Sony PRS-300, PRS-600 E-Reader Details Leak Via Service Manuals 
[UPDATED]
  BY Clay Dillow Wed Aug 5, 2009 at 8:59 AM



Leaked service manuals for Sony's upcoming PRS-300 and PRS-600 
e-reader devices
have revealed the specs of the anticipated successors to the Sony 
PRS-700.
  Unfortunately, no pricing or release date information was 
included, but the
manuals are dated July 2009, so the features revealed are fresh.
  What we do know: the PRS-300 will have an internal memory of 
440MB, but no
option for external storage, while the PRS-600 will have the same 
internal
memory plus an MSSTSD card slot for extra memory should you 
desire it.  As for
screen size, the PRS-300 will have a five-inch screen, while the 
600 model will
have a six-inch touchscreen display.  Both models The PRS-600 
will be available
in silver, black, and red, while the PRS-300 will sport blue, 
silver, and rose
exteriors.
  So how do these new e-readers stack up to Amazon's 
market-leading Kindle? The
Kindle 2, currently $299 from Amazon (it debuted at $360), is 
still working from
a keyboard rather than a touchscreen like the PRS-600, but beware 
this seemingly
awesome Sony feature: one complaint about the earlier PRS-700 is 
that the
touchscreen layer picked up too much glare.  The Kindle 2 also 
has a far greater
capacity, with 2GB internal memory translating into 1.4GB of 
storage space for
books, enough for 1,500 titles.  That's about 3.5 times what 
Sony's new devices
offer, though expanding memory is obviously not a problem for 
Sony's 600 model,
with its SD card slot.  The Kindle's six-inch e-ink display is 
equivalent to that
of the PRS-600, though the new Kindle DX's screen trumps both at 
9.7 inches.
  But the main advantage the Kindle has over Sony's new products 
is wireless
connectivity, which isn't addressed in the leaked service 
manuals, suggesting
the new devices may have to be tethered to a PC to download.  
Unfortunately,
we're also in the dark on backlighting as well as pricing for the 
Sony devices
(the PRS-700 debuted last year at $400, but the pared down 
PRS-300 may well be
less expensive than the Kindle).  But we may not be waiting long 
to find out
everything we want to know about the Sony's Kindle competitors.  
The PRS-700 is
no longer on sale in the SonyStyle store, signaling that the 
release of the
PRS-300 and PRS-600 devices could be upon us any day now.
  UPDATE: Sony has gone official with the PRS-300 and PRS-600, 
which will be known
as the Pocket and Touch respectively.  The backlighting feature 
that contributed
to increased glare in Sony's PRS-700 has been dropped in the new 
touchscreen
PRS-600, and unfortunately neither new model will be Wi-Fi 
enabled, though Sony
promises a wireless model is coming soon.  In the meantime, the 
company has added
Mac compatability to its new e-readers (an improvement that will 
soon extend to
older models through a firmware update), and both will be 
available by the end
of August.
  But the real kicker is the price: the PRS-600 will retail at a 
Kindle-equivalent
$299, while the scaled down PRS-300 will debut at a far more 
reasonable $199.  If
that's not enough icing on the cake, Sony is also dropping the 
price of new
releases and bestsellers in its e-book store from $11.99 to an 
Amazon-esque
$9.99.  As we've noted before, Amazon has set the standards for 
the e-book
business, with Barnes and Noble and now Sony following Amazon's 
pricing scheme.  It
remains to be seen who, if anyone, can break that model

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