Sony PRS 505 or Ectaco Jetbook?

[Felouen]

Hi everyone!

I´m a high-school student and I want an ebook device, so I can finally read all those books I have in pdf, because my parents allow me to be on the PC an hour a day, or two at most, not more, because they worry for my health. So it would take literally years to read all Gigabytes of material that I have. And unfortunately, none of those books I want to read are in any of my local libraries, so the pdf´s are my only option so far. (and it´s cheaper to buy one ebook than hundreds of books.)

I´ve done my HW, and two ebooks which would fit me the most popped up - Sony PRS 505 and Ectaco Jetbook.. However, I´m not sure which one should I pick yet, though I am leaning towards one of the options. So I would like to ask you which one would you recommend to me, or if there is another one which would fit me even more.

I would like to use my ebook for:

-Mainly reading PDF, especially huge-sized PDF (like 10+MB)
-Occasional reading of txt, doc, perhaps HTML (but I can always convert HTML to txt or doc, right?)
-If it is possible, viewing manga
-storing large amounts of books, so the bigger memory the better (including insertable cards like SD and such)

Things I won´t use it for:

-Downloading ebooks via stores/whatever (I checked several stores, they don´t have books I want, plus I can always buy the book from Amazon more cheaply
-Reading magazines and news (these kinds of services probably aren´t available in the Czech Republic anyway, right?)

So to sum it up, I´ll mainly just read pdfs which I already have, and won´t buy any, because I can either download them for free or they aren´t available in ebook stores. Plus if I can read manga, it would be even better.

So which one should I pick? I´m thinking Sony could be better...

Questions:

1.I heard on Amazon that Sony often freezes, especially when loading big pfds. Is it true?

2. Sony takes long time to boot, about a minute or more. (as well from Amazon´s buyers comments.)

3.Do all ebooks display only black and white? No colours? What happens to colour frontcovers loaded in pdf then?

4.I´m probably going to buy the chosen ebook from Amazon, it´s cheaper than from my local stores (eg. the Jetbook costs twice as much!), but they also sell several AC adapters for the Sony ebook - does it mean the Sony comes without it (and without the USB cable??!!), and I have to charge it using PC? Or are they some additional ones? What are they for? Sony Electronic Book AC Charger - ACS5220E and the other one is Rapid Wall / AC Charger for the Sony Reader PRS-505 - Gomadic Brand w/ TipExchange Technology.

5. I saw one guy scrolling some text on his PSP, and found on the Net that you can download pdf to DS and PSP and actually read it there. Anyone has had experience with this? (perhaps I could make another thread about this in the appropriate forum). Should I rather buy a PSP/DS, if it works?

Oh, and budget. Yay. Since I´m a student, it´s roughly 300 US dollars right now, and I´m probably going to get another 100.

Thanks everyone a lot!!

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by Felouen

1.I heard on Amazon that Sony often freezes, especially when loading big pfds. Is it true?

2. Sony takes long time to boot, about a minute or more. (as well from Amazon´s buyers comments.)

3.Do all ebooks display only black and white? No colours? What happens to colour frontcovers loaded in pdf then?

4.I´m probably going to buy the chosen ebook from Amazon, it´s cheaper than from my local stores (eg. the Jetbook costs twice as much!), but they also sell several AC adapters for the Sony ebook - does it mean the Sony comes without it (and without the USB cable??!!), and I have to charge it using PC? Or are they some additional ones? What are they for? Sony Electronic Book AC Charger - ACS5220E and the other one is Rapid Wall / AC Charger for the Sony Reader PRS-505 - Gomadic Brand w/ TipExchange Technology.

5. I saw one guy scrolling some text on his PSP, and found on the Net that you can download pdf to DS and PSP and actually read it there. Anyone has had experience with this? (perhaps I could make another thread about this in the appropriate forum). Should I rather buy a PSP/DS, if it works?

1. It might have happened before, but the 505 seems to be pretty robust.
2. It does take a long time to boot from the complete poweroff, but normally you should never have to do that (maybe only for firmware updates or if you need to leave the device for a long time). Waking up from sleep takes one-two seconds.
3. Yes, B/W only. The color images are converted to grayscale, and the dithering algorithm used makes them look not too bad.
4. The AC adapter is not included because it can charge from USB port (but, alas only a real one - a wall USB charger won't work). If you want faster charging or want to read during it, just get a PSP charger - they are 100% compatible.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by igorsk

4. The AC adapter is not included because it can charge from USB port (but, alas only a real one - a wall USB charger won't work). If you want faster charging or want to read during it, just get a PSP charger - they are 100% compatible.

igorsk, using a psp charger, you can continue to read while charging the device ? how does this work ? it was my impression that this was impossible on most (all ?) e-ink devices, but perhaps it's because when you charge via usb port the device thinks it should enter usb data transfer mode and other functions are unavailable ?

[iterati]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

igorsk, using a psp charger, you can continue to read while charging the device ? how does this work ? it was my impression that this was impossible on most (all ?) e-ink devices, but perhaps it's because when you charge via usb port the device thinks it should enter usb data transfer mode and other functions are unavailable ?

It isn't absolute. Hanlin/lbook operates it two modes while connected to usb, either data transfer (and charging simultaneously) or simply charging and able to read at the same time.

[Felouen]

Originally Posted by igorsk

4. The AC adapter is not included because it can charge from USB port (but, alas only a real one - a wall USB charger won't work). If you want faster charging or want to read during it, just get a PSP charger - they are 100% compatible.

Thank you for answering my questions! But I´ve got a similar question like Zelda: It´s possible to connect PSP charger to Sony 505?! I thought you could connect it only to PSP...

So is there an USB cable with the Sony 505 on Amazon, or do I have to buy one? And what are those two AC chargers? What are they for?

[igorsk]

The PSP charger uses the DC IN connector, not the USB one.
See here (between headphones and USB connector).

And yes, the USB cable is included.

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[gwynevans]

According to the Wiki here, it's a 5" Reflective LCD - 16 level grayscale (no backlight) 640 x 480 VGA. (For comparison, the 6" eInk displays are 800x600).

[astrodad]

If you read in low light situations with a book light, for example, the reflective screen is going to be bad. Really bad.