Sony Reader PRS-505 Officially Announced
Despite a troubled history, I remain a huge ePaper and eBook reader fan. I have to give Sony credit for pursuing the idea, even though their first "Reader" product didn't quite get the traction they'd hoped. The new PRS-505 model is lighter and smaller than the previous model and supports not only the eBooks available from the Sony Connect store—yes, it's still around for eBooks—but PDF, Word, BBeB eBooks, and "other text file formats." Those other formats include TXT and RTF, although no HTML. The PRS-505 will be recognized as a plain ol' USB Mass Storage Device, too, which should mean easy use with all operating systems.
MobileRead was on the embargoed press call and has more details.
The PRS-505 is available today on the Sony Style store for $300.
Virtual Press Kit [Sony.com]
Previously: Sony Reader ePaper Upgraded, Leaked [BBG]
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When they get below $100 and allow you to install other readers, we'll talk. Otherwise I'd have to repurchase the hundreds of books and stories I've bought from Fictionwise and eReader in PDB or PRC format.
My Palm T|X has a smaller screen, but I can read everything but LITs on it and I get all the other functionality as well, and it still didn't cost me 300 bucks. I'll check back after someone makes a competing one or hacks this one.
Too bad they skipped HTML, that would have been a real help -- one of the biggest missing features on the 500. More sellers support LIT than support PRS, and LIT is easily cracked and converted to HTML. One of the biggest annoyances of the 500 is having to convert books I buy LIT->HTML->RTF.
oops, for "PRS" read "LRF". I get my ridiculous DRM abbreviations wrong sometimes.
Definitely a push in the right direction. In a few more years and incarnations (not to mention quality competition products), I'm betting on HTML and wi-fi, maybe even color and pictures if we're being optimistic. Having google and wikipedia on my very own handheld e-book would be almost* a dream come true.
*For perfection it must come with words "Don't Panic" engraved in large friendly letters on the back and automatic narration courtesy Stephen Fry's voice.
I emailed and asked sony if there was any mac support for this and I received a one word answer. "No". I replied and asked if there would be any for the future. The one word reply: "No".
Oh well. If anybody has a workaround, I'd be interested.
beopenguin, buy a pc already
For the last year I've used ebookwise from ebookwise.com, a sister company of fictionwise. Its $125. If Sony could approach that price and add magazines, newspapers, etc. I'd switch in a nanosecond. I get a lot of books off Gutenburg and Manybooks.net all for free. Others come via P2P mostly stuff that's free anyway or should damn well be. If I download a King story and its good I'll go buy the hardback, if it sucks (and many do these last years) I didn't waste money. And before someone mentions a library the only one near me is an hour away and mostly Romance and Westerns. As for formats a company called Amber Conversion makes several text conversion progs, .lit to html, rtf, doc, etc. is free here http://www.processtext.com/abcpdf.html. PDF to others formats isn't free but cheap.
My 2cents.
Has bought to itself Sony 505, long changed, but after reading reviews was solved and I do not regret. Has come across a site where reviews on Sony are collected.
http://reeed.ru/en.html
Can to whom it is useful.
Really good post, thank you. We get the Sony Reader in the UK in Sept but as usual, more expensive than in the US (£199). In the US you have the Sony eBook store, do you know of any reason why the US eBooks wouldn't work on the UK version of the PRS-505?
I'm assuming it'd work fine but just wanted to know what you thought.