I’ve had the Sony Reader (PRS-505) since Christmas and I really have come to love it. It’s only since school has ended that I’ve really had a chance to read a lot, and that has highlighted a major issue, not only with the Reader but other eReaders — lack of a backlight.
The new PRS-700 model includes a light, which is great; except that it’s not sold in the UK. The PRSA-CL1 retails in at around £30-£35 and with the price of the Reader being £199 it may well be worth looking at importing the new 700 model from the US despite the screen being of a poorer quality.
Design
Sony always do a great job with the design of their products, and the lighted case is no exception. The design is similar to the included leather soft case case but adopts a more stylish black than the standard ‘tan’. It is easily removed if you wish to hold the Reader naked, using the hinge clips in exactly the same way as the included case. I did however find the case to be much more rigid and supportive, not moving around as much and making the reading experience that much more enjoyable.
Tan and Lighted Case side-by-side
The case however does add a fair bit of weight to the device, weighing in at 240g. It is also substantially thicker and wider than the tan case included with the PRS-505. Having said that, I like the additional weight. It makes the device easier to hold and feels much more case like when the light on the book is flipped to the left. The size is also not an issue and the ability to read in the dark makes it a much more useful device.
The Added Weight and Thickness Are No Issue
The light also has some nice design features. The clear plastic cover protects the screen and lights it at the same time. It’s made from a stylish matte black plastic and chrome, complimenting the Reader’s design nicely. The PRS-ACL1 also includes two light levels, which help to maintain battery life and are good if your eyes begin to hurt.
Pros & Cons
The pro of the lighted case is fairly obvious, giving the ability to read in the dark at ease. There are however many cons, and some of them are quite substantial. While the light is extremely effective, it is very susceptible to picking up dust. This isn’t a major issue and the text on the screen is very much still readable, but it can be a little distracting.
The device also requires it’s own power source, running from AAA batteries. It would have been nice for Sony to have allowed it to use the Reader’s battery, but I guess this was done to keep the Reader’s battery life as good as possible (I get about 1-2 weeks on a full charge with constant reading). The light does last a long time though, with Sony claiming as much as 38 hours usage on the lowest lighting setting.
Glare is an issue when using the case during the day as the Reader is lighted using an overlay that covers the e-ink screen fully. This is an innovative way of lighting the screen and prevents the ’strobing effect’ you get with normal back lights, giving a clean and well lit area to read from. The glare can be combated easily though as the screen overlay can be flipped off of the screen allowing you to read with ease.
The PRS-ACL1 Lit In A Dark Room
Text from the device while lit is extremely clear but is lacking of a little contrast that you would usually have when using the Reader without the case. This however, is almost unnoticeable and when using the device in the dark you simply do not care.
Text On The Reader
One final gripe I have with the case perhaps is me just being too ‘wanting’. I feel that it would have been nice if Sony made the case from leather, rather than the ’soft case’ material they used for the standard tan one. You either have a light, or a leather case and it would be nice to have both.
Overall
Overall, I feel that the case is a fantastic one. It’s stylish and matches the Reader’s design supremely. The light works well and really is one of those accessories that really is a necessity. While there are some issues, I would say that they £30 for the ability to read wherever you like really outweighs those cons and I would recommend the PRSA-CL1 to anyone with a PRS-505.
I’ve always been obsessed with everything 80s; the music, the fashion and of course the games. It’s the era video games began and arcades were common-place. Today however, nobody visits the arcades and they have almost all died off. Systm did a series on building a MAME cabinet. Since watching this series, I felt that this is something that we [my dad & I] could do; and this summer it’s what we have, and shall be doing.
The first thing we needed to acquire was an ‘old’ computer. Over the years we had given many of ours away, so it wasn’t difficult to get one back; an old Olivetti with a Pentium MMX processor, 64MB of RAM and a 4GB HDD, of which 2GB was eaten by Windows 98. Obviously MAME was the first thing we needed to get up and running on the machine. One of the issues we had was the lack of USB support for pen drives. Intially, we burned discs to combat this, but this proved both timely and costly and we soon searched for a driver. Now that our movent issue was sorted, we tried to get MAME running.
Best OS EVAR
MAME just would not run on the old Olivetti, and so our hopes of trying to get an arcade machine on the cheap [free] were shattered. This wasn’t really any issue for dad and I but mum was certainly pissed about having to spend money on what she thought was another one of my dad’s stupid schemes (personal mug, garden toys etc.). He found someone in the Trade-It and gave them a ring, to ask about a computer. The call, I imagine, went something like this:
| Ginger Man: |
Hello ‘Ginger Man Computers™’ |
| Dad: |
Hi, I’m looking for a cheap computer. |
| Ginger Man: |
Ah, you’ve come to the right place. It has this and that, and it’ll cost £50. |
| Dad: |
Okay, we’ll be over later — bye. |
| Ginger Man: |
Seeya at six, bye. |
We ate dinner, and made our way over to the other side of Bristol (’The Norf’). The estate that the guy lived on was a bit of a mess if I’m honest, and it was the kind of place that you wouldn’t want to keep your car parked there for too long if you don’t have to. The ‘Ginger Guy’s’ house wasn’t too much better either. A rusty fridge littered the outside of his house and Dad, ‘The Ginger Guy’ and myself had to squeeze into what was at one point in time a cupboard. The cupboard had been converted into a smoking den workshop and was rummage of old computer parts, cables, and cigarettes. What should’ve been a five-minute-pickup-and-dash was quickly turning into a thirty-minute-chat-and-’is there anything else?’ kinda thing. We finally got computer, and battled our way past screaming children and a mouthy wife to the car.
All we needed to do now was configure the software, get an interface and buttons, and build a machine – not a lot.
