Specs Leaked on Two New Sony e-Readers

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Sony has been busy readying their two new e-readers the PRS-300 and PRS-600 and their complete specifications have been somewhat of a mystery. That is, until now. Thanks to some J&R product listings that were posted just a bit ahead of their time, the two devices now have pricing and full specifications. This should come as great news for those of us that have been waiting for a real competitor to the Kindle to hit store shelves sometime this century.

The Sony PRS300-RC Reader Pocket Edition, sporting a devilishly red color, is the smaller of the two devices. It sports a 5-in 800 x 600 Vizplex e-ink display that is capable of showing 8-levels of grayscale. It measures 6.2 x 4.2 x 0.2-in and weighs 7.76oz. It features a rechargeable Li-Ion battery power plant that’s good for approximately 7,500 page-turns. It supports Unsecured Text: EPUB File (Non DRM/ Adobe DRM protected), BBeB Book (Non DRM/ PRS DRM protected), PDF file (Non DRM/ Adobe DRM protected) and Text, RTF and Word files (unsecured).

The big brother to the PRS300-RC is the gray Sony PRS600-SC Reader Touch Edition. The PRS600 comes complete with 6-in 800 x 600 display with the same 8-levels of grayscale. So what do you get for the extra money? How about a touchscreen? It supports page-turn swipes, freehand notes, highlighting, text entry with an on-screen keyboard and, like the PRS-300, 512MB of onboard memory. The PRS600-SC measures 6.9 x 4.8 x 0.4-in and weighs 10.1oz. It has the same battery life and text support as the PRS300, but also adds non-DRM AAC and MP3 audio together with JPEG, PNG, GIF and BMP images.

There is no word yet on when they will be released (we can hope very soon). The PRS300-RC will retail for $199 and the upgraded PRS600-SC will come in at $299.