Sony Reader PRS 300 Pocket Edition

August 2nd update: J&R of New York briefly put up the Sony Reader 300 Pocket Edition for preorders. The price for the Sony 300 Pocket Edition is just $199.

A user at the Sony Insider Forums has found service manuals for the 2 upcoming (and until now, secret) Sony Reader models. First, is the Sony Reader PRS-300 -

You can look at the Sony Reader 300 manual in PDF or get the Sony 300 manual’s Kindle compatible version.

Sony Reader PRS-300 – Key Details

1. Priced at just $199. Very aggressive pricing.
2. Sony 300 has a 5 inch screen.
3. Very light at 7.76 oz (220 g).
4. Very thin at .4″.
5. Sony Reader 300 will be available in Red, Black and Silver.
6. Lots of buttons -
   

   A circular scroll wheel type button for navigation, 4 buttons below the screen, and 5 buttons on the right side of the screen that are sub-divided into 2 parts each.

7. Can only be recharged via AC adapter (or so the manual seems to say).
8. 440 Mb of storage capacity.
9. Battery Life of the Sony Reader 300 is 7,500 pages of BBeB format books or 6,800 pages of ePub format books.
10. Dimensions of 4.25″ by 6.25″ by .4″.
11. The colors might be pink, black and silver.

Sony Reader PRS-300 – Video of the Manual

Here are relevant parts of the manual – done

It seems it’ll be a worldwide release, although not sure if every country will get the new Sony Readers at the same time. The countries mentioned are US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and Netherlands.

Sony Reader 300 – My Thoughts

This seems like the lower end, no touchscreen, fits in your pocket version. It’s actually called Sony Reader PRS 300 Pocket Edition.

My guesses would be -

1. $200 price tag. Was right on the price – it’s $199.
2. WiFi built-in.
3. The buttons on the right side are used for either tabs or to select an individual line.
4. The buttons on the front clearly are for Home, Enter, Menu and something else.
5. The scroll wheel button is obviously for navigation, it also has icons which indicate it has dual functions much like a camera’s controls where down can be pressed twice to delete and so forth.

Sony has definitely made things interesting. The Sony Reader 300 suddenly becomes the most portable eReader around, and since it’s at $199 it’s going to win a lot of the lower end of the eReader market.