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

+ Product is fantastic bought my husband for christmas and hes said its one of the best gadgets he has had. He said its so easy to use,lovely slim design, he likes the fact he can read listen to music if he wants to & is able to store photos on it too. very happy with product.

- Reviewer left no comment

+ Beautiful design, light weight, ideal for travelling or hospital use as can hold so many books

- For those of us who are not overly familiar with computers the instructions about downloading onto the ereader could be simpler.

+ Beautiful and easy to use

- Availability of ebooks is poor

+ Very portable, and the cover that comes with it is good. The battery lasts for ages without needing to be re-charged. In fact I have never put it on to re-charge, it gets enough when I hook it up to my computer for adding books etc. The screen is very readable, and you don't get any glare when reading in bright sunlight.

- The background grey 'paper' is a bit dull, and would be nice if it was closer to white. I feel that for the price, it is fairly basic. Concidering the range of functions you would get for that money in say, a mobile phone for instance. But, they (ebook readers) are all like that (at time of review). I mostly use .pdf files, which it reads just fine, but sometimes the formatting is a bit strange when you increase the font size. The book management software that comes with it is... 'functional'. The free software "Calibre" is better, and thankfully works with the Sony ebook reader.

+ Nice to hold. Clear legibility but only for books designed for it. I use this thing to read books and don't use it as an MP3 player at all.

- Not good at handling PDF files. What I want is something that I can use to read the thousands of PDF files on the net. The product as it stands is bad. The smallest print size is not practical for me and the large size which I need for easy reading is clumsy for poems that format very badly. To me there doesn't seem enough computer power there to handle reformatting or to manage really big files.

+ Love the fact that I can carry a large number of books in a compact manner. It's so easy to use and fantastic for those late night chapters using the battery back light addition as my husband is no longer disturbed by the bedside light and the sound of flicking pages!
Love the magnifier too as eyesight failing with age and disliked the need for glasses or large print... Vanity rules OK!

- Unfortunately bought the older version only 3 weeks bsefore newer version was released which would have been more versatile fir work needs too as the Reader is capable of holding Adobe files and I use these in articles required fir my job and the new version has the annotation tool which I would have found particularly useful - also like the idea of a built in dictionary/thesaurus.

+ Great idea for reading on the go and having more than one book on the go at once

- There are no books that I'm interested in for this device. SO disappointed. Hoped that the big science publishers like elsevier would have ebooks for this but alas....

+ Very easy to use, small yet screen more than large enough.

- does not come with an a/c adaptor

+ It is really a great product, I love the ease of use and the fact that it is so easy to arrange books. I like categorising works and the screen is clear even in direct sunlight.

- I know that a backlight is not included on purpose, but something could be done.
If you have to have the latest gadgets then this is one for you, if you have even a little patients then wait, this technology is going to explode, when it does you might find a much better deal, things to look out for a better screen refresh rate and better handling of PDF files.

+ Bold clear book-like reading

- Sometime complicated to navigate

+ easy to carry about.easy to use. good design

- no colour just black and white

+ screen clarity, wide range of formats, battery life, compact size with good screen size, font size option, sd card socket

- supplied software, books too few and too expensive.

+ Fantastic idea, portable, space saving. Ideal for holiday use, saves taking a number of books.

- Can't change the file names & software library not easy to use, poor instructions

+ Very attractive-looking hardware design, lightweight and portable. Supports many document formats, even photo/image formats. Plays mp3s via headphones. Reasonably sized screen. e-ink display conserves battery life and is easier on the eyes than a glary illuminated screen.

- Still quite an expensive gadget overall - but e-ink is still a new technology, and at least this is at the more affordable end of an expensive price range.
Annoying that proprietary Sony software is the primary way of organising / converting your own documents (although there are free open-source alternatives available on the web).
Doesn't come with mains charger; although battery life is so good that charging via USB isn't necessary too often.

+ Light weight, easy to use, beautifully designed. Perfect for what it's made for.

- Using this to study PDFs for Uni but all the formatting and diagrams disappear when on medium or large font. Expensive for what it is... A book.