New Sony Reader

sony will soon replace the PRS-500 reader with an updated model, the PRS-505 (this probably was the main reason for the desperate ads in july/august). but as it turns out, the most radical change of the device seems to be the color: silver rather than black. other than that, it has undergone only very minor overhauls (at least no more duplicated navigation buttons), and it sports the exact same mindset of building a device that is as limited as possible.

well, there is one other notable improvement: the PRS-505 uses the newer generation of e-ink's electronic ink display, which means a whiter background, higher contrast, and 8 gray levels instead of 4 (i complained about the older-generation display when i bought the PRS-500 back in june). the better display means better anti-aliasing, which should improve the legibility quite a bit. it would be interesting to compare the two models side-by-side and see the difference between the display generations.

Comments

[dret]

actually, the duplicated navigation buttons are still there, they only have migrated from one side of the display to the other. so now they are at least a bit farther apart (and available to the left as well as the right hand, if you hold the device with both hands), which makes them appear a little less redundant than on the PRS-505...

[dret]

this is just too good to not include it here. this is what sony (this is from the reader product page on the sony web page) sees as the most dramatic improvements of their new product. read, enjoy (i did not change anything!), and judge for yourself:

# 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.

from the same page there is one good thing to note, though, and this is that it is now possible to simply use the reader as a USB drive, without the need to use the Connect software as the only means to transfer data to and from the reader.