IFA 2011: Sony Announces The PRS-T1 Reader, Set To Arrive In October With Some Harry Potter Perks

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Coming as a nice follow up to the recent Sony Reader related Harry Potter rumors, Sony has officially announced their PRS-T1 Reader during IFA 2011 in Berlin. And yes, there will be some perks for the Harry Potter fans.

That being said, Sony is touting the PRS-T1 Reader as the “world’s lightest” 6 inch ereader with an “enhanced touchscreen.” And while that may be true, we suspect that the enhanced portion will come into play if anyone tries to make a weight comparison with the Sony PRS-T1 and any other reader currently on the market. Still, the device weighs in at 168 grams (about 0.37 pounds), which is pretty light.

In terms of features, some of these we have seen in the recent leak, but just to recap for those who shy away from the rumor style posts. Those who make the purchase can expect to find a 6 inch E-Ink Pearl V220 display at 600 x 800 along with 2GB of internal storage (enough for about 1200 books), a microSD card slot and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n. As for the touchscreen portion, this does what many would expect including being able to swipe to turn pages as well as zoom in on certain places and even tapping and holding on a word to get a definition. The Sony Reader PRS-T1 also has access to Google and Wikipedia lookups and support for EPUB, PDF and TXT documents.

The battery life is said to come in at “over a month,” roughly 14,000 page turns without needing a recharge, or up to 3 weeks with the wireless turned on. Needless to say, if you are simply reading it will probably be best to keep the wireless turned off.

And lastly, the Sony Reader PRS-T1 and Harry Potter tie-in. This is noted as being “Sony’s “first offer in its collaboration” with Pottermore. What that means for those who are curious;

“a specially-created limited edition of Reader Wi-Fi (PRS-T1) which includes a voucher that enables Harry Potter fans to download the first Harry Potter eBook title, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, from Pottermore.”