Sony's PRS-505 eBook reader ships this month

Sony just went live with their latest eBook reader, the PRS-505. Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen it but it's always good to get an official release. Available "this month" for $300 in silver and dark blue, Sony's 500-followup features a new electronic paper display that is more responsive with a better contrast than its predecessor while offering expansion for both Memory Stick Duo or SD memory cards. A new USB Mass Storage mode allows for a lickity-quick transfer of files when connected to your PC. Better yet perhaps, is to see a late 90's indie band coming out in support of Sony, eh Joey?

Gallery: Sony's PRS-505 eBook reader ships this month

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[Via MobileRead, thanks Alex]

[oGMo @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:02AM]

But can you search text?

[Greg @ Oct 4th 2007 11:03AM]

A quick look at the manual suggests the search feature is missing. See the manual at: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=PRS505&LOC=3

This product would be killer with a search feature. I regularly carry hundreds of pages of paper and several books and manuals. If I could consolidate my books, manuals and papers onto a small device, that would be great. However, a search feature is absolutely necessary to locate information quickly in manuals that can reach over 500 pages. Oh well, hoping that the third version does the trick...

[oGMo @ Oct 4th 2007 12:30PM]

Yeah I glanced at the manual too once there was a link to sony's store. No search. This seems like a baffling thing to lack, imho. Even a tiny cramped keyboard or onscreen keyboard would be sufficient for this task. What's the purpose of an electronic tree if you can't grep it? ;)

[JOE KINCHELOE @ Oct 15th 2007 11:47AM]

Can you search text in a book? The whole idea behind the E-Reader is to emulate a book without the weight and size. This devise is not designed to be an internet browser, word search, etc. If you are looking for those attributes...go buy a palm pilot!

[oGMo @ Oct 15th 2007 1:19PM]

That's actually a pretty stupid excuse. It's like a plot hole... "it's like a book" makes sense until you step back and think about it. Why the hell would you overlook what's probably the most important advantage to electronic reference material? Even searching fiction is highly useful---many times I've wanted to pull quotes and I just couldn't find the page it was on.

Search is a must.

[boogie @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:06AM]

I'll gladly spend $500-$100 on electronic book reader. $300 places this device into "forget it" category for me. Maybe I just don't get it but isn't it more profitable to sell 1 million units for $50 rather than 100,000 units for $300?

[boogie @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:14AM]

that was $50-100 price range ^^

[Jordan @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:25AM]

It's not profitable to sell 1,000,000 of them for $50 each when they cost $250 each to make.

[Branko Collin @ Oct 2nd 2007 12:25PM]

They did sell the old version for 50 USD, perhaps still do. Unfortunately it is part of a deal where you have to get a Sony credit card first. Search Mobileread or Teleread to find out about the deal, and if it's still valid.

[Crudelitas @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:10AM]

the price is not always decided just by the greed of the company...
sure this thing is quite pricey but giving it away for 50$ surely is not a possibility,maybe §200 would be a rather nice price and not THAT greedy.. ^^

[Bad Beaver @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:16AM]

No touchscreen no buy.

[L @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:56AM]

Why would you need a touchscreen to READ books? Honestly, why?

[thekid @ Oct 2nd 2007 11:00AM]

@L
People don't NEED a touch screen just like they don't NEED an ebook reader. The point is this thing cost $300 and for most people is nowhere near close to worth that price. Someone said the same thing about a back light. No you don't NEED a back light (all the time) but when you're competition is $8 or $10 and you're charging $300(+books) you should be including such "new" and "advanced" features (like the ones palm pilots had 7 years ago). I've used this device several times and think it truly is horrible. This should be their budget reader at $100. If they really cost $250 to make, they're doing something terribly wrong. Nokia n800 is a very good ebook reader, and it does a couple of other things too.

[shaliron @ Oct 2nd 2007 11:08AM]

@The Kid
And can you read 7500 pages of books on one charge with the N800?

There's a reason for this product, and that's cos the screen is so remarkably different from normal LCDs. I mean, even if every book ever published was put on the internet, people would still buy books, just because I'm not going to read LOTR on my computer screen - it's just not comfortable.

