Asus Plans Dual-Display E-Reader 199
adeelarshad82 writes "Yet more confirmation has emerged that Asus plans its own e-book reader. An Asus representative in the UK appears to have confirmed this, with the additional details that there may be a value-priced as well as a premium version. The article guesses at the price point for the low-end model — around £100 ($192). Unlike current e-book readers, which take the form of a single flat screen, the Asus device has a hinged spine, like a printed book. This, in theory, enables its owner to read an e-book much like a normal book, using the touchscreen to 'turn' the pages from one screen to the next. Asus showed off a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March." Reader NeverBotedBush adds, "Asus's e-reader will likely have color touch screens, a speaker, a webcam, and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls." The color screen rules out using E Ink technology, so long battery life seems to be unlikely.
Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's Great, But... (Score:5, Insightful)
I refuse to get excited until I know whether it's More of the Same (TM) or not, shiny features be damned.
Backlit screen = yuk (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:2, Insightful)
Too easy, Brian. Walk away.
Color screen rules out E-ink? What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then can you explain this [eink.com]?
And that's not even mentioning color electronic ink from other companies [wired.com].
Re:That's Great, But... (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA doesn't address the real questions: who thought of this? I can't wait to pay 50% more for a second screen to my ebook reader so that I can look at both pages surrounding every other page break at the same time.
Re:sign me up (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of e-Ink is that it doesn't need to refresh multiple times per second to keep the text on there. It works more like paper, and so refresh time isn't really important. What's the refresh time on your paperback, when you turn a page?
Feature Creep (Score:2, Insightful)
It isn't an ebook reader if it has a microphone, webcam and the ability to make Skype calls. It is a flat computer.
I can see the justification for speakers, possibly helping with ADA compliance and reading text to the sight impaired. The rest is loss-of-focus, lets add features to disguise the shitty battery life, crap.
Give me extended battery life in an ebook reader over all that crap any day.
Re:Nintendo DX of e-books (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Feature Creep (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, it isn't a computer if it has a microphone, webcam, color screen, and the ability to connect to a global network. :)
You forget that as technology advances, so must our names for things.
That, and it sounds like, well, you wouldn't want the product - however, I, and I think many millions more, /do/, just as it is.
Re:Dual Screens = Opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cool, but e-ink is what makes e-readers so great,
It also makes them slow, expensive, black&white-only and unusable for the Internet or video. A good LCD screen, such as the ones from PixelQi, can give you something very close to the resolution and sunlight readability of ePaper while also giving you color and video and that at a low cost. Now of course if they actually use such an good LCD or just stuck in one of those crappy shiny Laptop screen that are unusable outside remains to be seen.
Re:Still not going to be Mainstream... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and have fun copying a ~600 page book by hand (you can't exactly cut and manually feed in the pages on a library book), especially with most libraries costing tons of money per copy.
That's why you go to the copy shop.
Based on extensive (legal) book photocopying experience, it is very hard to take more than 6 seconds per page, even including coffee breaks, bathroom breaks, and gossip time. At that rate, its going to take 3600 seconds to photocopy a 600 page book. Which is a mere single hour. To save perhaps $100. Or, in other words $100/hr, which is pretty respectable pay rate for a college student, even for illegal activities. Note that you can make multiple copies for very little extra time, most time is spent flipping pages.
Consider it a college level arithmetic test...
Re:Nintendo DX of e-books (Score:3, Insightful)