5. Design And Ergonomics

Without the cover or with the cover turned back on itself so the front of the cover meets the back of the cover, the PRS-500 balances well in one hand and makes one-handed reading quite easy, as you can see in the photo below. The joystick-like button partially covered by my thumb is used to turn pages. To move forward you click the button where the white page forward arrow is (just below the number 2). You can just see the bottom of the page backward arrow; the rest is under my thumb. For two-handed readers, there are page forward and backward buttons on the left side of the Reader above the Size button. Speaking of the Size button, it's used to change the size of the type. Three type sizes are available for most books. More on this later. In the photo I'm using the middle size. You should be able to find the right size for your eyesight among the three options.

This image above keystones a little making the Reader look a bit wider at the top and bit narrower at the bottom. It's actually the same size all the way up and down except for the rounded metal colored portion running from the top to the bottom on both sides of the unit. Also note that the type is much sharper than it appears in the photo.

You use the Mark button to place bookmarks on specific pages. You can look at your bookmarks for a particular book and go to any of them with a click. Graphically the Reader "folds over" the top of each page you mark as you might with a paper book and a bright blue LED lights up to assure you that a page has been properly marked.

Finally, take a look at the area labeled "Menu" over on the right bottom side of the eBook. The knob in the middle is a 4-way joystick. The ring around the joystick is an Escape button. Click it and you'll move outward to the appropriate menu for your current location. Turn your eyes to the next photo. Here the PRS-500 is in its cradle, but not connected to my computer. Before putting it the cradle I pressed the Escape ring, which took me to the menu you see in the photo below. This is the top menu for the unit. From here you can select among any of the functions of the Reader, from continuing to read a book to selecting the Books menu to playing MP3 files to viewing photos stored on the device to changing settings.

I can select any of the ten options by moving to the function I want with the joystick and pressing down on it or by pressing the appropriate number at the bottom of the Reader's display. Right now item number 1 is selected. Of course, I can't use the joystick when the PRS-500 is in the cradle. I put it there to make photography easier. Actually the only time the Reader should be in the cradle is when you're charging it with the AC charger or the USB cable or accessing it to add or remove eBooks, photos and music.

Now imagine I select item number 2 in the above photo, Books. This will take me to the first page of the Books menu shown in the next photo. Here I can choose a book to read. The PRS-500 remembers where you are in each book you're reading. So, when I you get to the book I selected, it will be opened to the last page I viewed. Of course, I can go back to the beginning of the book and start over or to the end or to the active Table of Contents where I can select a particular section of the book.

Sony used the left side and bottom of the Reader for switches and ports as indicated in the photos below.

The left side of the Sony PRS-500 includes from left to right, Memory Pro/SD flash media slot, volume rocker switch and slide-and-return power switch.

On the bottom of the Sony eBook Reader from left to right, hole for a handstrap, USB 2.0 port, cradle connector, DC in jack and headphone jack for listening to MP3 files.