Specifications
Model:
Sony Portable Reader System PRS-500 (also often referred to as the Sony Reader)
Price:
$299.99
Manufacturer:
Sony Customer Support Number (for Reader and Connect Store): 1-866-919-SONY (7669)
eBook Customer Support Team: 877-CNECTME (877-263-2863)
Technical specs:
- CPU: Motorola Dragonball MXL
- 64MB RAM
- Operating System: MontaVista Hard Hat Linux 2.4.17
- 6″ 800×600 4 grayscale e-paper (E Ink) screen
- SD/MMC/Memory Stick slot (compatible to FAT/FAT32, SanDisk and Lexar cards are reported to work fine)
- 3.5mm stereo audio jack (audio output)
- USB 1.1 (Type A)
- Battery: Li-ion, not customer changeable
Supported formats:
- Currently: BBeB, PDF, TXT, RTF, JPG, PNG, MP3, AAC
General Details
Ups:
- Long battery life: specs: 7′500 pages, in real-life: >20hrs
- Thanks to e-paper screen is as readable outdoors as it is indoors.
- Resolution: 167dpi
- Open-source operating system (Linux)
- >10,000 books available in Sony’s Connect Store. The books are only available to U.S. customers.
Downs:
- The refresh betweens screens is quite slow (current limitation of the E Ink technology)
- Specs for the BBeB format still unreleased
- Resolution not high enough to display smaller fonts. Business books with charts and graphs do not display clearly due to resolution.
- PDF Files that are not created to be sized to the Reader’s display are scaled down to fit, often making them, for practical purposes illegible.
3 responses so far ↓
tjinn // January 10, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Do you find the reader makes that much of a difference? I’ve always just used whatever my current palm pilot or phone is and never had a problem. Why should I pay more than a palm pilot cost to get something that basically does one thing instead of dozens?
thebookplanet // January 11, 2008 at 12:12 pm
@tjinn, well, it depends on how much use do you have for the device. i have a 3 hour daily commute each day, which is spent nicely on the reader. Phone reading never really appealed to me, as the amount of text that gets shown per page is quite lesser compared to a Reader. Infact, the reader is a letdown compared to my Notebook, which i used for reading earlier
doot // January 13, 2008 at 11:34 am
i think its a big difference, however initially the experience made me feel like back in the monochrome palm days. currently i own a treo 600 and 650 both with color displays, and the latter with a bright screen.
the comparison to reading to on the palms in my opinion is stark. reading on the sony (i own a prs500) is much more enjoyable and easy on the eyes. definitely worth what i paid for the device and more (CHEAP on ebay!)
again, the downsides are the fairly slow refresh times, issues when too many books loaded on the device or large files, and a slight ghosting of the previous page in some instances. if you look closely you can see an outline of the previous page. apparently this is simply normal operation for the 1st consumer gen e-ink technology. this issue is not to be overblown, because it is hardly noticable while reading in my experiences.
while the phone can be convenient for all in one applications, the reader is really worth its cost if you read frequently. its form factor is surprisingly thin and light, you simply cant grasp this from images online. it ships with a very nice snap on case that can fit anywhere. having this as a dedicated reading/audiobook/quick image viewer is slick. plus with sd compatibility you can load up the sd card you already use in your phone, and move your content around freely.
buy one! hehe