Sony Reader PRS-505 Reviews: 6" Screen E-Ink eBook Reader

+ Ease of use and easy to carry around - better than a couple of paperbacks when on holiday. Easy to find your book or music on the contents page. Nice and easy to put new books in from Gutenberg.

- The fact that I use an IMac computer an it is not catered for was a problem - this was not mentioned anywhere in the literature. Fortunately the Mac made it easy to transfer items into the EReader but only through the memory cards. I can't take anything out unless I only use the memory cards. I feel this could be made plainer before people buy it. Also, when are you to make it Mac compatible? The pictures are terrible but probably better on newer versions - can't afford another one though. This is not very important though.

+ Very portable.
Easy to use

- Can't read it in the dark.

+ Compact design and very readable screen. Love fact epub format is supported.

- Only "bad" point is screen refresh moving from one page to another, but this is same for all ebook readers

+ Great that the memory can be expanded
text is easy to read in any light
wonderfully accepts multiple formats
use it to view word docs in work

- Can be quite complex to work out at first
ebooks are still quite expensive compared to physical books

+ It's very easy to use.

- very rarely unspectedly it needs to reboot

+ Easy to read.

- Controls a little fiddly. Could do with better battery life

+ Very clear text,abilty to choose text size, long battery life, simple to use.It came with a robust leatherette cover which protects it and makes it easier to handle.
Much easier to read than a paperback, no springing back pages and 'holding it open'
Free books welcome.

- Packaged Sony Library software for your PC, is clunky. (I choose to use Adobe Digital Editions)
Rather expensive.

+ Excellent for travelling, on the beach,train and i can read mine in the car when i can't read a paper book without feeling sick.Also saves on space as i read quickly and accumulate piles of read books.

- At the present i am unable to find a wide choice of books available to buy, its more a case of choosing from what is available rather than finding a particular book. Also the ebooks are quite expensive compared to paper books.

+ The amount of reading matter I can carry in one small package. I travel a great deal on business, and no longer have to buy in the airport to relieve my boredom. I no longer annoy my neighbour on a plane by having a big flappy newspaper. I don't have to go shoping for books - I can just buy and download! Wonderful! My husband doesn't moan about how much space my reading matter takes up in the car. Last but not least, when I switch off, I know that when I switch back on I will be on the right page

- I bought the cover with the light inside, but this is not good quality. I really think your product should be back-lighted, and I wouldn't have minded paying a bit more and carrying a slightly heavier package. I do need the light for situations wher the ambient light is poor,but find the cover-light does o do the job well.

+ solid design, with a amazing screen

- hard to buy accessories for

+ Ease of use, convenience and transportability it brings a new and exciting dimension to reading.

- There appears to be a need to reset the PRS505S after charging from the mains, it freezes not always but occasionally.

+ Easy to use and portable

- No light feature, so am unable to use in poor lighting conditions.

+ Even though it cannot replace the pleasure of holding and reading a real book, Sony reader is a good device that complement physical books perfectly with the high capacity, ease of use, long battery life, simple but effective design and wide rage of e-format support.

- The price still too high for casual readers.

+ easy to use and to read

- extra books are fairly expensive to buy

+ battery life.

- Access to new books, no back light.

+ Light weight, good screen and batter life

- Some e-pub books page number obscure one or two characters of text

+ It's very portable - very useful for holidays. Lightweight - easy to slip into your handbag
Useful for reading at night, especially if you fall asleep!

- I'd have liked a touch screen as I'mused to an iPhone and lo and behold, a week after I'd bought mine you announce the touch screen version.

+ easy way to carry a few books when travelling

- could be easier to navigate around

+ small medium and large text
read just about anything you want in you're hands
can hold lots of books with sd cards

- Battery life

+ So easy to carry so many books without carrying a library.

- Reviewer left no comment

+ Easy to use easy to read just brilliant. I love the way I can flip between books and still maintain where I am in each publication.

- The pc software supplied is not intuitive and it is very slow to perform operations.
There is a very limited supply of books available it is also difficult to know what actual format the device will use.

