Sony Reader

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Sony Reader

The Sony

Sony

is a multinational corporation list of conglomerates corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding US$99.1 billion ....
Reader is an e-book reader. It uses an electronic paper

Electronic paper

Electronic paper, also called e-paper, is a display device technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike a conventional flat panel display, which uses a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without dr...
display developed by E Ink Corporation

E Ink Corporation

E Ink Corporation is a privately held manufacturer of electrophoretic displays , a kind of electronic paper. E Ink is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was founded in 1997 by Joseph Jacobson, a professor in the MIT Media Lab....
that has 166 dpi

Dots per inch

Dots per inch is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed within the span of one linear inch The DPI value tends to correlate with , but is related only indirectly....
resolution, four levels of grayscale

Grayscale

In photography and computing, a grayscale or greyscale digital image is an image in which the value of each pixel is a single sample , that is, it carries only intensity information....
, is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain a static image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation. The reader uses an iTunes Store

ITunes Store

The iTunes Store is a software-based online shopping digital media store operated by Apple Inc. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, it proved the viability of online music store and is now the number-one music vendor in the United States....
-like interface to purchase books from Sony Connect

Sony Connect

The CONNECT Music Store was Sony's music store built within the SonicStage music management application for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers....
eBook store. It also can display Adobe PDFs, ePub

EPUB

EPUB is a e-book standard, by the International Digital Publishing Forum , which consists of three file format standards , described below. It supersedes the Open eBook standard....
format, personal documents, blogs, RSS

RSS

RSS is a three-letter abbreviation that can stand for a wide variety of terms....
newsfeeds, JPEG

JPEG

In computing, JPEG is a commonly used method of for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality....
s, and Sony's proprietary BBeB ("BroadBand eBook") format.

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Models and availability

There have been three models to date. The PRS-500 was made available in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
in September 2006. On 1 November 2006, Readers went on display and for sale at Borders

Borders Group

Borders Group is an international bookseller based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Michigan. Borders is the second-largest bookstore chain in the United States , selling a wide variety of books, Compact discs, DVDs, periodicals, as well as gifts and stationery....
bookstores throughout the US. Borders had an exclusive contract for the Reader until the end of 2006. From April 2007, Sony Reader has been sold in the US by multiple merchants, including Fry's

Fry's

Fry's may refer to:* Fry's Electronics, a chain of electronic stores located mainly in the western United States*Fry's Food and Drug* J. S. Fry & Sons, a chocolate manufacturer that later merged with Cadbury Schweppes...
, Costco, Borders and Best Buy

Best Buy

Best Buy Co., Inc. is a Fortune 500 company and the largest specialty Retailing of consumer electronics in the United States accounting for 21% of the market....
. The eBook Store from Sony is only available to U.S. or Canadian residents or to customers who purchased a U.S.-model reader with bundled eBook Store credit.

On July 24, 2008, Sony

Sony

is a multinational corporation list of conglomerates corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding US$99.1 billion ....
announced that the PRS-505 Reader would be available in the UK with a launch date of September 3, 2008. Waterstone's

Waterstone's

Waterstone's is a United Kingdom book specialist established in 1982 by Tim Waterstone that now employs around 4,500 staff throughout the United Kingdom and Europe....
is the official retail partner and the Reader is available at selected stores such as Argos

Argos (retailer)

Argos is the largest general-goods retailer in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland with over 700 stores. Argos is unique amongst major retailers in the U.K....
and Sony Centre

Sony Centre

Sony Centre is a chain of stores in Europe which sell electrical goods made by manufacturer Sony. Many of their stores on Mainland Europe have been recently been rebranded to Sony Centre after being called Sony Galleria....
s; while a red edition is available exclusively from John Lewis.

PRS-500

The PRS-500 has a six-inch E-ink display and a thickness of 13 mm. There is an internal memory of 64 MB. This model was superseded by the PRS-505 in 2008.

