Anyone need a cover for one of these? I got one in the recent Bandolier of Carrots… send me a message at my name at the G place!
This is highly regarded as one of the better readers out there. HERE is the Wiki.
Sony replaced this with the PRS-650 that has the new eInk Pearl like the Kindle does now.
This WILL NOT read Amazon’s proprietary AZW format. Don’t fear though, check out Google Books instead.
Other nice features are full PDF support with tagging/highlighting and notes, plus full search ability throughout the PDF. It also supports MS Word natively.
Don’t forget, besides the official Sony Reader store, you can also buy books for this from the new Google eBookstore. No conversion software required.
If that’s a cover for the Pocket Reader, which lots of Wooters got, it won’t fit this model.
Good devices overall. I’ve had Sony readers since the first one hit the states. Ended up skipping the 700 & 600 series to get the 650. Main issue with these is that they have a thin plastic touch screen over the eink, and that adds some glare and hurts the contrast a bit. Past that, they are good devices with wide format support, and with Calibre (freeware) you can put just about anything on them.
I looked at the Sony, the Kindle, and the Nook when I was trying to decide on a brand 2 weeks ago and I went with a refurbished Nook for $99. The Nook has both wifi and the ability to check out library books. Sony came in 2nd place… and the Kindle was a sad 3rd. Very happy with the Nook though.
Thanks for the info! I’ll probably stick with my ancient RCA REB1200 for now then. It’s a lot bulkier, only has a right-hand page flipper, and uses CF memory. But otherwise it still does the trick for me.
what about a book with paper pages?
Since no one has stated it directly yet, Calibre will let you convert ebook files to and from just about any filetype out there as well as managing the files.
I use it to convert Kindle books so my Nook can read them. It also has the Sony reader as one of it’s standard ebook readers so it should work perfectly.
The display on the new editions is much better, and the touch screen is more responsive. I have the new pocket (5" instead of 6", uses the newer IR camera based touch interface), but found this display to be acceptable. Not as good of a contrast ratio, however.
If you like to read the classics (or anything old), remember Project Gutenberg has a ton of free stuff.
Can someone who owns one of these attest to the font resizing, as in: “Offers you the ability to resize text. Choose from five adjustable font sizes to improve readability”
How good is the zoom, i.e. Would it work for someone with vision problems?
I have this reader and generally love it.
My only real quibble is that I do NOT get anywhere near 7500 page turns on a charge. I’d guess 1500-2000 is more like what I’m actually seeing. This may be related to the fact that my most used files are page-imaged PDF (the texts aren’t yet available in ePub). I can’t adjust text size on these page-image PDFs, which only makes sense, but is frustrating at times. Changing the orientation to landscape does zoom in somewhat, though.
Page turns are slower than I would like, especially in the PDF files, and are usually accompanied by the screen flashing once or twice before finally staying. That’s why I think that file format may be related to my reduced page turn capacity.
You cannot import .mobi files to this. I have not had any success in converting .mobi to .epub thanks to DRM locks that I haven’t yet been able to crack.
I love having both the handwriting and text note options. I haven’t had a reason to play with the annotation functions since I can’t highlight text on a page-image PDF.
A book!
…Or a zebra with chicken pox!
Not safe if you work in an environment over 451 Fahrenheit.
I’ve had mine a while with no screen glitches. One thing to note, this unit does not support unicode/international, though some websites might help if you need Cyrillic or such. Also, Calibre does a fantastic job of converting to the EPUB open ebook standard, which this device reads quite well (as opposed to unnamed other devices).
I also have to say, Calibre is amazing for eReaders.
I own a nook, and use Calibre for a lot of my non-B&N book management. It stores files, it can convert file formats (so if you find an unsupported format, just convert it to an ePub!), and it even supports RSS scrapes and converts.
So you can set your daily news (or Bible readings, or whatever) to download in the night while it’s charging, and then read your daily news on your eReader. News and breakfast, the modern way.
Jessica, on an .epub file, the text zoom is AMAZING. The smallest font size yields text at about 6 lines per inch. At the largest setting, letters are nearly a half-inch tall EACH, I see 8 lines of text per screen at the largest setting, with only 2-5 words per line depending on the words.