+ Easy to use, especially if books and music are downloaded onto SD cards or Memory Sticks.
Bookmarking very easy, so returning to current page is simplicity itself.
Will take ordinary documents as .pdf.

- 'Pictures', e.g. book cover, almost useless.
No onboard light, so not readable in low light levels.
No ability to create Playlists, or play at random. Music is played in alphabetical order from wherever you start.

+ Ability to take several books on trips and battery life

- Setting up unit to read encrypted pdf files

+ portable.easy to read.books easy to buy and download

- charger hard to find.not part of package

+ So easy to use and read books. Very portable for holidays. The e-ink makes it easy to read and no eye strain.

- Not straight forward to start to download books from the internet. Not able to use mac to sync. Books are actually more expensive on the waterstones site.

+ Very easy to use. Positioning of page turners excellent. Size and weight perfect. Nice to read on.

- No backlight that I can find for reading in darker conditions. Software not user friendly at all. Doesn't charge properly from pc and only pc charger supplied so had to buy mains charger. Books still very expensive.

+ Readability

- Tan cover - would have preferred black

+ I love it, it is more portable than a regular book

- Find it complicated to download books, have failed twice, so have lost money and a bit reluctant to try again incase i lose more money

+ Good screen in very bright sunlight
Bookmarking
Loads to read

- The battery does not appear to last if left unused for a long period. Also, can be difficult to charge from a laptop USB when the laptop automaatically shuts itself down

+ I think its fab lets me read on the move with out bulky books

- Cant think of any.

+ great reading experience, great gadget, great capacity

- should be real leather case

+ Excellent reading screen

- Too large, and heavy and cannot download newspapers, magazines ie like Kindle

+ Lightweight, yet holds more books than I could ever read on holiday. Now I can turn the page while holding my coffee in the other hand. Book marks mean I can flit between books if I need to. Pages are so easy to read.

- Can't read it in the bath and the battery life suddenly drops. No pictures as yet within the books. Nothing that won't be cured in time I'm sure.

+ Compact and easy to use.

- Adobe PDF books loose format when enlarged to normal viewing size.
E-reader software not very slick, expected "itunes" for books style of interface and moor user friendly.

+ It's portability and ease of use

- That it doesn't come with a protective sleeve to slip over the leather cover to prevent damage in my bag.
That I'm tied to specific ebook sellers whose prices are high (it's cheaper to buy a paperback) and that I cannot access the sony book store as a UK user.

+ Bought as present to take on holiday instead of loads of books

- Cost of books

+ ability to change font size

- deleting books is very hard work

+ Really good product to read novels on. Once books are loaded onto the prs, it is easy to use. It is very convenient to carry around. The i ink is easy on the eyes. It is great to have so many books in one tidy package.

- It will never take over from books as a whole but should be used in conjunction with them. The books are remarkably complicated to down load the first time. Clearer and easier instructions would be beneficial. If you have a lot of books loaded on it would be helpful if the prs also gave a brief description of the novels. At the moment, other than the title, there is no way to determine what the books are about. As a library, it should in some format replicate this element from hard copy books to make it more user friendly and practical in a long term basis.

+ Simply a fantastic bit of kit. It does what it says on the tin. I use it every day for at least 1 hours read.

- PC library can be confusing with a lot of books in/on it. ie ALL books are on the library and it can be a little difficult to find new books just loaded into it.

+ screen size, display type, memory card slot

- poor battery life

+ Quick to start, light to hold, comes with cover

- Not enough zoom options, cannot change the fonts, can't charge from usb at the same time as reading

+ Battery life is very good and range of books is improving. Very portable and up to 160 books can be stored making it very good for holidays or train journeys

- Books are a bit expensive and Waterstones don't do 2 for 1 offers. The reader can only be charged from a PC and not from the mains

+ Reviewer left no comment

- not enough books at areasonable price

+ Good screen size. Good capacity for ebooks. Good card options to expand memory.

