Asus finally is starting to leak the details of its upcoming e-book reader, and I was pleasantly surprised to see not just one but two e-book reader models are coming out for our favorite computer manufacturer. After having no e-book readers to show at the CES, we’re seeing two e-book readers from Asus, and honestly, I’m impressed.
The two e-readers are called Asus DR-570 and the DR-950. What’s the difference between the two, you may ask?
The Asus DR-570 (pictured on the right) will be a 6-inch color OLED e-reader, will play back Flash video, includes WiFi and 3G, and supposedly can last for 122 hours on one charge under “real world conditions.” Those specs are possible because of its 124 x 170 x 8.8-mm / 200-g footprint, 4GB of onboard storage with SDHC expansion, 512MB of SDRAM, and 1,530mAh battery. I don’t know if the final version will also include that picture of Jessica Alba, but that will be a welcome development.
The Asus DR-950, on the other hand, is a 9-inch grayscale SiPix e-paper e-reader. Aside from the larger size, the DR-950 is actually easier to read because of its e-paper screen.
It has 1,024 x 768 pixel resolution, a touchscreen, has a text-to-speech converter, a web browser that works in portrait or landscape modes, a virtual keyboard and handwriting input, a RSS reader, and dictionary (with expandable database) with real-time translation. Darn, that’s an awesome set of features. If that wasn’t enough, the specs are also beefed-up: size is 222 x 161 x 9-mm / 370-gram, it also packs WiFi and HSPA (WiMax is optional) data radios, 3.5-mm headphone jack and stereo speakers, with 4GB of internal memory and SD Card expansion. Supported formats include PDF, TXT, Audible, MP3, and unprotected ePub.
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