More info on the Sony Reader PRS-505's E Ink display
By Ryan Block 
posted Oct 14th 2007 2:14PM
posted Oct 14th 2007 2:14PM
- According to E Ink, this Vizplex chemistry is ~20% brighter than the 500. "You can see it best on the black and white menus compared to the old 500 which are twice as fast."
- Page turns are only a little faster, though; Sony said something like ~20% (but our unit seems like it might be even faster than that). Because...
- When out of the menus and in text-reading mode, most of the new E Ink chemistry's horsepower goes into the reduction of ghosting (a bit of a problem on the 500) and the 8 grayscale levels (doubled over the 500's 4 levels).
- Contrast is also ~20% improved. "The contrast level is better than a newspaper, on par with a book, and a bit below a magazine."
This review is terrible. Try making complete sentences and actually test driving a product before reviewing it.
cool I was thinking about getting one of the first gen ones but I think i will wait for this one
This is 3rd gen.
This is a much less biased and legit review than the previous article that posed some outlandish comments. To sum it up, the 505 is the next-gen for eInk but only ups the notch by about a 20% over-all improvement. The rest of the difference between the 500 and 505 lie in cosmetic improvements that you may or may not like.
Much less biased article, I like it!
It launched on October 1st, robogeek, so there's nothing to wait for. :)
Wow, that looks really readable. Its the first time I've seen it up close.
You think they can make it a bit Tablet PC like? I mean with WiFi for browsing the company intranet and its PDF docos or medical records and some rudimentary touchscreen capability for filling in forms (or crosswords?)
Also with a lot of things improved by 20%, maybe they can reduce the price 20% as well?
I think usually when performance goes up, price goes up as well. But we can dream, can't we?
They did reduce the price from the last gen by 50 smackers.
I'm impressed. I'd like to get one of this but I miss a good online BookStore (good != drm).
I mean, hey Sony, take my money, just remove that DRM-Crap (I already use iTunesStore for buying music, but only drm-free).
i agree, you can only read sony format, it will be great to just upload any txt,pdf,doc, etc.... file into it.
but no!, you have to pay sony regular price for a e-book that you can ONLY read in that machine that cost like 500$
So go to www.fictionwise.com - they sell e-books for the Sony Reader without DRM.
I don't know of a drm-less ebook _store_, but if you like txt or rtf off of the torrents, this'll do that.
You can open lots of different files on this (PDF, RTF, .doc, HTML), not just Sony ones.
Just go to Gutenberg.org for tons of free ebook.
Baen Books has a large library of Sci-Fi and Fantasy books available without any DRM. Baen.com
Fictionwise.com has a lot of their books available without DRM.
The Reader will accept txt, rtf, pdf, doc, and lrf files. Just dump the file on a memory card, stick it in the device and start reading.
anyone know how readable non-sony formats are on it? i.e. page lengths not quite lining up, stuff like that
People should stop crying about DRM with the Reader, it's easy to get around this issue with a little research. The easiest way to get books you want onto the device without paying Sony's rediculously over-priced figures is to get the LIT version, remove the DRM (easily done with convert-LIT), throw it into BookDesigner, and voila! there's your DRM-free ebook ready for the Reader at a fraction of the cost!
These devises would appeal to a larger group if you made it wifi and could get newspaper/magazine subscriptions...
How about a high-res close up?
oh wait, i just found the gallery =-p
I'd just like to remind everybody that for what this device does it's terribly overpriced. And all you're paying for is eink, very little innovation. I recommend anyone thinking about buying one to look very carefully at the specs and consider all the things it doesn't do and how much you're paying for it.
And what do you suggest as a suitable alternative? Something that does more, yet costs less?
Mr Obvious! Long time no see!
Right, and I already have about 50 things I can read e-books on, but do I? no... it's because of the terrible screens, poor battery life, etc...
I thought the first one was only ok, not enough to buy it but I may pick one of these up... It's much better than trying to read e-books on my pda-phone... Plus I can use the pda phone to download the e-book to SD then transfer it.