- I hate having to use the library software! I want to be able to organize my folders and files as I want them. Battery life is variable, esp when not using it over several weeks. No ability to highlight, underline, make a note. That it doesn't have a color screen! If it has bluetooth, I can't find it! If it doesn't, it should! Backlight instead of the horrid plexiglass light panel.

+ life with out is meaning less

- UK news paper such [ the time, garding, and metero] has had attack this iteam for no reason

+ Ease and speed of loading books

- Cost

+ Fantastic product. Easy to use and very responsive. Has an excellant bookmark system so you always know where you are. A fantastic way to read a book.

- Would be an added bonus if a mains adapter was included in the package.

+ Everything. No problems at all

- The page turn is a little clunky. Not enough ebooks available at reasonable prices

+ None

- Screen flashes black as you turn page

+ small and compact, lightweight, easy to carry, easy to read books,

- page turners quite hard to click and quite small

+ Good Battery life - easy to use Excellent screen for use in sunlight

- Reviewer left no comment

+ Portability

- slow to respond

+ This is a truly antastic product - I was a little apprehensive at first and took a few months to decide to get it - but now I wish I had bought it earlier. I read four novels in two weeks on the Sony Reader - it is a remarkably natural reading experience and has the same 'feeling' as reading a paper book. It's innovative design with e-ink technology and no backlighting enables me to read books (and other documents) it anywhere - in the lounge with natural lighting, in the garden with the sun shining directly on it and in bed with a bedside light. It doesn't tire the eyes and you don't have to worry about losing a page as the Reader remembers what page you were on. It has a host of really useful features and I would reccomend this product to anyone with either an interest in books, or gadgets!

- I wish there was a way of organising books into collections by dragging and dropping.

+ Simple to download books and to use to read them

- Reviewer left no comment

+ Love it , carry your library anywhere

- Reviewer left no comment

+ Has storage for many books so reduces the weight of reading material one needs to carry on holiday etc. Might well use it in this way.
Text is very clear.

- Feels cold to hold while reading unlike a paper book so a bit 'alien'.
To get adequate text size need to expand 1 page of a book to 2+ pages on machine.
Hoped could use to read reports in pdf format but difficult to get figs & text on at same time.
ebooks are too expensive compared to paperbacks. Did find some free ones.
Read some 4-5 books initially but now lies unused most of the time.

+ Portable, easy to read

- Difficult to get head round to start with.
Annoying delay when turning pages
No mains charger supplied

+ Great for holidays and travelling as you can take as many books as you like without having to pack bulky paper books! Have the light cover means you can read at night without disturbing your partner.

- Poor choice of books available

+ Good screen and battery life

- Absolutely diabolical software!! Check out iTunes and learn.
very poor PDF rendering.
Poor text handling
The text scaling is just a joke.
File transfering and syncing would ave been poor 10 years ago. Now it's just no acceptable.

+ Amazing battery life. Fantastic storage space when using in conjunction with external memory card. Very portable when considering how many books you can fit on it.

- Playing mp3s really drains battery life though don't use it for that so not a big problem.

+ Portable great for travelling

- Battery life not as long as I expected

+ portable simple

- low battery life often freezes because of power loss

+ Convenience of use.

- Will be better when e-books are cheaper & available from libraries.

+ Easy to read and get started to read e books

- Could do with more font sizes

+ easy to carry around

- took a bit of getting used to

+ Battery life
Great screen
Good memory capacity
Lightwight and portable

- Slow response
No built-in light

+ Long life battery, tough case.

- Heavy, slow, brick.

+ Does what I hoped it would do - I use it every day. It is light and easy to use and there is a good range of material available to download. Very satisfied with purchase.

- Just things I think would improve the product. Although there is a good range of material available for download there are huge gaps in what is available even for fairly recent books. Illustrated books are obviously a problem. I think that publishers are charging far too much for new books given that production costs are very much less than for printed material - not SONY's fault but maybe something you could influence. I like the cover but I bend it back in use and I think this is maybe not good for it. I'm not sure if it'll shorten the cover life as I think it isn't designed to bend back.

