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I buy and download the books I want and have about 40 of them on my reader at all times.Its perfect for the long business trips I take and works great everywhere from the plane to the hotel rooms. Paperbacks wear out over time and Hardcovers have become collector items for me. I rarely read a hardcover anymore, as I want to keep most of them in pristine order.Now though I don't worry about that at all. This product is great. The battery life is amazing and it recharges very fast whether its connected to the computer or to the wall.A great buy for anyone that travels or likes to read those hard to find collectors books. I own thousands of books and many have been read and reread hundreds of times. Hands down.It only took me a few minutes to get a real feel for it, once the zoom and reference angle were correct I was in love. I've purchased a few copies of too many of those books.
Much better just to add $200 to buy a laptop and have much more. I'm very disappointed with Sony PRS-505/LC Blue Digital Book Reader: - Responsiveness to button clicks is very slow- Zoom capabilities are very limited- Files load slowly- PDF files require excessive preparation to be visible correctlyI would NOT recommend to purchase this product.
The screen is very easy on the eyes, I find I can read for hours whereas reading on a computer screen bothered my eyes after a half hour or so. It feels solid, well made and stylish looking. Did you know, using a free program called Calibre eBook Management, you can even download newspapers to your reader, free of charge. I recently bought this reader direct from Sony. It's a great reader.
[.].True the Sony store softwear could be a bit more user friendly, but it's nothing the average computer user can't handle. Just the right amount of contrast and I can read for hours. Maybe a netbook computer with a 2 sided screen; one for eink and the other regular. Go to the Sony site and read the specs and you find out this info. Since hitting middle age and having to wear bifocals I've found reading real paperbacks much slower over the last few years. I think I've already finished four or five books and I find the display very comfortable to read. I'm anxious to see what the next few years bring. These work fine on the Sony and are no problem to download.
Even at the small font size I zip right through the pages and when I'm a bit tired the medium font size makes reading a breeze. I've had my Sony Reader 505 for a week and I could hardly be more pleased. I considered the Kindle and maybe the next generation Kindle will find me buying my ebooks from Amazon, but right now I'm very happy with my Sony. It's smaller than the Kindle and for me it's the perfect size. Things will only get better from here.Sorry Apple users the Sony Reader only works with Windows XP and Vista.
The 505 reads the epub format which is the new digital book standard. Technology is wonderful. For now the Sony Reader is My favorite new gadget. I even have a few of my favorite mp3s on it and they sound fine. The Sony store bestsellers are higher than Amazon and that's disappointing, but there are plenty of older releases than I haven't read yet. (The Kindle is longer, wider and more than twice as thick - but with the same size display). For me it's even better than paper.
Maybe they'll work Apple into the mix at some point. There are also sites like feedbooks.com that have free downloads of out of copyright books. The Sony Reader has got me back up to speed. Hopefully as more ebook sellers come online prices may come down some.
This product is however doomed also to failure for different reasons. The only remedy after hours of research and attempts at communication with Sony was to exchange for a refurbished model at nearly the new cost. Sony has no additional recommendations since it is out of the 90 day waaranty other than to sell me a refurbished device for $250. Avoid this product. This device and its business plan will fail because of the inability of Sony to provide product support and as the financial viability of the Sony E-Reader Store (which has a great selection) depends on customers having working E-Readers, it will also fail. Hard and soft resets of the device described in the support site do not work. Very disappointed.Heard good things about Amazon's e-reader, but beware if hardware support is poor, the device will be a costly way to read.
The reader seemed to function well until a mandatory firmware update was initiated by the software manager in the Sony Library software. Also useless is the library of books I have purchased for the device. The firmware upgrade crashed the device, it cannot be reset, and is useless. The firmware update crashed one of the readers irreparably. Recently the same event occurred with our second reader.
As an early adopter and a previous user of the now-defunct Rocket E-Book, I am enthusiastic regarding the potential of e-readers. I discarded the device. As the original OS is wiped from the device by the aborted firmware upgrade, the device cannot be recognized by the PC or the Library application. My wife and I each owned a Sony E-reader and used the Sony Store for E book purchases. Tech support on the site is poor and there is no vendor for aftermarket support.
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