Sony PRS-505 Poll: Did your screen break?

I recently dropped my 505 when getting out of a taxi. It landed pretty hard on the pavement–even bent the bottom of the reader. I was afraid to turn it on because of stories I’ve read about the screens. I was very pleased that the screen still looks and works perfectly. I was able to straighten out the bottom and there is no visible signs of my mishap.

Very pleased with the 505!

dordale 🙂

The PRS505 is pretty new and already 12% of the screens are broken (assuming the results of this poll are to be believed). That’s really bad!

My wife has a 505 for around a year and she is not the most gentle person with electronics. At work we have yet to break the screen of any our 505’s but we are probably a bit gentler with our limited allotment than normal users.

And thanks for the avatars, David, it’s good to be labeled as the corporate stooge^H^H^H^H^H loyal employee that I am 🙂

Jim, stooge away. It’s great to have your informal perspective. – David

Mine broke lying on a table overnight. My 505 was pampered and just broke on it’s own. It was a day or two past the 30 return at the store where I bought it. I sent it in to Sony for repair. They wanted to charge me within $20 of what it originally cost new. I had steam leaking out of my ears for a few days. I decided to try and allow Sony to do the right thing so after they shipped it back I hunted for some help. I finally came across the emails for the Sony Executives and wrote to the head of the BookReader program – Valerie Motis. She had a brand new 505 in my hands within a week. Yay Sony! I recently heard that Steve Gibson (GRC.COM) dropped his 6 month old Kindle and cracked the screen. Amazon was more than happy to replace it quickly. These screen are very fragile.

I just got my new red Sony reader 505 about 3 hours ago. First the software would t work because evwidwntly. Even though it doesn’t say it on the box it doesn’t work with windows vista 64. That was a fun hour of searching for work around. Then I got all excited. Let it charge. Downloaded a few of the free books I got and went off to work. I showed my employees my new toy all excited and opened aesops fables. 3 page turns in the top half of the screen went dead and refused to work no matter what. My friend is onthe way to the Sony store to exchange it now. Hopefully I’ll have better luck this time around. Any one happen to have any ideas what could have caused that if it wasn’t just defective? The only other thing I did was put a pro duo memory card in it but it was brand new and empty.

My screen has a “line” of “defect pixels”. Very sad, don’t know where it came from. Fortunately it’s near the right edge and not too bad.

Also, the Power-On button has jammed once requiring me to open the device to fix it.

Not exactly good quality so far. But hey, it’s a Sony, so it would be rather surprising if they actually cared about quality at all 🙂

I’ve had my 505 for a few months and only used it occasionally. It was simply lying on a table for a short while, and when I picked it up, 15+% of the screen (in the upper left-hand corner) was unreadable. I had a 500 that broke in the same way, but I thought they had cured the problem in the 505. I shan’t be buying another.

I bought the Sony PRS-505 today and on the first day itself, the screen cracked. I bought it from the frys and then kept it to charge..read 2 pages..then left it for charge….and then when I opened it again..the screen had a line in between..Although I can see the page..but it feels like the screen is broken..I will never buy any Sony product again..Their quality sucks..

Mine just broke yesterday. It’s hard to believe how suddenly it fails. I just did normal page flipping and then upper half became blank. Now I’m shipping it to my friend in the US to have it repair/replace (it’s still under ‘in parts’ warranty). Hope that SONY will have good enough after-sale service, not as bad as comments I found in the internet.

Yeah I bought one. It cracked. Sony didnt want to replace it so i bought another…it cracked as well. I will never buy an ebook again.

Can anyone suggest what is the best ebook reader? If they are all crappy like this I will just get me a micro computer for reading my ebooks on. My screen developed an l-shaped blank/black area, and when I turned it off and on to try to get it working now half the screen is blank.

…and now after charging and resetting….nothing.

Had my PRS-505 lying next to my keyboard charging via USB. Forgot about it, and leaned forward to read something on my screen. I put my elbow on the middle of the provided “leather” cover. It was face up, unfortunately, and after putting just the slightest pressure on the unit, I heard the “egg shell crack”.

Screen is shot.

Had my 505 for 5 months. Worked great, I loved it, and bragged about it. This morning, after reading for half an hour, I turned it off, and put it in a cushioned pocked of my backpack (it was in the provided case, as well). 10 minutes later, when I got on the train, I pulled it out to read, and the top right 3rd of the screen is unreadable, there’s a Y-shaped line going across the screen.

I’ve done alot of reading tonight about this, in 20 minutes I found 6 different screenshots of 6 different 505’s with nearly identical blemishes. All the posters said they did nothing, that it was just that way when they turned it on, but Sony refused to cover it, claiming it was the user’s fault.

