Sony PRS-505 Reader August 2008

Sony PRS-505 Reader

Sony’s PRS-505 Reader could prove a significant milestone in the emergence of digital books, known as ebooks. This smart, unpretentious ebook reader goes on sale in September exclusively in Waterstones for £199 – and with the PRS-505, Sony has opened a new chapter for digital ebooks.

The Sony PRS-505 Reader can hold 160 digital ebooks for reading on the go.

Clad in a soft, light-brown leather-look case, the Sony PRS-505 Reader looks like a quality diary or notebook. Open it up, and you’re greeted with a pale silver, sleek-looking device that sports a well-contrasted six-inch ‘electronic ink’ screen for displaying the pages of an ebook, and a series of navigation buttons.

Sony hasn’t skimped on the Reader’s features, either. Across the top there are two handy memory card slots – a Memory Stick Pro Duo and SD Card – for expanding the amount of storage on the device. Out of the box, the Sony PRS-505 Reader includes around 192MB of storage – enough for around 160 full-length novels. We loaded it up over 100 novels during our testing, and it still had space to spare.

From ebook to MP3 music

As well as ebooks – which the Reader supports in the popular EPUB, PDF and Adobe Digital Editions formats – the device can handle photos and audio files in MP3 and AAC format. The display can only handle eight-levels of grey, however, so photos won’t show in colour – but we could listen to MP3 music files and read an ebook at the same time.

Flick it on using the discreet slider along the top edge, and the ‘electronic ink’ screen springs to life after a slight delay. The quality of the screen is astonishing. Crisp, sharp text contrasts strongly against a faint grey background – and there are three levels of zoom so you can adjust the text size for comfort.

Unlike an LCD screen found on a laptop or mobile phone, the 170 pixel-per-inch screen uses e-ink technology and no backlighting to replicate the look of a printed page. It largely succeeds, with the screen viewable in bright sunlight and at acute angles with no loss of clarity. You will need to have a reading light to view it at night, as it doesn’t generate its own light.

Navigation is simple, if a little cluttered. Virtual pages can be flicked through using some page-turn buttons, placed, as you’d naturally find them on the right-hand edge. Several buttons give access to menus for choosing books, selecting MP3 tracks and viewing photos. You can add page bookmarks with a button push (a cute animation of a page corner folding over is shown on screen), while a series of number buttons on the right can be used to type in page numbers or access menu options.

A headphone jack, USB connector for transferring files and ebooks, power socket and volume rocker switch along the bottom edge completes the line-up.

Judge an ebook by its cover

Compared to the iRex Technologies Iliad Book Edition, which we looked at in July and is on sale at Borders, the Sony PRS-505 Reader is a revelation. It’s lighter at a mere 260g without its cover, and less than 8mm thick. Overall dimensions – 123mm by 174mm – are equivalent to a paperback, and significantly smaller than the Iliad. While we couldn’t test Sony’s battery life claims, the company says it will last for around 6,800 page turns between charges – enough for around five read-throughs of the densest of novels.

Where the Sony PRS-505 Reader bests the Iliad – and where it shines overall – is in both connectivity and software. Where the Iliad is a morass of technical hoops that need jumping through to add content, Sony has crafted software that works much like Apple’s iTunes software on a PC. Once installed, you can add ebooks to your library on you computer, and sync them to the Reader using a USB connector.

The software links directly to the Waterstones ebook store, which wasn’t yet launched when we tested the PRS-505, but should allow you to buy and download books – much like MPS audio files from iTunes. Ebooks can be searched, sorted and synchronised with ease, and the set-up was straightforward thanks to some well-written instructions. Book choice, however, will likely be limited to tens of thousands of titles, compared to millions offered in physical form by the likes of Amazon. But, with newer titles such as The Book Thief and The Private Patient by P D James promised, you won’t be limited to digital versions of classics such as Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.

The only niggle is the need for a second software program – Adobe Digital Editions – to buy, download and read rights-protected ebooks in PDF format. The software itself was simple to use, but the need for two different applications could lead to some confusion.

There has been much debate over the need and desirability of digital books. Certainly the Sony PRS-505 Reader gets an awful lot right. It might lack the tactile feel and smell of ink on paper, but the screen and ease of use overcome any real doubts. And, if you are an avid book reader disgruntled with lugging airport novels around with you, the Reader is a real boon.

Pros: lightweight, replicates ink on paper well, simple to use and add extra digital books, accessible, simple navigation

Cons: still reasonably expensive, limited choice of digital books, slightly cluttered control layout

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