[Bad Beaver @ Oct 2nd 2007 11:32AM]

YOU may not need a touchscreen but SOME might do. Especially as these ePaper readers are predestined to be used for textbooks, articles and the like. One might want to make notes, highlight passages, copy segments... you know, work and study and stuff, all of which is much easier with some sort of approachable input system, like a pen.

Also, once and for all, please quit tossing in LCD-based gadgets as alternatives. Try grasping what ePaper is about in the first place.

[Bad Beaver @ Oct 2nd 2007 11:34AM]

YOU may not need a touchscreen but SOME might do. Especially as these ePaper readers are predestined to be used for textbooks, articles and the like. One might want to make notes, highlight passages, copy segments... you know, work and study and stuff, all of which is much easier with some sort of approachable input system, like a pen.

Also, once and for all, please quit tossing in LCD-based gadgets as alternatives. Try grasping what ePaper is about in the first place.

[thekid @ Oct 2nd 2007 10:54PM]

@shaliron
My point about the n800 is that it's virtually the same price and does a lot more. Of coarse it doesn't do everything as well as the ebook reader, it's not designed to. And that's really my point, this IS an ebook reader. That's all it does, and therefore should do that very well, extremely well if you're going to charge $300. And while I suppose it's nice to have a long battery life when, for some reason you're away from a outlet for 8 hours and you're on adderall , I'll take function and performance.

Like I said I've used this enough to know it's not nearly worth it for me. While I'm sure there are a handful of people that want something exactly like this, I don't think most people would find the price + quality worth it.

@beaver
I'll stop "tossing" are lcd based gadgets when epaper gadgets function as well and don't cost so much more. Grasp it?

[Den Lim @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:23AM]

Sony's not thinking straight. At that price, I'd rather get an iPod touch.

[shaliron @ Oct 2nd 2007 3:09AM]

What's the iPod Touch got to do with the Sony eBook? Totally different products.

Unless of course you read full length novels on your iPod Touch.

[Den Lim @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:36AM]

I meant the pricing. They cost the same. I'd rather buy something else and read real paper books instead.

[fortiert @ Oct 2nd 2007 8:02AM]

hum... im not with you den... ebook readers are soft on the eyes, not like a lcd. of course you can buy whatever you feel for but if somebody is tired to buy tons of pricy books, this is a real deal! especially when you can get all the classics for free! haaaa the joy of reading Maupassant, dostoievsky and dickens! each books would cost 10$-30$, buy 20 and you pay more than the ebook reader.

I wish I could get one in color though... im a fan of bd (comic)

[lassi @ Oct 2nd 2007 11:18AM]

well i've read full lenght novels on my nokia 770..

dunno why one couldn't do that on iphone.
770's could be had for 130$ bucks or so at cheapest(800x480, so text looks quite good). apart from reading books it's great for web..


and button placement doesn't look too good on this sony one either. but perhaps it has ridiculous battery life.

[Den Lim @ Oct 2nd 2007 11:36AM]

i don't mean the ipod touch as a replacement, but as an alternative to what i'm going to spend my money on. i'd really love to have a reader and the new sony sounds good and all, but it's way too expensive for me. I'd go US$150 max.

[absurdio @ Oct 2nd 2007 3:07AM]

So. Dumb question of the comments: is there a way to "mark" the text you're reading? virtual highlights, underlines, bookmarks, annotations in the margins? anything?

[chuck @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:07AM]

sure - bookmarks.

[Dias @ Oct 2nd 2007 3:07AM]

The only reason I don't buy this kind of things is because there are no large online bookstore without DRM-crap (Sony, are you listening?).
C'mon, we already seen what happened to GoogleVideo DRM...

[theCardinal @ Oct 2nd 2007 3:20AM]

What is going on with all the buttons on this thing? Jobs may take it a bit too far with his lack of buttons but this is definately too far in the opposite direction. Surely four directional buttons and a centre button would have been enough.

[Nogami @ Oct 2nd 2007 3:34AM]

I've got one of the original e-readers, and it's quite a usable product. I've read quite a few books (manually converted) on it, and the refresh rate doesn't really bother me. I can usually read 3 or 4 complete books on a single charge, which is pretty impressive.

