Sony Announces A New eBook Reader

I wonder how much this has improved?

Sony pulled the cover off their new PRS-505 Reader today, which features a new body, a few new tricks, and a few dressed up old ones. Instead of black, the Sony Reader now comes in silver or dark blue. In addition to the color change, Sony is touting the redesigned button layout, claiming a more intuitive experience—but it mostly looks like they rearranged the existing buttons of the PRS-500 to make them more accessible.

And though Sony claims the screen has a higher contrast and faster refresh rate, no exact specs were given. Other new features include a doubling of the internal memory to hold 160 eBooks instead of 80, and a new USB mass storage mode. Old features: battery life still lasts for 7,500 page turns and the Reader also displays PDF, RTF, TXT and JPEG formats like before. SD and Memory Stick slots are also provided for memory expansion.

One of the best applications I can think of for this type of device would to be to have hyper-linked travel guides such as Lonely Planet. It would reduce the size and weight of these tremendously, not to mention allowing you to bring a library of books with you when you travel. If they designed the software to run off of the eBook reader itself (like Portable Apps on a USB dirve), you could download new books at Internet cafes and you travel.

I have a bookshelf full of travel guides, sometimes carrying several of them on a single trip. They make it extra-challenging to travel carry-on-only. Being able to store them all electronically on a small device with long-lasting batteries would be of tremendous benefit to lightweight travelers.

I also wish they'd increase the resolution and greyscale display on this. It would be wonderful if I could store all the articles I need to read for school on one of these. It would be a lot lighter and easier to use use in coffee shops or on the subway than my tablet PC.

See my previous post on eBook readers and this one on how to use an iPod as a travel tool.