PRS-500 specifications

Size: 175.6 x 123.6 x 13.8mm (6.9" x 4.9" x 0.5")
Weight: 250 g (9 oz)
Display:

size: 15.5 cm (6 in) diagonal (approx 1/4 area of letter-sized page)
resolution: 170 dpi
Dots per inch

Dots per inch is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed within the span of one linear inch The DPI value tends to correlate with , but is related only indirectly....
, 4-level gray scale
portrait: 90.6 x 122.4 mm (3.57" x 4.82"), 600 x 800 pixels | effective 115.4 x 88.2 mm (4.54 x 3.47 in), 754 x 584 pixels
minimum font size: 6 pt legible, 7 pt recommended

Memory: 64 MB
Megabyte

Megabyte is a SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for digital information computer storage or transmission and is equal to 106 bytes....
standard, Memory Stick
Memory Stick

Memory Stick is a removable flash memory memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998 , and is also used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Sticks....
(Pro Duo High Speed not supported. Normal memory sticks are only supported up to 4GB, despite Sony compatibility claims ) or SD card expansion up to 2 GB
Gigabyte

Gigabyte is an SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for Computer data storage. Since the giga- prefix means 109, gigabyte means 1,000,000,000 bytes ....
(some non-SDHC 4GB cards may work)
Lithium-ion battery, up to 7500 "page turns" per charge
PC interface: USB port

PRS-505

On October 2, 2007, Sony announced the PRS-505, an updated version of the Reader. The 505 keeps the 6" E-ink display of the original Reader, but uses an improved version of E Ink's imaging film with faster refresh time, brighter white state, and 8-level grayscale.

PRS-505 is thinner than its predecessor (8 mm vs. 13 mm) and comes with more internal memory (256 MB vs. 64 MB).

Other new product features included auto-synchronization to a folder on a host PC, support for the USB Mass Storage Device profile, and full USB charging capability (the PRS-500 could only be recharged via USB if the battery was not fully drained, and if the Sony Connect Reader software was installed on the host PC). Also, adding books to "Collections" (a feature to organize and group book titles) is now possible on the storage card, unlike the PRS-500 model.

Version 1.1 firmware, available as a free download since July 24, 2008 adds support for the EPUB

EPUB

Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions is an ebook reader from Adobe Systems built using Adobe Flash. It is used for acquiring, managing and reading Ebook, digital newspapers, and other digital publications....
1.5 and Adobe DRM protected PDF files, automatic reflow of PDF files formated for larger pages enlarges the text to improve readability, and support for high capacity SDHC

SDHC

SDHC or sdhc may refer to:* Secure Digital card#SDHC, a type of flash memory card* Succinate dehydrogenase complex subunit C, the gene* School District of Hillsborough County...
memory cards.

PRS-505 specifications

Size: 175 x 122 x 8mm (6.9" x 4.8" x 0.3")
Weight: 250 g (9 oz)
Display:

size: 15.5 cm (6 in) diagonal (approx 1/4 area of letter-sized page)
resolution: 170 dpi
Dots per inch

Dots per inch is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed within the span of one linear inch The DPI value tends to correlate with , but is related only indirectly....
, 8-level gray scale
portrait: 90.6 x 122.4 mm (3.57" x 4.82"), 600 x 800 pixels | effective 88.2 x 115.4 mm (3.47 x 4.54 in), 584 x 754 pixels
minimum font size: 6 pt legible, 7 pt recommended

Memory: 256MB
Megabyte

Megabyte is a SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for digital information computer storage or transmission and is equal to 106 bytes....
standard (200MB Accessible), Sony
Sony

is a multinational corporation list of conglomerates corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding US$99.1 billion ....
Memory Stick Pro Duo 8GB
Gigabit

Gigabit is a unit of Computer data storage, with the symbol Gbit .1 gigabit = 109 = 1,000,000,000 bits The gigabit is closely related to the gibibit, which is unambiguously equal to 230 bits = 1,073,741,824 bits....
, SD card up to 2 GB
Gigabyte

Gigabyte is an SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for Computer data storage. Since the giga- prefix means 109, gigabyte means 1,000,000,000 bytes ....
(some non-SDHC 4GB
Gigabyte

Gigabyte is an SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for Computer data storage. Since the giga- prefix means 109, gigabyte means 1,000,000,000 bytes ....
cards may work), or up to 32 GB with SDHC cards and version 1.1 firmware
Lithium-ion battery, up to 7500 "page turns" per charge
PC interface: USB port 2.0
Available case colors:

PRS505/LC: Dark Blue
PRS505/SC: Silver
PRS505SC/JP: Custom Skin (James Patterson Special Edition)
PRS505/RC: Sangria Red (introduced in August 2008)

PRS-700

Unlike Sony's LIBRIé, a close cousin of the Sony Reader, the PRS-500 and PRS-505 offer no way for the user to annotate a digital book as it lacks a keyboard. This was addressed by the release of the PRS-700, announced on October 2, 2008, which has a touchscreen

Touchscreen

A touchscreen is a display which can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touch or contact to the display of the device by a finger or hand....
that can be used as a virtual keyboard. It became available in the United States early November 2008 at a MSRP