The main problem is that it doesn't natively support formats without running them through the reader program to convert them. It needs to be able to support common formats (full PDF support, text, RTF, HTML, and maybe even limited DOC support by dropping files on a memory card and plugging it in without any 3rd party software).

The user interface is also kind of clunky - while Sony makes some pretty nice hardware, the UI is kind of braindead at times.

[Seth Delackner @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:02AM]

I can't comprehend how Sony, a japanese company, is releasing this reader device apparently only outside Japan, when the Japanese market is so book-hungry that supposedly mobile-phone book-selling services are outselling real books.

[setclock @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:00AM]

I'd love to get one of these, as soon as the price for an eBook drops to 1/2 of a print book. Spending $14.95 on an eBook that costs $16.95 print doesn't make any sense to me. Same as with digital music, unless I as a potential consumer are shown that because you dont have to print, ship, stock and storefront a book/musicCD you are willing to give me a substantial savings over said media, I will not buy it. (and there are a LOT of people that agree with me)

[engadget @ Oct 2nd 2007 9:33AM]

Ebooks are very unlikely to ever be substantially cheaper than paper books. Why? Because the vast majority of the price of *any* book is the overhead: The marketing, salaries, infrastructure, prepress costs ( which also apply to the electronic versions - you'd be amazed at the sort of badly formatted crap that publishers usually get from authors ), author royalties, etc. The actual cost of production is relatively small. It's just like those ridiculous "Hey, the ipod only uses $58 in parts, why are they so expensive?" articles - it's as if people think that everything else associated with the product is free.

[Thing @ Oct 2nd 2007 9:02PM]

Although I like the 'real book', I live in a small place and only a few paper books are worth a limited bookshelf place. For the other titles, the ebook format with a decent reader is perfect.

[setclock @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:49PM]

ok, let me give an example, and you explain how this makes sense,
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Amazon.com Hardcover ...... $14.27
Booksonboard.com eReader... $21.54

I'll grant you that printing, shipping, rent for a physical store, salary for a bookstore employee, might not amount to a large percentage of the price of a book, but to charge over $7 MORE, because you DON'T have most of said expenses???

If Amazon has it for $14.27, the eBook should be $8 - $9, but in any case NOT more that the hardcover print book. I would actually buy an eBook reader and eBooks if they were cheaper than what I can get the real books for on Amazon.

Work with me eBook industry!!

[whatevas @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:20AM]

White?

They changed the color of prs 500 (which i own) to dark purple from the white of 'Libre' and I thought it was a great decision because the ease on eyes (less reflected light -> larger pupils -> better for low light reading) even thought that color made it much less good looking.

Now they are going back to white? Completely ignoring ergonomics for marketing reasons?

[Z @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:40AM]

Hey, look! It's Sony's new eBook Reader!


BFD.

[sishaw @ Oct 2nd 2007 7:41AM]

$300? They need to get the price down, maybe by selling this thing as part of a discounted bundle with a bunch of e-books, or a newspaper or magazine subscription. They also need to drastically lower the cost of their e-books, which are nearly as expensive as their paper counterparts. And the paper ones won't vanish upon exposure to a strong magnetic field.

[Nathan @ Oct 2nd 2007 10:51AM]

Late 90s? "Joey" was a hit for them in 1990.

[Faulk_Wulf @ Oct 2nd 2007 12:03PM]

I've read about E-paper. That will be cool. Along with rollable/foldable monitors.

But what's the point of this thing?
Alternatives for the same price, or more for your money include:
Then entire UMPC/MID market (Archos 705 for example)
7" Laptops (HTC's Shift)
iPod/iPhone
Various Cellphones (Sidekick)

What else? Oh yeah...
REAL PAPER BOOKS!

*rolls eyes*

Wake me if they revamp the aesthetics of this thing (its fugly), get a better UI, support common formats (PDF, TXT, DOC, RTF, maybe even HTML), COLOR (even just 256), and someone produces cheap manga/graphic novels for it, or finds a deal on a bunch of Dean Koontz eBooks.

$300 might be justifiable when they fix this product. But for now its just a niche product for the early adopters. Any Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or Apple fan boy can tell you what its like to be an early adopter....

