on the source and the type of source, e.g. PDF, .lit, .prc, etc.

Bad:
* PDF files - I knew about this going in, but had to see it for myself
* changing the font size while reading a large book feels like it takes forever for the 505 to recalculate everything

Yes I'm being very nitpicky about this, but I think I'd be remiss in my duties if I weren't. Overall I'm still pretty impressed with the 505, but I've gone from uber excitement down to generally happy. That may be tempered by my fairly crappy day at work so don't put too much weight on my criticisms.

That's it for now and hopefully I'll have some actual reading time tonight and then we'll see how it really feels.

*UPDATE*
or Oh how I love thee, my twilight blue shepherd of a thousand other worlds.

Yeah, yeah that's a little over the top, but hey it was good times with the 505 last night. I installed and played around with the elibrary software from Sony. IMO it's a really clunky piece of UI mess that behind the scenes gives some good functionality. I'm frustrated knowing that I could design a better UI (yeah I do some software development), but at least it really does work. Through the software I grabbed the limited time offer from Sony of 100 classic ebooks which gives me things like Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe, etc. Good stuff even if I don't intend on reading all of it. I also bought one book I knew I wanted to read, _Empire of Ivory_ by Naomi Novik. I cleared out all the samples that come preloaded on the 505 and loaded my new library. The software says I have 190mb total accessible storage on the device and after loading 101 books I'm at 60mb remaining. That is very reasonable. Knowing I can add in room for thousands of books by spending 30 bucks on a large SD card I have no worries at all about running out of room.

Here are my latest feelings about the 505. As always, these are entirely my own personal experiences and may not hold true for anyone else. I'm also going to copy down some of the previously mentioned points to expand upon.

Good:
* Still loving that screen - it is, for me, just about as good as actual paper.
* Page flipping is faster, easier and overall *better* than traditional books! I'm serious here. You don't have to reposition at all with an ebook page turn, you barely have to move honestly, and as part of that you quickly get the timing down so that you mentally take in that last line or so of text right as your eyes and the screen are moving to the next page. Others have shared similar experiences on this. Brilliant
* Changing font size on the fly is wonderful.
* Jumping around between books is actually an enjoyable experience since the 505 always remembers exactly where you left off so you can "Continue Reading" on any book you've ever looked at.

Not so good:
* takes a while for the device to refresh after loading any new books
* menu interaction is a bit awkward because of the slow screen updates (yes that's an e-ink problem) - still a little annoying and I've found that since I loaded a large-ish number of books sometimes it seems to just hang for a few seconds and I don't know if it registered my button press or not until is suddenly jumps back to life. That feels much more like CPU issues than the screen refresh.
* buttons require a bit of oomph to really press which could be a nuisance during long reading sessions - still kind of annoys me, but it's not major and I'm sure thing will loosen over time.
* formating of converted ebook files is hit or miss depending on the source and the type of source, e.g. PDF, .lit, .prc, etc. - unless it's a native Sony format in which case it's pretty much perfect.
* I'm really feeling the limitations of only have a single font with only 3 font sizes to choose from. I may have to explore some hacks to see if I can at least get more font options. I may be out of luck though and if so I'll just live with it.
* Can't find that perfect way of holding the 505 while reading in bed. I've tried with and without the cover and it's not bad either way, but nothing seems quite right. I'll need to keep working on that one.
* I wish there was a search function to find a book or on a deeper level to be able to find text within books, but for that I guess I would need the Kindle. Score one for the Kindle there.

Bad:
* regarding my previous mention of changing font sizes taking forever - this is *only* true for ebooks transferred to the device via Windows Explorer instead of using the elibrary software. As others pointed out to me, if you use the official software it prepaginates for you and then changing font sizes is damn near instant which feels amazing when you know you've just reformatted an 800 page novel and it took less than a second after pressing a little button.
* I have no other bad points to make.

I have one last anecdote to share that I think sums up the 505 or to be fair I'm guessing any of the latest generation of e-ink devices. Last night I'm laying in bed reading away, getting really into the story (that's why I bought a book I know I would get wrapped up in) and at one point I realized I tried to physically turn a book page. Yep, my brain really thought for a minute there that I wasn't reading a traditional book.

This will likely be my last major update about my new experiences with the 505. I think I've covered just about everything I want to and now it's just a matter of really getting used to my new device. Thanks for reading through my ramblings. Hopefully it's useful to someone thinking about getting the 505 themselves!