MSRP

MSRP may refer to:* Suggested retail price in business* Message Session Relay Protocol, an IP network protocol...
of $399. Improvements of PRS-700 vs. the PRS-505 include the following:

The 6-inch e-ink display (same resolution as before) is now a touch screen, removing the need for the 10 side buttons.
Note taking and virtual keyboard, made possible by the new touch screen.
Page turning buttons remain but can also be accomplished by touch screen gestures.
LED
Light-emitting diode

A light-emitting diode , is an electronic light source. The LED was discovered in the early 20th century, and introduced as a practical electronic component in 1962....
lighting for use in poor lighting conditions.
Internal storage is doubled to 512MB.

PRS-700 specifications

Size: Approx. 174.3 x 127.6 x 9.7mm (6 7/9" x 5 1/9" x 0.4")
Weight: 283.5 g (10 oz)
Display:

size: 15.5 cm (6 in) diagonal (approx 1/4 area of letter-sized page)
resolution: 170 dpi
Dots per inch

Dots per inch is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed within the span of one linear inch The DPI value tends to correlate with , but is related only indirectly....
, 8-level gray scale
integrated touchscreen

Memory: 512MB
Megabyte

Megabyte is a SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for digital information computer storage or transmission and is equal to 106 bytes....
standard (350 eBooks at 1.2MB
Megabyte

Megabyte is a SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for digital information computer storage or transmission and is equal to 106 bytes....
each average, 420MB available), Sony
Sony

is a multinational corporation list of conglomerates corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding US$99.1 billion ....
Memory Stick Pro Duo 8GB
Gigabit

Gigabit is a unit of Computer data storage, with the symbol Gbit .1 gigabit = 109 = 1,000,000,000 bits The gigabit is closely related to the gibibit, which is unambiguously equal to 230 bits = 1,073,741,824 bits....
, SDHC card expansion up to 32 GB
Gigabyte

Gigabyte is an SI prefix-multiple of the unit byte for Computer data storage. Since the giga- prefix means 109, gigabyte means 1,000,000,000 bytes ....
Lithium-ion battery, up to 7500 "page turns" per charge
PC Interface: USB port 2.0
Built-in LED
Light-emitting diode

A light-emitting diode , is an electronic light source. The LED was discovered in the early 20th century, and introduced as a practical electronic component in 1962....
reading light

Limitations

The Sony Reader PRS-500/505 screen has a very low refresh rate. This prevented Sony from implementing sophisticated interactive menu-driven software and scrolling on zoomed pages. This makes it impossible to scroll around a zoomed 8.5 x 11 inch document. This means that the devices are not suited for viewing most PDF documents that are in 8.5 x 11 inch format. The PRS-700 has an improved screen controller which allows faster menus, paging and zoom. Unfortunately users have reported a significant glare in PRS-700 model, mostly likely due to the special coating that was added to accommodate the touch screen.

Formats supported

DRM
Digital rights management

Digital rights management refers to access control technologies used by publishers, copyright holders, and hardware manufacturers to limit usage of digital media or devices....
-free Text: BBeB Book (LRF), PDF, TXT

Text file

A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of line . A text file exists within a computer file system. The end of a text file is often denoted by placing one or more special characters, known as an end-of-file marker, after the last line in a text file....
, RTF

Rich Text Format

The Rich Text Format is a document file format file format developed by Microsoft in 1987 for cross-platform document interchange. Most word processors are able to read and write RTF documents....
, ePub

EPUB

EPUB is a e-book standard, by the International Digital Publishing Forum , which consists of three file format standards , described below. It supersedes the Open eBook standard....
. Typeface

Typeface

In typography, a typeface is a set of one or more fonts, in one or more sizes, designed with stylistic unity, each comprising a coordinated set of glyphs....
s in PDF files formatted for 216 x 280 mm (8.5 x 11 inch) pages may be too small to read comfortably. Such files can be reformatted for the Reader screen size with Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is a family of software developed by Adobe Systems, designed to view, create, manipulate and manage files in Adobe's Portable Document Format ....
Professional, but not by Adobe Reader software. The Reader does not directly support Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is Microsoft's word processor computer software. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems....
DOC

DOC (computing)

In computing, DOC or doc is a file extension for word processing documents; most commonly for Microsoft Word. Historically, the extension was used for documentation in plain text file format, particularly of programs or computer hardware, on a wide range of operating systems....
format. The 'CONNECT Reader' application uses Word to convert the .DOC files to RTF before sending them to the Reader.