+ work in any light condition, adjustable print size

- not your problem, a lot of spelling mistakes in the books downloaded

+ It is light, slim. I like the different font sizes. It is a nice product.

- The page turning half moon shaped button should be lower down the book thus making it easy to flick with one's thumb rather than having to take one's hand off the book. If it were swapped with the page back half moon that would do the trick. One rarely goes back but goes forward constantly. I'm quite happy with it, but use it rarely as it is often easier to borrow books or pick them up cheaply, so to pay full prices for books is not so attractive especially when trying to decide from scant information. I've been told that more information is available, but I didn't see it. I need to read at least the first page of a book to know if I want to buy it.

+ the 3 magnifiying settings, amount of books stored without an additional card......looks smart, ease of transferring books from the computer onto the tablet. Excellent piece of kit to take on holiday!

- Charge life can be a bit unpredictable. Would be nice to have a colour screen!

+ Easy to read

- Software, price

+ Excellent product I've very much enjoyed using it. Took it to Rome on holiday and read comfortably poolside every day. Light,portable and long battery life. I haven't tried the music option..proably because I'm struggling with the download. Hence 9/10 for ease of use.

- Somewhat cumbersome download process and limtited range of titles available.

+ It is quite easy to use and very portable which is good for holidays, journeys etc

- Insufficient instructions with the product.

+ Ability to store large number of books. Good, if slow, screen.

- Associated software very clunky and instructions difficult to follow.

+ easy to use and carry around with me

- the library system could do with improving

+ fast on off

- crashes occasionally

+ great innovation and a pleasure to use. Opportunities for reading to my kids at night and get them into the habit of reading good stories. Take anywhere, doesn't weigh too much and easily portable.

- Struggle at times downloading new stuff but possibly because I'm not too hot on the technology side. I managed a couple of times but then forget how I did it and have to learn all over again:(

+ Very portable and ideal to take on holiday if you love to read and luggage weight is an issue.quite a conversation opener when poeople see you with one too!Actually putting the books on is a bit of a problem if you are a bit older and not a computer whizz- I spent an evening struggling to load an edition of adobe which I kept being told was needed but didn't want to co-operate- not as easy as itunes and ipods but ok once you are set up.

- Page turning speed- initially very offputting when waiting for page to "form"- I actually walked away in waterstones when I first saw this and thought I would never buy one, but a couple of months later was going on a 10 day holiday and was really seduced by the idea of taking loads of book choices electronically, so decided to give it another chance. My device has also "frozen" acouple of times and the reset doesn't instantly do anything- which is a real pain when you have nothing else to read with you. overall, great fot travellers but I wouldn't chose it over a paperback to read at home, and they are still largely speaking cheaper than the electronic versions.

+ Portabilty/ Weight when travelling.

- Does not hold enough music

+ Ease of use - very easy to set up and start reading.

- Poor availability of recent books - e.g. couldn't find Booker shortlist.
Needs built in light for night time reading - this would be a real advantage when reading in bed - i.e. not disturbing a partner by having to switch the light on to read.

+ It is amazing, I bought it because I was going on holiday and don't like to take my precious books with me as they always get damaged. Loaded this up with books, pdf's, photos and mp3's.

- e-Books are cheap. Photo viewer is a bit naff as obviously it's not colour.

+ No need for weighty books in my luggage.
I can read three different books at the same time!
It's great for using outdoors, especially in the sun.

- No backlight means a lamp is essential at night.
It takes a couple of days to stop trying to turn pages!
Cover is a bit tacky - Sony could have made it leather for a very little less profit. My hubbie bought me a Tuff Love cover in pink leather from Amazon & it's gorgeous, really soft leather, nicely padded to hold, and has a nifty stand so you can prop the reader up at an angle to read - great for sunbed use in the vertical position!

+ Convenient

- More outlets needed to buy ebooks.

+ Battery life, variable font size options, portability - My occupation invoves long overseas trips. The PRS 505S enables me to take several books with me without the bulk and a battery charge lasts for over three weeks.

- Does not accept all formats,