A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to a new toy! I got myself a Sony PRS 505 just as Sony announced there new models. I’m not worried though, as I got it for £149 form John Lewis in sexy Red :)
So why did I buy one? Well I’ve got an increasingly large number of PDFs and eBooks and I hate reading them on the screen. I also wanted to be able to read them away from the computer. I choose the PRS because it is currently the cheapest of the bunch and I wanted to see if I would get on with a reader.
So, first impressions. The PRS 505 has a nice crisp clear screen and I haven’t had any problems with glare off of it. The page refresh is definitely slower in PDFs compared to the LFR/ePub books, but not to the extent where it’s a problem. In fact, I did my review of The Art of Unit Testing using it. The PDF layout isn’t ideal as it can be a bit small, but the reader can increase the font size :) So do I like it? Yes, I think it’s fantastic!
The downside? There is one, and it’s the software you get with it. Sony have really let us down with their library software. First off it regularly crashes if you either try syncing all your books in one go, or on some large books. Secondly the UI is terrible! They’ve based it on iTunes off yester year and the feedback for copying UI files it terrible. A single progress bar that never moves :( Guys, seriously, progress bar per book, not per number of books! Lastly, and this is the biggest shame on Sony, it’s not Windows 7 compatible! Come on, Windows 7 has been available for an age to developers now, why isn’t it compatible. Oh, and before you say well the OS X version is better, it’s not I’ve tried it on my Mac with exactly the same problems!
So to sum up, an excellent reader let down terribly by the software. Now that I know I like eReader, I’m looking at getting a BeBook. If you’re getting a BeBook, please help me by using my email address imaji dot wolfshead at ntlworld. dot com in the discount coupon box and you'll get 25 Euros off!
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1 comment:
I just got a PRS-505 myself, for similar reasons. I was also swayed because I can check out library books from my local library in ePub format.
If you haven't tried Calibre, you might want to give that a whirl. The UI is terrible, but it's terrible in a different way than Sony's. Terrible UI aside, the UI works just well enough to get stuff done. And the great thing with Calibre is that it will do a lot for you... download feeds, automatically convert books, etc.
I'm really quite happy with my PRS-505 so far.
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