The Reader Digital Book provides a new way to experience reading. It boasts an impressive 6-inch display utilizing breakthrough e Ink® technology that's almost paper-like, making it easy to read even in bright sunshine. In addition, the screen allows for high contrast and high resolution, with a near 180 degree viewing angle. The text can also be changed between three different font sizes.

A perfect travel companion, the Reader Digital Book offers a unique, on-the-go reading experience. More compact than many paperbacks, it weighs just nine ounces (without cover), is only half an inch thin and holds up to 160 eBooks. You can easily hold it in one hand, and with its rechargeable battery you can turn up to 7,500 continuous pages on a single charge.

With a compact and lightweight design you can take the Reader Digital Book almost anywhere. And with plenty of internal memory and a slot for optional removable memory cards, you can take hundreds of titles, user-selected Web content or other supported documents for reading on the go. It will hold approximately 160 averaged sized eBooks in internal memory and hundreds more with optional removable memory cards.

Viewing text on the Reader Digital Book's screen is just like reading text on paper. Unlike the display of a laptop screen which is backlit and can strain your eyes, viewing pages on the Reader Digital Book is as comfortable as on a real book. But unlike a real book, the Reader Digital Book's text is scalable, conveniently allowing you to adjust the size of text.

Enjoying books on the Reader Digital Book is made easy, thanks to e Ink® technology. This new advancement in display technology results in an experience that's similar to paper - high-contrast, high resolution, viewable in direct sunlight and at a nearly 180-degree angles. And no power is required to maintain the image, so your battery lasts much longer than expected.

Don't wait in lines at the bookstore. Downloading books is only a few clicks away. Just connect your Reader Digital Book to a PC via the supplied USB cable and search, browse and discover thousands of popular electronic book titles from the eBook Store from Sony. Including over 20,000 latest bestsellers, classics and more, the website lets you purchase and download titles to your compatible PC and easily drag and drop them to your Reader.

Simply hold down the "Size" button for about 5 seconds and the screen will rotates from portrait to landscape and back.

1. Hold the "Page Forward" or "Back" button for five seconds and the page will jump 10 pages in the direction of the button.
2. The row of numbered buttons can help here as well.
   • For the PRS-500:"1" brings you to the start of the book. "2" brings you to 20% of the book. "3" to 30% and so on. So if you want to open to about half way in the book simply hit "5".
   • For the PRS-505: You can type out the page number you want to go to using the number buttons. Once you have entered the correct page number hit the enter button on the lower right side of the Reader (in the center of the arrow buttons). If you make an error you can hit the "menu" button to exit the go to page feature.

The screen 'flash' is part of the process used to update the electronic paper display. It is a normal part of the display operation and is not an indication of a defective display. For more information on how the electronic paper display works, please Click here.

This is not a defect but faint remnants of the previous page. Simply change the page forward and you will see those remnants disappear.

Most PDF documents are formatted to fit an 8 ½" x 11" piece of paper and not a screen the size of the Reader. In this case the Reader will have to resize your files to display on its screen. Your files may look better if you reformat them with the Reader's screen size in mind. Click here to download directions on how to optimize PDFs for the Reader.

Audio does use much more of the battery than simple reading. If you play Audio and unplug your headphone, the audio will still be playing but you may not notice that. Please make sure that when playing audio you stop the playback when you are done.

Just because you close the cover of the Reader doesn't mean the buttons won't work. We suggest that when you decide to stop reading you use the power switch on the left hand side of the reader as it will lock the buttons. When you are ready to read just turn the unit on and you should be ready to read the page exactly where you where when you last left off.

• The PRS-500 Reader supports Memory Stick Pro or Duo (with adaptor) up to 4GB. And it supports SD memory cards up to 2GB size. It is important that if you use a Memory Stick Duo that you use a full sized adapter.
• The PRS-505 Reader supports Memory Stick Duo up to 8GB. And it supports SD memory cards up to 2GB size. It is important to note that this reader does not accept full sized Memory Sticks or adapters.