Had my PRS505 for about 18 months. Picked it up from table today and found top right corner of screen unreadable. Not, as far as I know, due to any stress.

I was going to return my 3rd PRS505 to the store for replacement in less than 14 months (buy a new one, put the old one in the box and return). I guess they caught on and changed the model.

I will not purchase SONY again. This time I will buy the NOOK. They offer ONE FULL YEAR replacement. Sony can kiss my #*(^(

Using the PRS505 as a travel device with etravel books and some scanned content. Was in shoulder bag and no known trauma but top of screen failed. Hopefully someday replacement screens will be available as it was a good unit for traveling.

my PRS505 e-ink screen broke while traveling to europe this may. it was just in my laptop bag. where can i have it repaired? is it still worth the effort to have it serviced? thanks.

I’ve had my 505 for 1.5 years. Across the top the e-ink display has failed which obscures the first 3 lines on any page. I’ve dealt with support – they’re very uninformed and had no solution other than spending $99 to send it in and possibly more $ to repair. There has been no trauma to the reader. Now what? Has anyone replaced their reader? If so, with what brand/model? I’m hesitant to get another Sony product as their software, store and support are the worst.

I’ve had two 505s over 2 years, both had the screen break way too easily, luckily I had bought them quite cheap as returns from the PX, I would never want to pay retail for one of these, hopefully newer models are tougher

PRS-505

Screen failure at 20 months.

Sony not at all interested. Suggest repair that costs almost the same as purchasing new!

Class action lawsuit anyone?

Waterstones (where I bought the 505) were finally persuaded to replace the broken device. It took a ‘fight’ and they initially wanted to send me a ‘used’ one but eventually sent a brand new one instead.

Thumbs-up to Waterstones (but not 100% as they did argue the t*ss) but I’ve already bought a Kindle as a replacement. Half the price, MUCH better pdf handling, greater screen contrast etc etc. If you love ebook readers and are p*ss*d off with Sony, get a Kindle.

any luck with the class action dave.
i was reading , shut it down to eat ,opened it and the screen has
section in the top right that looks like a failure to the E ink.
27 months old .
i was very impressed with my reader , so much so that i bought the wife one .

My sony broke it was in its case and it broke when i toke it out i don’t know what i should do… if one of you guys could help me it would be grreat.

Hi, Does anyone know the average price of fixing one of the PRS-505 screens in pounds maybe? Plus is there anywhere that it can be repaired except Sony?

The failure rates doesn’t look too good for them, factored in with how easily eInk screens are susceptible to breaking and the high price of fixing or replacing them 🙁

Thought I’d throw in my story as well. Have a 505, it has worked great for about two years and then yesterday for no reason- upper right corner of screen is blanked. Pretty crappy, since I took good care of this unit. Instead of dropping another couple hundred dollars, I might go back to using ole fashioned books from a used book store/online.

I’ve had the 300 for a little over two years now and last night I noticed a tiny crack in the screen. It’s still readable, but depending on the page it covers up a few letters. It’s had a good life, but if this crack gets bigger or something else goes wrong I’m not sure I’d get another sony.

Same as for several others – screen at top right failed between uses. Stored safely in case and subjected to no trauma.

I bought my first PRS505 in June 2008 in Montreal, I placed a special order at the Sony Store because the language law disallowed the direct sale of a product that didn’t come with French manuals/packaging.

I babied it and the screen broke in September 2008. Back then I didn’t even know that the screen was broken, I thought it was an internal fault because my unit had never suffered any trauma and it died on my desk overnight while plugged to my computer… Called customer support and they got away with me paying them $30 to get it replaced for a brand new Reader.
I seldom used it because it was so slow, but it remained a cherished possession.

Then one day in July 2009 I had the same problem! I thought that maybe it died because of LACK OF USE that had made the screen “stick”, I called Sony and it was now out of warranty. I swear never to buy another Reader again.
I guess the only reason they were so popular was because they came out before the iPad!!! I could have bought an iPad with the money I spent on my Reader and the money it would take to fix it.

Had my PRS-505 for around two years. Cheerfully running PRS+ for at least one of them virtually unbrickable. However, after an half hour read this morning, put the book to sleep. Came to read it this afternoon and the screen’s kaput – went from screen saver to half screen to nothing but flashing border in about three reset and reboots. Can’t recall it suffering any trauma recently. Tried soft reset and reflashed ROM. Can’t really hard reset if you can’t see the screen. Quick search of the web suggests that I can expect nothing from Sony but a repair bill around 133% of the high street price of the most recent device. Pretty tired of Sony’s lousy customer service for solid looking items that turn out to be shoddy crap, virus riddled CDs and second rate security for customers’ card details. Shape up Sony!