Please, go and check the iLiad and compare the loading times, the contrast, the formats, the storage, (don't consider Wi-Fi), and overall, the price. Now, tell me which one is overpriced.
@john, this isn't supposed to be a review, only an article highlighting a few new features.
Whether something is overpriced or not is a personal decision based on one's income and financial obligations. Please stop making this argument about things, people.
Just got finished looking at one... very impressed. I loved the Asperger's Syndrome excerpt on it (I have Asperger's). Very clear and easy to read. Love the E-Ink. As much as I would like to buy it, it's too expensive for me. So instead, I am getting ready to run to Border's and buy the "actual" book.
sex.
Worst review ever... Its for reading BOOKS which are 99% black and white anyway! No point in a color display. That would make it look like a laptop screen (since it would be LCD more than likely) and I dont know about the rest of you but trying to read a book on a laptop screen really hurts my head and eyes after a short while...
Wake me up when this is in color.
Can't get out of bed for anything but picture books?
Some of us don't read fiction, and focus on the more serious stuff- like Cell, Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine.
lol you're a pair or regular Einstein's aren't ya..
Wow Seung-Hwan, you must be really smart to list all those titles! I'm impressed!
Well I guess you're easily impressed.
Those journals I mentioned may be a bit sophisticated for those with elementary school literacy level, but they're not exactly inscrutable either.
Color is absolutely for reading journal articles and so is a larger size- something with at least letter sized screen.
All i want is the ability to read .lit files. until it can do that I would never buy a ebook reader
I actually need need an ebook reader to go with all my torrents. I just figured out how to get .lit files on my mac to read. Can this ebook reader read all .txt,.pdf and .lit files? Also, does anyone know how much memory you can get on something like this? (sorry i didnt read the article just askng in general) I would like an dedicated ebook reader with at least 10gb of hard drive space.
it has an sd slot. so you can add however much you need john.
It can read pdf (although the 500 didn't do it well), rtf, and txt. lit is a MS proprietary format.
kenpo--
do you know of a way to conver my .lit (i use maclit) to a pdf format? Or, do I have to do it manually by selecting all the text and copying it into a .txt? I thank you again kenpo...your the friggin man....also, it could be pricey to use those expansions but this does seem like a real winer of a product
How do you expect to read books if you can't read the article?
har har har
What you do is go to http://www.mobileread.com and go tot he forum and then the Sony Reader developers section ot find the thread on Librps500 or html2lrf or lit2lrf and you can find the link to the website for libprs500 and there is a MAC version. lit2lrf will effortlessly convert lit files to LRF no hassle.
iRex iLiad has both wifi (and ethernet) and a touchscreen, and also a bigger screen (8" vs 6" of the Sony), but the price is more than double...
WTF?!
is sony obsessed with 20%?!
20% brighter
20% more contrast
20% faster
now heres the kicker
old one is selling for 20% off!!!! $280 compared to $350
Everyone seems to dislike it without using one...I've had both new and old versions now and am thrilled with it. My next ten novels are with me where ever i go. I'd rather carry this around than a single hardcover book. The charge lasting weeks is great. If you read novels/book constantly, a few hours a day, this is a great thing to have with you. If you don't read for enjoyment, then it doesn't matter, you won't see the point.
I'll wait for them to drop down to $100.
Saw one at Borders yesterday. Display is a little slow, but "fast enough" - what's distracting is the way all the text sort of pixelates away and the new fades in.
The page turning buttons on the right side are also upside down. The top button goes to the next page and the bottom one goes to the previous. It would have made a lot more sense that up was back/previous and down was next.
The biggest gripe? This thing has far too much metallic bezel real-estate and not enough screen. They really need to consider how they've implemented the direction pads at the bottom as they're taking up way too much area that needs to be dedicated to screen. All four edges need to be thinned out in favor of increasing the e-ink display size.
I also think it has too many buttons.