[Jordan @ Oct 2nd 2007 4:04PM]

it supports ALL those formats already

[Thing @ Oct 2nd 2007 9:02PM]

Ok, jump in a 10h flight with any of these LCD devices and a bunch of reports to read before you reach your destination and you will get the point. Even if you have a charger, LCDs are not as easy on the eyes as ePaper and real paper.

I agree $300 is way on the expensive side, but it's a new technology and it will take some time to mature and get cheaper.

[thedude @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:39PM]

I've put off buying an e-book reader for some time now and i will continue to put off buying one ! That is until the prices of the books comes way down - actually what I want is the e-book to come free (or really cheap) in a bundle with the paper book. I will always buy paper books to compliment my ever expanding library but it would be great to have an e-library of all my favorite titles that I can take with me while on the road (including On The Road) I have some hope that the best source of this will be Amazon if they really get into some creative marketing, but their reader if it ever gets released is going to have to be wonderful before I would commit to it.

[john @ Oct 2nd 2007 2:58PM]

I don't get it.
No color, backlight, touch screen.. = no point.

Get a used tablet pc. They are color, portable, run 3rd party apps, and you can edit/markup pdf's on the fly no problem.

For 300! simply no.

[Zheng @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:21PM]

is there a 255 gram tablet pc right now? or do you prefer holding a few pounds for reading?

[john @ Oct 2nd 2007 7:16PM]

255 grams! If weight is your concern just buy the paper-back and send me the the money you saved.
Better yet just send me all your money.

[David @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:54PM]

That's being a little ridiculous.
Zheng makes a good comment, that 255gr weight is going to be a big plus over a laptop, and you come back with a stupid comment like that?

Fact is, holding several books in a device that has the weight of one book is the attraction here. Most people don't buy laptops to read books on, that's what this is for, nothing more nothing less. I ordered one of these as I too thought that a tablet PC would be great to read e-books with, but the weight and size is just ridiculous.

[john @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:56PM]

@David

Have you checked lately? Tablet pcs are very light and you should have no problem holding them to read for any length of time. Unless of course you have girlish arms and possess no sign of any masculine physical qualities because even a 10 year old girl could use a tablet pc these days without trouble.

Since you apparently ordered one of these you are no doubt a very girlish "male" indeed.

Also - laptop? Noone even mentioned laptops you moron.
You're last sentence doesn't even make sense.

Please don't make stupid & girlie responses with your obviously girlish fingers & go back to reading your harlequin romance novels

You should also give me all your money.

[ptrader @ Oct 2nd 2007 5:43PM]

I've been thinking about getting one. Why? I'm going to be traveling in a few months and quite frankly, as much as I love paper books, it's not practical for me to haul a dozen along on a two week trip. And that's how many I'd read.

I could read on my Tablet PC - but the battery life on it is significantly shorter than this device. Plus my TPC is heavy and HOT. And the ereader can be read outdoors, my TPC can't.

I could use my smartphone - except then I'm killing the battery on it so it's dead when I need it. Plus, having just read a 460 page manuscript on it, it wasn't the most comfortable experience I've had.

My main gripe is not the price of books - because it's not fair to the author or the publishing company to expect them to provide you the fruits of their labor for free or even at hugely reduced prices (its not like it doesn't cost them money to create books, after all). It's DRM and the inability of the consumer to use a book in a format that works for them.

For example, if I buy a book from Sony Connect, I'm tied to reading it on their ereader. If I buy a Secure PDF from Fictionwise, I can't read it on the ereader. I can't open a ereader.com .pdb file except on a computer or WM device.

But I expect someday, someone will figure it out.

[Fzzt @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:03PM]

In response to there not being enough DRM free books available : http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
3 million DRM free books.

Please read this before commenting that it needs a backlight : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper

I believe the special offer only applied if you activated your Sony Credit Card by Sep 30th.

Remember e-ink is in its infancy and we're really only a couple generations into the technology.
Try to remember these are e-readers for displaying preformatted text, not tablet computers.

[Fzzt @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:15PM]

Woops, I misquoted Project Gutenberg

There are 20,000 books available.

[Timothy Dixon @ Oct 2nd 2007 6:59PM]

This was released on sonystyle.com today for $299 + tax, free overnight delivery.