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Sony PRS thread - Burning Kindling at an alarming rate
Dissociater
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
OK, inflammatory headline (pun intended) aside (I've never used a Kindle, I'm sure it's a fantastic piece of tech), this is a thread for those of us who went and got the Sony version: PRS. I went back a few pages, but only saw a thread on the Amazon Kindle.
I just got mine this weekend, and I've gotta say, the thing pays for itself so far.
Info:
Ok, all features aside, I got this on the weekend, and so far I really like it. I probably would have been well advised to do some hard product comparisons between the PRS-505 and the Amazon Kindle, but I'm not disappointed in my purchase. The one big thing the Kindle seems to have over the PRS is wireless online book purchasing, whereas the PRS has to be loaded via USB cable from your PC through a program that works a lot like iTunes. But it does come $50 cheaper than the Kindle.
I just got mine this weekend, and I've gotta say, the thing pays for itself so far.
Info:
- Much like the Amazon Kindle, the Sony PRS (the latest version is the 505) uses e-ink to create a non-backlit readable surface that looks a lot like ink on paper and is easy on the eyes.
- It only uses battery power when you turn the page, if you leave the PRS-505 on without turning the page it doesn't use any power. One charge is enough to turn the page 7500 times.
- Internal memory holds around 160 standard size books, it also has pro-duo and SD slots to expand the memory size, making it virtually unlimited.
- built in crappy mp3 player. Yes the PRS-505 plays MP3s, but it doesn't give you any playlist options, and it keeps running until you tell it to stop, draining the battery rather quickly. Still a neat feature for subway trips.
- supported formats: Unsecured Text: BBeB Book, TXT, RTF, Adobe® PDF4, Microsoft® Word (Conversion to the Reader-requires Word installed on your PC) DRM
Text: BBeB Book (Marlin)
- Unsecured Audio: MP3 and AAC
Image: JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP
If you register the PRS-505 before september 30, you get 100 ebook classics for free. A lot of these are books most of us might not read, but if you were to consider the cost of these books in hardcopy from a store, the price would be much higher than the price of the PRS. The thing practically pays for itself!
The eBook Store from Sony also has a pretty decent collection of books.
- It only uses battery power when you turn the page, if you leave the PRS-505 on without turning the page it doesn't use any power. One charge is enough to turn the page 7500 times.
- Internal memory holds around 160 standard size books, it also has pro-duo and SD slots to expand the memory size, making it virtually unlimited.
- built in crappy mp3 player. Yes the PRS-505 plays MP3s, but it doesn't give you any playlist options, and it keeps running until you tell it to stop, draining the battery rather quickly. Still a neat feature for subway trips.
- supported formats: Unsecured Text: BBeB Book, TXT, RTF, Adobe® PDF4, Microsoft® Word (Conversion to the Reader-requires Word installed on your PC) DRM
Text: BBeB Book (Marlin)
- Unsecured Audio: MP3 and AAC
Image: JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP
If you register the PRS-505 before september 30, you get 100 ebook classics for free. A lot of these are books most of us might not read, but if you were to consider the cost of these books in hardcopy from a store, the price would be much higher than the price of the PRS. The thing practically pays for itself!
The eBook Store from Sony also has a pretty decent collection of books.
Ok, all features aside, I got this on the weekend, and so far I really like it. I probably would have been well advised to do some hard product comparisons between the PRS-505 and the Amazon Kindle, but I'm not disappointed in my purchase. The one big thing the Kindle seems to have over the PRS is wireless online book purchasing, whereas the PRS has to be loaded via USB cable from your PC through a program that works a lot like iTunes. But it does come $50 cheaper than the Kindle.
Dissociater on
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The nice thing is that, unlike blu-ray vs hd-dvd, even if Kindle wins the "e-reader wars" (if such a thing exists), the PRS will still be relevant just because it can still read all those file formats like txt, pdf, etc.
As far as the UK goes, I'm not sure if it exists there yet. I live in Canada, and as far as I know, it just got released here.
Then you have drm free files that convert and read fine on the prs-505 with calibre, and you've even saved a little bit of money.
(granted theres a couple more steps involved than buying straight from sony, but if you hate DRM has much as I do its a small price to pay)
edit: also, Calibre is imo a must have program for the prs-505, it's an alternative ebook library program that very easily converts pretty much any drm-free files (html, pdf, .lit ,mobi) to the PRS-505's format and transfers them to the device.
So far I really like the prs-505.
Blank, with the new firmware update that means in addition to the sony store it can also read DRM'd pdfs without a problem. Off the top of my head ebooks.com, diesel ebooks (diesel-ebooks.com) and fictionwise (fictionwise.com) all sell DRM'd pdfs, although i'm pretty sure virtually every online ebook store does.
As I mentioned above its also very easy (roughly 4 minutes of work, with GUI all the way) to convert DRM'd microsoft reader (.lit) files to the sony format, and .lit is also available almost everywhere.
I must say even though its not really used yet, the epub support really excites me, most people expect it to become the next big thing/most supported format, time to update my firmware.
Thanks for the links. I'm going through my Amazon wish list right now and trying to get a feeling for how much money I can save with one of these. I'm also looking at http://manybooks.net and finding a lot of my wish list books (classics) are available for free (legally).
I saw what I assume is the newest Sony reader at the Sony Store the other day (I think they are new in Canada) and I was very impressed. The page turn flash is a bit annoying, but I love how thin and small it is. I really hope Kindle comes to Canada though so that we can at least have some choice.
The way I figured it, it's an especially good deal in Canada. Most American PAers might not know this, but since the Canadian Dollar has been floating around parity with the USD for a while, many of us book readers have expected the price of books to be generally the same in Canada as it is in the US.
But all too often we see books with the following printed on the barcode:
U.S. $10.99
Canada $18.99
That's no joke.
Hardcover are even more out of control.
Being able to buy these books online saves a lot of money over time, in my estimation.
Edit: Also, as I pointed out in the OP, if you register the PRS-505 online with the sony bookstore before sept 30, you get 100 free ebook classics. The list is here: http://ebookstore.sony.com/specials/sonyclassics/index.html
*Edit* Wow, not to mention there are tons of nostalgia titles in that 100 and on the site... this is literary heaven.
Steam, PSN, XBL, Xfire and everything else JamesDM
Most (all?) of the 100 free books offered are available under creative commons licenses (Project Gutenberg and places that repackage Gutenberg materials) so there's no need to rush into buying the Reader for those books. Check out manybooks.net (a legal source for eBooks) for more classics available for the Reader.
Wife and I love our readers. We both read a lot of books a year, and by my calculations, the savings over regular chapters prices have more than payed for both our sony's after only 8 months. (we are in Canada, and as was mentioned earlier, we get hosed on book pricing here, purchasing from booksonboard.com in usd is awesome)
I'm going to have to check out booksonboard.com Thanks for the link.