Sony PRS-500 Portable Reader System

3 Responses to “Sony PRS-500 Portable Reader System”

1. Kelsey Stroze, on February 7th, 2010 at 7:56 am Said:

   Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RFS0L4JA6IEHT Broken Sony Reader-after 3 months
   
   DON’T BUY!
   
   I’m 15 years old, it dropped from about 3 feet, and the screen is broken, although no outside damage is evident. The battery, which was fully charged, now does not even hold a charge for more than 30 seconds. Customer service was no help, saying it would cost $270 to repair it, even with the 1 year warranty it is still under, and $270 to replace it for a refurbished one. I only paid $250 for a new one, so why would i want a old one especially when i know it breaks so easily?
   
   sony has really dropped the ball on this one, and i hope they loose money on it, and i hope the kindle does so much better-amazon’s customer service/warranty must be better, because the way sony treats their customers is shameful
   Rating: 1 / 5

2. Agustina A. Ayers, on February 7th, 2010 at 9:58 am Said:

   I am looking forward to purchasing an eReader for myself and started thinking about my daughter who absolutely loves to read. Her love for books is nothing like I’ve ever seen.
   
   First, let me say I use the word “read” losely as she’s almost 2 yrs old. But she is a mature reader – she no longer wants to be read books that read like “pup, cup” “pup in cup”, “cup on pup”, she wants stories like “The Cat In The Hat” and “And To Think I saw It on Mulberry Street”. I am always buying books. We spend weekends in the childrens section of Borders and Barnes & Nobles.
   
   At school the teacher says she’ll go to the book section of the room, take the books to the overstuffed chair in the corner and start reading (flipping through the books, pointing at the pictures and identifying the items to herself). At home she is always wanting to sit in my lap and have me read her book after book (sometimes up to 15 childrens books a night). It’s a fight at at times to make her understand she can’t stay up all night and read.
   
   With that I started thinking about how to continue encouraging her love for reading but not have to carry around pounds of books, especially when we travel (flying is the worse). I thought the Sony eReader would be perfect (USB sync, light weight, small, ink like pages, etc) but I see that they don’t have a category for childrens books only juevenile reading.

   Needless to say I was disappointed. I think this is an untapped market. I have decided to wait for one of the top 5 eReaders to provide childrens books. I love techi things and my daughter has all the techi toys/gadgets/games I can buy her. Apple has PC games for children, maybe they’ll be the first to gear an eReader towards children. I believe that in this age of technology (that I love so much) we (adults and children both) are moving away from reading (despite the Harry Potter books). I want to encourage her to read more books and I think an eReader would be a great way to do that – in the car, on a train, a plane and at the park on a picninc blanket.
   
   I hope to see something geared towards children soon. I don’t believe I am the only parent out there that would purchase this for their child. Note to eReader manufacturers: So many kids watch DVD’s on their portable DVD players…… their parents bought all those DVD’s and DVD players.

   A parent of the RIF era trying to teach her daughter new age RIF

   Rating: 2 / 5

3. C. Langton, on February 7th, 2010 at 10:57 am Said:

   First the best part: the screen is wonderful. Ok, It is not exactly ideal because it has a drab blue gray tinge to it but it is readable in all lights. Very readable.

   Now for the detractions.

   The pages have an annoying flash when you either turn the page or want to go to the menu. The page first goes into a reverse color mode, white on black and then back to the new page. At first I thought I was doing something wrong. May be I was pushing the buttons too fast. But no, this is a “feature.” I found this flashing unpleasant. The page turn is also slower than what feels right.

   There are two sets of page turn buttons; the round thing on the left and the two tiny button on the left side. Two ways to turn a page, and both on the left. The margin buttons are rough, very small and useless. I never used them and could not figure out why they are there in the gutter. If you are holding the book upright, you have to take your hands off the bottom of the book hit one of these buttons. Why these buttons are there I can not figure out. If they are for left-handed people, then why is the other page-turn button also on the left?

   The other page turning button is the big round button. Instead of being a straight-forward right-left orientation for turning pages, the button presses at 60 degrees (for forward) and 240 degrees (for backward). It may not be clear from the picture but this button is concave down and that feels strange. Not because of this angular oddness, but because it is not a satisfying button-clicking sensation. The button just kinda floats there ambiguously and you have a feeling that you ought be able do more with it.

   Then on the right, is a tiny joy-stick like thing. It has a pressable they will take you someplace. But believe it or not, only two of those directions actually work. The ring is so close to the joy-sticky thing that most of the time, you wont press the right thing.

   The navigation is confusing. There is no HOME button that will take you back to your main menu, the one with all your books etc., like do the iPhone and PalmPilot. Let’s say you are reading a book, page 300. You now want to read some other book. You press a button marked Mark, and suddenly the round button turns blue. Why, who knows. Then you go to the joy stick and move it around randomly or push aways on the ring (its hard to find even with my slender fingers) which strangely enough may or may not take you back to the menu or to the front of the book. You push a few more times and then inexplicably after a few strange flashes, you are at the main menu. Going anywhere from there is no picnic either. On the right side, there are a bunch of numbered tabs. To get to these tabs, you can either move the joystick downwards or push a bunch of number keys. And some number keys being very close to the other buttons and not so easy to push. All in all a frustrating exercise.

   Then,
   
   since the screen is so good, I wanted to set it on the desk, so I can read it while working. No, you can not set this thing on the desk vertically up and it flops forward from weight or on its side and the back cover is not stiff enough to keep it in place. It falls flat. Now how much effort would it have taken to add a a little tab on the cover so the book would sit upright, or sideways as needed.

   Then here is big problem. One expects that eBooks ought to be no more than what one has to pay for a physical book at Amazon or Costco (where BTW, I bought this unit for $250.) But the prices for eBooks in general are only 20% off retail at the Sony eConnect site. This I found unpalatable and I think that adds to the consternation of an active but frugal reader like me.

   So my assessment: The interface is bad, really bad. You wont enjoy using this machine and you will pay unnecessarily high price for your books at the same time.
   Rating: 3 / 5