[DrMoze]

I'm willing to bet that once you get into a good book, the Reader itself will disappear.

[Ervserver]

some of that stuff I don't even notice anymore, I expect the delay the first time loading new books, and the format pain is something all readers deal with in some form. My buttons don't take much to activate them though

[Shadowplay]

Well it ended up being a 14 hour day thanks to craziness at work, but no matter - I've spent about an hour now playing with the eBook Library software.

Yes, their software is LAME, LAME, LAME. It is, however, what we've got to work with when it comes to official software. The good thing is it really does give you a single point of management for everything and I do like that. It's just to bad it's such a slow, clunky UI.

So in playing with the software I jumped on the offer for the 100 free classics through the Sony Store. Yeah most if not all of these are available elsewhere for free, but come on it's *right* there and already in the right format so why not? That also provided a good test of the Store interaction. It's functional and I can live with it.

Before I left the store area I did actually buy one book. I wanted something I know I really do want to read, right now, that wasn't much different in price from Fictionwise.

Naomi Novik - Empire of Ivory, book 4 in the Temeraire series (I mentioned these books in the SF & Fantasy suggestions elsewhere on this site.) I haven't read this latest installment yet and I enjoyed the first 3 books. This should be a great test of the Reader in actual use as, well, an ebook reader instead of just toying around with it.

I'll report back about my experiences after I've spent some quality time with my lovely blue piece of gadgetry.

[astra]

Originally Posted by Shadowplay

Bad:

* changing the font size while reading a large book feels like it takes forever for the 505 to recalculate everything.

You are doing something wrong...

[HarryT]

If you load books via the eBook Library software it will "pre-paginate" them, so they should open quickly.

If you just copy them to the USB drive the Reader will paginate the book when you first open it, which can be a lengthly process for a long book, but it's a "one time" operation for each font size.

[astrodad]

Originally Posted by Shadowplay

Not so good:
* takes a while for the device to refresh after loading any new books
* menu interaction is a bit awkward because of the slow screen updates (yes that's an e-ink problem)
* buttons require a bit of oomph to really press which could be a nuisance during long reading sessions
* formating of converted ebook files is hit or miss depending on the source and the type of source, e.g. PDF, .lit, .prc, etc.

Bad:
* PDF files - I knew about this going in, but had to see it for myself
* changing the font size while reading a large book feels like it takes forever for the 505 to recalculate everything

- you can minimize the device refresh by using the main memory or as others suggested, using the Sony software to paginate for you.
- eventually you will get the timing on the refresh so it becomes less annoying. i zip right through the menus.
- the buttons are strong. I would rather have to know that I am pushing than to have to have accidental button pushes (ala Kindle) or have a flimsy button that falls off
- formatting is a bit of an art, depending on the source. Using calibre and book designer, along with Word, can produce some really nice books.
- as for changing the font size, putting the book in main memory helps quite a biit

[BookishDreamer]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

I'm willing to bet that once you get into a good book, the Reader itself will disappear.

I have to agree. I noticed every slow page refresh or other idiosyncratic bit of behaviour when I first started using my Reader. Now I just blissfully read.

Dreamer

[Shadowplay]

Ok it's now the "morning after" and I did get some very quality time with the 505 before bed. I'm going to update my original post in this thread with the details.

All who brought this up already are totally right - the super slow font size changing was 100% because I had done a simple file transfer through Windows. All the books I've loaded through the elibrary software were instant font size changes - awesome!

Ok now back up to my original post for the full update.

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by BookishDreamer

I have to agree. I noticed every slow page refresh or other idiosyncratic bit of behaviour when I first started using my Reader. Now I just blissfully read.

Dreamer

Same here. In fact, I'm so unaware of the Sony that I sometimes find myself absentmindedly reaching up to the top right hand corner to turn the page.

[Shadowplay]

Originally Posted by cassidym

Same here. In fact, I'm so unaware of the Sony that I sometimes find myself absentmindedly reaching up to the top right hand corner to turn the page.

Oh man I did that last night myself and it cracked me up.

[Megatron-UK]

On the font issue, you can change the fonts in the books if your use Calibre and/or Book Designer instead of the Sony Software to create and transfer books to the reader.

The downside is that it doesn't support DRM enabled books and page turns are slower.

I find those points are greatly outweighed by the increased flexibilty of Calibre, and the much wider range of nice fonts (personal favourite is Palotino Linotype) that are available.

BTW, I too have tried to physically turn the page on more than one occasion!