Sony's PRS-505 eBook reader now available

You can get it in two flavors here for only $299!

If you wonder what are some of the most important changes between the old and the new reader here is the official answer:


1. The PRS-505 has a new screen that has a faster refresh than the PRS-500's screen and is also a bit lighter. The new screen also supports 8 shades of gray vs. 4 on the PRS-500.

2. The User interface is much improved with:

* Page turn buttons moved the right side of the Reader
* The Numerical numbers now match up against the screen so when menus are displayed the appropriate button is to the right of the entry.
* The Menu key is now by itself and clearly marked
* The Jog stick is gone replace with four way arrow buttons and a center enter button.

3. Books have become easier to search as there are now tools that sort the books into alphabetical groupings for Titles or Authors.

4. The PRS-500 had a single storage media slot that could handle both SD or Memory Sticks. These cards could support either 2GB (SD) or 4GB (MS) for a maximum external storage of up to 4GB. The PRS-505 has two slots in parallel that allow for SD and Memory Stick Duo cards. These cards can support up to 2GB (SD) and 8GB (Memory Stick Duo). Because there are two separate slots the total amount of external storage the PRS-505 can support is up to 10GB.

5. The USB functionality is much improved

* The PRS-505 supports the USB 2.0 standards which allow for faster transfer of data.
* The PRS-505 can be charged when the battery is empty from the USB port of almost any PC even if there is no software loaded on it. The PRS-500 needed to be plugged into a PC running pre-installed software before it can charge and even then it could not charge if the internal Reader's battery was dead.
* The PRS-505 works as a mass storage device so you can plug it right into your PC and transfer unsecured files without the need of eBook Library software.

6. The Connect Reader software is being replaced with "eBook Library v 2.0" which does look and work much like the older software. The only noticeable difference is that with a PRS-505 the new software can use a new Auto-sync feature. Please note that the PRS-505 cannot work with the older Connect Reader software.

With a compact and lightweight design you can take the Reader Digital Book almost anywhere. And with plenty of internal memory9 and a slot for optional removable memory cards, you can take hundreds of titles, user-selected Web content or other supported documents for reading on the go5. It will hold approximately 160 averaged sized eBooks in internal memory4 and hundreds more with optional removable memory cards.