The larger the memory card or the more files, the slower the Reader will take to recognize all the data on that card. It is advisable to use memory media commensurate with your file needs.

1. Use it to read books downloaded from the Connect™ eBook store
2. Read your own personal Documents
3. Carry and view photos with you
4. Listen to MP3 or AAC Podcasts (You can even listen as you read)

With the Sony Reader you can take a file from your PC to an SD or Memory Stick™ media card and read on the Sony Reader the following file types:
TXT / RTF / PDF (Unencrypted) / BBeB (Encrypted and Unencrypted) / JPEG / GIF / BMP / PNG / MP3 (Unencrypted) / AAC (Unencrypted)
We recommend using the supplied PC Software to import and transfer files to the Reader, as it will enable faster page turns and re-sizing on the Reader itself. We have also included the ability to import Microsoft Word files to the device. The supplied software will convert the Word document to RTF during the import process as long as the user has Microsoft® Word on the PC (this happens behind the scenes).

Many Websites offer podcasts. If the File format is MP3 or AAC, simply download the file to your PC and use the Connect Reader Software to import it to your media library. Once it is there it will be easy to drop and drag it into your Reader or optional Removable Memory card.

The PRS-505 now has a book menu navigation that you can access by selecting "Books by Title", "Books by Author" or "Books by Date". Simply select one of those and you will see that you are on page "2" of the list of books. If you go back a page (to page "1") you will see that the books will have been broken into easy to sort through categories that are either alphabetical grouped or by dates. Simply pick one of the entries and you will see the books in that category.

1. The PRS-505 has a new screen that has a faster refresh than the PRS-500's screen and is also a bit lighter. The new screen also supports 8 shades of gray vs. 4 on the PRS-500.
2. The User interface is much improved with:
   • Page turn buttons moved the right side of the Reader
   • The Numerical numbers now match up against the screen so when menus are displayed the appropriate button is to the right of the entry.
   • The Menu key is now by itself and clearly marked
   • The Jog stick is gone replace with four way arrow buttons and a center enter button.
3. Books have become easier to search as there are now tools that sort the books into alphabetical groupings for Titles or Authors.
4. The PRS-500 had a single storage media slot that could handle both SD or Memory Sticks. These cards could support either 2GB (SD) or 4GB (MS) for a maximum external storage of up to 4GB. The PRS-505 has two slots in parallel that allow for SD and Memory Stick Duo cards. These cards can support up to 2GB (SD) and 8GB (Memory Stick Duo). Because there are two separate slots the total amount of external storage the PRS-505 can support is up to 10GB.
5. The USB functionality is much improved
   • The PRS-505 supports the USB 2.0 standards which allow for faster transfer of data.
   • The PRS-505 can be charged when the battery is empty from the USB port of almost any PC even if there is no software loaded on it. The PRS-500 needed to be plugged into a PC running pre-installed software before it can charge and even then it could not charge if the internal Reader's battery was dead.
   • The PRS-505 works as a mass storage device so you can plug it right into your PC and transfer unsecured files without the need of eBook Library software.
6. The Connect Reader software is being replaced with "eBook Library v 2.0" which does look and work much like the older software. The only noticeable difference is that with a PRS-505 the new software can use a new Auto-sync feature. Please note that the PRS-505 cannot work with the older Connect Reader software.

• Sleep Mode- The Reader screen will stay on all the time but if you would like the unit to turn off the display and deactivate the buttons after one hour on non use you can use this setting to turn the sleep mode "On"
• Device Lock- This allows you to put on a four digit password that will need to be entered anytime the Reader is turned on. If you use this feature you must remember your password or you must call us at 1-866-962-7669
• Formatting internal Memory- This will allow you to clean all of the contents off of the internal memory of the Reader. We would encourage you NOT to use this feature set unless you have to.
• Shut Down- the Reader uses power to keep things in its active memory when it is on or in sleep mode. The best way to prolong the battery life is to shut down the Reader using this feature. Please understand that while this will allow you to keep a charge in your Reader longer it will take longer to start up the reader from this mode. We encourage you to use this feature when you are not planning on reading for over a few days.