DRM Text: BBeB Book (LRX); Secure PDF and ePub.

DRM-free Audio: MP3

MP3

Advanced Audio Coding

JPEG

In computing, JPEG is a commonly used method of for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality....
, GIF

GIF

The Graphics Interchange Format is a Raster graphics that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
, PNG, and BMP

Bitmap

In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of computer storage organization or used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped bit array....
(Loading an animated GIF will freeze the Reader)

RSS
RSS

RSS is a three-letter abbreviation that can stand for a wide variety of terms....
: Limited to 20 featured blogs such as Engadget and Wired, no ability to add others and no auto-update (as of 2006-12-01)

The Reader supports TXT and RTF documents with Latin character set only. Other character sets (such as Cyrillic, for example) are not displayed correctly, but Cyrillic patches are available for Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
n users (see the site ). Sony Customer Support have confirmed that units sold in the US only work with Latin characters (as of 2007-03-02).

Operating systems

Windows

Sony Reader comes bundled with Sony's proprietary software called Sony eBook Library

Sony eBook Library

Sony eBook Library is iTunes-like software used to manage book, music and image content on the Sony Reader.External links...
(formally called Sony Connect

Sony Connect

The CONNECT Music Store was Sony's music store built within the SonicStage music management application for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers....
). It is similar to iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a Proprietary software digital media media player application, used for playing and organizing digital music and video files. The program is also an interface to manage the contents on Apple's popular iPod digital media players as well as the iPhone....
in nature and requires Windows XP

Windows XP

Windows XP is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptop, and media centers....
or later, an 800MHz processor

Processor

Processor may refer to:In computing:* Central processing unit , the part of a computer that interprets instructions, in case of a multi-core processor it refers to multiple CPU's....
, 128Mb of RAM

Ram

Ram, ram, or RAM as a non-acronymic wordAs a non-acronymic word Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:...
, and 20Mb of hard disk

Hard disk

A hard disk drive , commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a non-volatile storage device which stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating hard disk platters with magnetic surfaces....
space. This software does not work on the 64-bit versions of Windows XP. 64-bit Windows Vista is supported since Sony eBook Library version 2.5.00.09170 for the 505 and 700 models only.

Mac OS X and Linux

Sony eBook Library is not officially supported on Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems....
or Linux

Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
based systems, although when the device is connected it grants access to its internal flash memory

Flash memory

Flash memory is a non-volatile memory computer storage that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It is a technology that is primarily used in memory cards and USB flash drives for general storage and transfer of data between computers and other digital products....
as though it were a USB Mass Storage device (on the 505 and 700 only) allowing the user to transfer files directly. See the Third party tools

Sony Reader

The Sony Reader is an e-book reader. It uses an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation that has 166 dots per inch resolution, four levels of grayscale, is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain a static image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation....
section below for a third-party software utility that provides comprehensive support for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Third party tools

Several third-party tools exist for the Sony Reader. For example, the PRS Browser for Mac OS X from Docudesk

Docudesk

Docudesk offers commercial PDF software for creating and converting PDF files. deskPDF is used for creating PDF's from Windows applications. The professional version includes PDF merging, Office integration, & 40-bit or 128-bit encryption....
allows Macintosh users to manage content on the Sony Reader. Users can also use the free software

Free software

Free Software or software libre is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and to prevent consumer-facing hardware...
library and utility (formerly known as libprs500), written by Kovid Goyal, to communicate with the Reader and manage their digital library. calibre can convert many ebook formats as well as collate multiple HTML pages into a single ebook file with an automatically-generated table of contents. It has both a command line and graphical interface, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. calibre notably does not offer Windows 64-bit support for the PRS-500 model either.

Internal OS

According to the operating manual the Reader runs the MontaVista Linux Professional Edition operating system.

Sales

In December 2008, Sony disclosed that it had sold 300,000 units of its Reader Digital Book globally since the device launched in October 2006.

External links

: Product page at Sony
: PRS-505 page at Sony Style
Memory Stick Media Compatibility Information for the Sony Reader
to create PDF files for the Reader
: How to create BBeB formatted content
: how to show Cyrillic on the Sony Reader PRS 500
: how to show Cyrillic on the Sony Reader PRS 505

Sony Reader

Models and availability

PRS-500

PRS-500 specifications

PRS-505

PRS-505 specifications

PRS-700

PRS-700 specifications

Limitations

Formats supported

Operating systems

Windows

Mac OS X and Linux

Third party tools

Internal OS

Sales

See also

External links