The Sony Reader PRS505- pulseHEAD.com

what it is

The Sony Reader is a "Digital Book" according to Sony. What that means is that it's meant to be an electronic device for reading a book. Other than the ever-present, "Who cares?" there are generally about 3 reactions to this idea: 1) "A digital book? Why, because paperbacks are so unwieldy?" 2) "Isn't that what I bought a laptop / iPhone / etc for?" 3) "What a splendid idea! Now I can carry hundreds of pieces of Werewolf Furry Erotica around with me without the embarrassing stares!"

The point is that you can load books onto it and read them on the go and you can do it without too much effort or thought.

what rocks

You really have to see the thing to believe it. It takes advantage of E-Ink technology, which if you haven't witnessed with your own two eyes, you really can't get full the impact. It's almost exactly like reading paper, so you don't get hit with any of the common problems of eye strain or other annoyances with a normal LCD screen. The other great thing is that once the page is rendered, it requires very little power to stay on - so you can just leave it open to the last page you've read and come back later. It also means that the battery lasts a long time - 7500 page turns, according to Sony. It's measured in page turns because that's really the only thing that eats up the battery.

It's a very well-designed piece of hardware. It's easy to hold and feels sturdy in your hands. All of the buttons are easy to reach and seem like logical placements. The software on the thing is easy to navigate and I haven't had much trouble with it. It also looks nice and futuristic, and you can carry it around and read it with one hand like you're viewing important Spacely Sprockets invoices.

There's also a great piece of free software called calibre that lets you aggregate RSS feeds into an eBook - so basically you can get about 100 different magazines for free, or plug in your own RSS feeds. I've been reading a few choice magazines without paying the $100 subscription fee, which is nice.

Another great feature of the device is that in atypical Sony fashion, you can actually load normal formats onto it. You can easily save PDFs (even PDFs with Adobe DRM), Word files, and normal-format eBooks onto it.

what sucks

Unfortunately, the bundled software for managing the eBook store is terrible. It's like what you'd expect if iTunes had no visual design and they shopped the whole project out to Elbonian engineers who were instructed to just "make the damned thing work." It's difficult to tell if it has many features beyond "crashing often and regularly for no obvious reason" and "popping up error messages every time you do anything". The real kick in the ass is that it doesn't seem to do much besides display the web page that's easily accessible at ebookstore.sony.com - where you can do everything the software can do, through the browser of your choice, EXCEPT download a book.

The bundled software is also not Mac-compatible, though there are some great alternatives (calibre, for instance, is awesome). Unfortunately, to use Sony's pitiful iTunes-wannabe excuse for an eBookstore, you have to use the PC software. The good thing is that you don't have to use Sony's God-awful software to manage the thing if you want to get books from other sources, like Fictionwise or eBooks.com, as it just shows up a hard drive in Windows or MacOSX.

The reason that the iTunes / iPod combination works is that it's all very easy. The software works well with the hardware, and the purchase / download / sync process is all rather painless. While the device's software is good, the PC software is nearly unusable which kills the whole experience. Sure, buying is easy enough, but the whole thing just feels cumbersome.

what it all means

In comparison to the Amazon Kindle, it seems to have better battery life, but is missing the key feature of being able to purchase and download books wirelessly. I haven't used the Kindle, but I've heard positive feedback on everything about it except its design - it looks like the guys who are responsible for the Sony eBookstore came up with it.

I'm not sure that people are really ready to buy a $300 device so they can buy books at approximately the same price as a physical paperback, so it's doubtful that either of these will enjoy much mainstream success. However, if you're concerned about how you'll carry the collected works of Danielle Steel, this could solve all of your problems.