Asus readies colour e-book reader
5.7in OLED gadget out by Christmas
Asus has let slip the technical specifications and launch date of its now confirmed e-book viewer – the DR-570.
Equipped with a 5.7in OLED “high-brightness” colour display, the DR-570 will also support Adobe Flash and either Wi-Fi or 3G wireless connections – but not both.
Asus' DR-570 e-book viewer
Source: Sunday Times
The company announced plans for an e-book viewer – which it was widely thought would be called the Eee Reader – several times last year, but has since told The Sunday Times that the DR-570 will be released by the end of 2010.
Asus also reportedly said that the DR-570 will run for 122 hours on one battery charge. By contrast, Amazon’s Kindle – which has a 6in screen E Ink supporting 16 shades of grey – can run for up to 168 hours on a single charge.
Asus’ Chairman, Jonney Shih, told Register Hardware last week about its plans for an e-book viewer, adding that the company is also developing a dual-touchscreen tablet PC with added e-book functionality.
Asus' Eee Reader at CES
The device shown above was seen inside a glass case at CES earlier this month and is widely expected to be called the Eee Reader. A UK launch date or potential price hasn’t been given.
Likewise, Asus didn’t say how much the DR-570 will cost when it arrives over here. ®
COMMENTS
Battery capacity
I find the number of hours a bit silly when determining battery life for an ebook reader.
Page turns makes more sense (e.g. 8000 page turns on a charge) but I guess the interweb connection makes that a little more challenging.
What about a hybrid like we have for phones? E.g. 8000 page turns/122 hours standby?
Battery capacity
Yes, page turns make more sense for e-books with *e-ink* displays that use energy during a "page turn" and practically zero energy the rest of the time.
However, this beast is burning away the battery the whole time the screen has an image on it (i.e. while you are reading, not just turning pages)
Two page e-book
I fancy a 2-page e-book, but I would make one of them e-ink for reading text, and the other colour for displaying images (like the old books with groups of "plates" inserted for the pictures!)
That way I get nice long battery life, reading a nice screen, but it can power up the aux screen so I can see diagrams / photos, etc. in colour.
Moving towards mimicking a real book
I have a Sony ebook which is great for commuter reading. I like the long battery life and how easy the display is on the eyes. Colour would be nice, as would the ability to enlarge some pictures and diagrams in PDF ebooks.
The Asus spec looks good, the battery life in particular, especially as it seems to be driving 2 screens. Hopefully the display is as gentle on the eye as e-ink.
Not sure about the 2 pages, I quite like getting my ebook screen into a comfortable position then each page is displayed in turn. 2 sided page printing is only to save paper, so 2 separate ebook pages seems to be over the top, but may have uses that I have not thought of. (Joined pages would be better.)
I will be watching this and writing a letter to Santa.
Readability/eye strain
I always thought that the main advantage of ebook readers over reading books on something like a monitor was the way that e-ink allowed users to read for a long time without eye strain etc. What's the point of it running for 122 hours if you get a headache after a couple of them?
I hope the e-book reader is not going to hijacked by firms making 'tablets' of the same format as current ebook readers but not using the eye friendly displays that are, at the moment, one of the main unique selling points of e-book readers?
