New Sony Reader gets a 'light fondle' and approval from Mike Cane

Moderator’s note: Mike Cane is a New York writer and fellow e-book nut from whom we hope to hear a lot more. Here’s a just-received e-mail reproduced with his permission. Mike’s not the traveler in the PR shot. But, yes, we’d welcome reports on how the Sony Reader works in Real Life in various lighting situations aboard jets, trains, etc.—both the new and old models of the Sony. Need to carry a book light? – DR

I did a light fondle of the new model of the Sony Reader, the PRS-505, at Sony Style NYC. Luckily, they also had one of the old model next to it, so I could do a side-by-side comparison.

The new E Ink is a shade or two lighter than the old one. I really couldn’t see just how gray the original E Ink was until I could compare it to this new one. The new one isn’t exactly white, either, but it is an improvement. The additional shades of gray are really noticeable with the three sample photos. The same samples are used on both models. There’s more detail to see in both the family and the staircase photos. And the baby photo is stark in how the additional grayscale brings out the “blueness” of the baby’s eyes.

Faster paging

As far as speed, I didn’t see any difference between models, not with building the photos (I had the units next to each other and hit the Next button simultaneously to move through the photos) or with page turns/refreshes. I don’t know if this is due the to same CPU being used (is it?) or if it’s a built-in limitation of E Ink itself. That said, the refresh when moving between pages on the new model is far less annoying than the original model.

The new model now has two cards slots (on top) instead of one combined slot (on the left side). The numbered buttons are now on the right edge, which I guess focus groups stated made more intuitive sense. What worried me seeing that came to fruition, though: if you plop the Reader in a tight bag, forgetting to turn it off, those buttons are pressed by the edge of the (p)leather cover! The cover has two wee magnets on their far top corners to make them sticky to the unit. No magnets on the bottom corners, which makes things feel asymmetric.

Go for the silver

One other thing about the buttons being moved to the side: it’s now possible to hold the Reader in the right hand alone to use it. That wasn’t possible before, since the Next/Prior Page buttons were on the left edge.

The Sony Reader comes in two colors: black(ish) and silver. Go for the silver. For some reason, the silver makes the E Ink seem brighter. I know that seems counter-intuitive, but that’s what I saw for myself.

Minimalist design

The design of the units are nearly minimalist. Almost anti-design. I’m not fond of their boxiness. They have a sterile aspect to them—which will only give additional ammunition to the anti-e-book maniacs. I prefer rounded corners of the original. It just seemed friendly. Also, the (p)leather cover juts about a half inch past the edge of the units. I don’t know why. I’m not fond of that, either. The covers are now attached with proper swivel from the unit’s spine, rather than that weird back-of-unit arrangement of the original.

The black(ish) one comes with a black cover. The silver comes with a brown cover. I hope Sony will allow people to buy other colors. I hate that brown cover! I’d rather have black.

I don’t know anything about what the new (?) dock looks like. Sony Style had these on wooden stands. Only the old model was seated in a dock.

Love the compactness, hate the e-book prices

I still like the Reader. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve kept up with it, so I don’t know what miracles hackrrz have done with it. I just know, lugging around two printed books, one of which is the fekkin latest William Gibson which is big and heavy, it’d be a great alternative for me. But, man, those e-book prices have to drop. I mean, they should be like five dollars, tops. Really. Sony is basically asking me to risk my money on a locked-up file format that might go away, making my purchases worthless and me left feeling like a sucker. (I don’t know if the BBeB DRM has been cracked or if Sony made any changes to the OS, DRM, or BeBB with these new models. I’d be more inclined to buy one if I knew I could strip away the DRM and, if it came to it, pour the text into another file format should the Reader go away.)

I’m still waiting for e-books to be affordable and near risk-free. I have an entire library of titles I’d purchase. Really, hundreds of books. (I can’t see scanning stuff, although people do. Even with an e-book being, say, $20, it’d take far more than $20 of my own time for scanning, formatting, etc!)

It will be interesting to see what’s in store with the rumored Apple tablet and if that will motivate Apple to enter e-book territory.

Potential profit island for Sony

Everyone should remember that Sony failed with this product in Japan. There was never a second Librie. It’s the Americans of Sony who have made it a success. And now that there’s a new model, I can only think that Sony, at least in America, is serious about continuing it. For all I know, this could be Sony’s rare profitable division! Will the company siphon off Reader profits for this PS3 rev B? But I am being catty…. hah!