Asus Eee Reader Could Have Dual Colour Touchscreens

This thing better read .CBR files. If it does then I know how I will be reading my comics from now on.

Gregory Mercurio

"The Times says Asus is aiming closer to around $160. Previous Eee PCs have been cheaper than the competition, so you just never know…"

Not to put a downer on this story, but the original (7", 4GB) eeePC was supposed to be $200, but came to market at twice that. A quick look on NewEgg shows no new models for less than $300.

Michael Crider

looks backlit to me, hence pretty crap as a reader

John Kelly

@vx2: Come again?

Invisible-Echidna

What's the screen?

vx2

Color e-paper exists already or is asus just going to use LED screens? That would really hurt battery life and it would also allow the cheaper price so I am wondering.

wendigee

haha very cool

PageDemigod

i am reading the books on my laptop all the time, if they throw out a single display 9" tablet, that does internet, music and 3g for under 250$ I'm in

@USB_Humping_Dog: lol, resolution phase.

@Invisible-Echidna: Give him a while to recover first. He isn't as young as he used to be, you know.

USB_Humping_Dog

No way it would be a color e-ink screen at that price, which means there wouldn't really be a point in buying it - you might as well get a netbook and read on that. The whole point of modern e-book readers is their use of e-ink for very easy-on-the-eyes, very low-battery devices.

Devices with LCD displays are WAY harsh and hard to read compared to devices with e-ink displays, and of course don't last two weeks of usage on a single charge.

Dreamwriter

@Michael Crider: Well the original EEE PC the 701 series did come to market at $300 not $400. My 4G was closer to the $400. And the $300 got you a darned near useless 2gb flash based SDD but. But it was only 50% higher then they said it would.

So not quite double. Plus they are estimating $500 for the EEE Keyboard which would seem to be about right. Maybe they learned their lesson.

@Gregory Mercurio: If it runs windows, it'll read any file :D

I'd rock it!

This just shows a complete lack of understanding of why people buy ebook readers. Two screens means twice the weight (if not more) and twice the power use, without a significant increase in utility; a person only reads one page at at time, except in cases where they might be referencing a chart on one side and text on another, which would probably be mostly textbooks. That's great for that use, and I can see it being very useful in that you could actually "pin" one page and advance the other (i.e. keep looking at the chart on page 327 while advancing the text to page 331). But reading anything else, such as a novel or a newspaper, would not have any advantage.

At 2.5-3.0 lbs (the average weight of netbooks with only one screen) such a device would just be too cumbersome to use. And if reports that the screens they'll be using are LCDs is true, the 2hr-4hr battery life would pale by comparison to any epaper-based reader.

While I remain open minded about what they might release, I don't think they're starting out in the right direction. Asus has done great things in the netbook market, but as the saying goes, past success does not guarantee future performance.

The device is invisiible! Or should be. It's all about content. That's why Amazon got it right - they have the LIBRARY.
I have this rockin' HD big screen. But increasingly, finding something worth watching is problematic. Nobody could say that about print. There will always be more great books to read.

PaddyDugan

@weatherman: I have to differ with your initial statment, though I appreciate your thougtful analysis. The market for e-readers has yet to be defined. You rightly point out an application for textbooks. What a huge, untapped market! Amazon's current technology is insufficient for that purpose, as diagrams, maps, and color photos are integral to books for schools. I forsee a day in the near future when 40 lb. student backpacks will be found only in the Smithsonian, sparing the next generation the chronic back pain we inflict on the present.
The ability to update information will be a huge selling point. The dirty secret in every school in America is the volumes of unused or obsolete books gathing mold in "the book room".
Mac enjoys their place in the computer market in large extent due to ther wise placement in schools. The first company to come up with a device that will be inexpensive and rugged enough to be offered to every student will be able to market content, the real sellable.
It will have to be someone with the clout of Amazon or Google to have access to that much content though, I think.

PaddyDugan

@PaddyDugan: Actually, publishers don't like giving up their content to a third party. Also, Amazon hinders the publishers relationship with their end users, so you won't find the large textbook publishers using them much in the future. They are all working on their own avenue of distribution, which is why products like the Sony and Asus readers will be much more popular than the Kindle in the future. It will work much better and be more efficient than the Amazon model.

H2H

@weatherman: 3 lbs too cumbersome?

#1 do some pushups

#2 compare this with the weight of carrying a semesters worth of textbooks around with you.

H2H

@weatherman: People also only tend to read one or two books at a time... which makes the ability to carry ones complete library a waste of money. But they still seem to buy the Kindle...

Timothy Collins

@PaddyDugan: I agree with everything you've said, but this device (and the needs you suggest it would meet) don't seem to offer all that much of an advantage over what a laptop already offers, wheras the readers from Sony and Amazon are substantially lighter with much greater battery life and great screen visibility in full sunlight. The Sony and Amazon readers are not great for textbooks or for business reading, but they're adequate for those purposes in most cases and they are great for novels.

@H2H: try holding a 3lb netbook in the way that you hold a paperback. I think you'd find that it is not very comfortable for prolonged periods of reading, and that the muscles that you use for pushups are not involved at all.

@weatherman: Thank you. I'm getting so tired of seeing the whole "ereaders are stupid, get a netbook" arguments show up in these threads all the time. It's funny how so many people think that just because *they* don't have a use for a specific device, no one will.

You think I'm gonna carry one of these things around in this $6,300 dollar suit? COME ON!!!

RitaAtlas (?????)

Couple of things:

1) Mobility/battery life - the screen on a laptop is one of the highest power draw components - surely two great big colour touch screens are going to present a bit of a challenge?

2) OS? What would it run? I suppose Windows could be goaded into working OK with the two screens but I'm sensing a custom Linux build?

Maybe I'm thinking too much like this is a netbook... Well, it is Asus after all.

neonblurb

@Invisible-Echidna: I think what he meant to ask what the screen uses, e.g. E-INK or OLED, LCD, etc...

Daniel Soto

@Invisible-Echidna: I think he's curious if its an electronic ink display like the kindle, or backlit LCD, or perhaps an LED lit screen. At least, i think thats what he was asking.

Tyler James Brainerd

I'm liking how it looks maybe this type of competition will lower prices for other e-books too. It looks pretty innovated e-book reader maybe they will make it a full netbook later on or add more features like they said.

AikenNange

@Daniel Soto: Way to circumvent the dirty, 7th grade humor, asshole.

There's always at least one of you.

*narrows eyes*

"Right now, the two cheapest readers are the 6-inch Amazon Kindle 2 ($300) and Cool-er eBook Reader ($250)."

Um, can we give Sony a *little* respect? The Sony Pocket is $199, and you can still get the 505 for $250.

Eric C. Tucker

@PaddyDugan: Funny you mention that.
On this Month's Scientific American, one of the editors finally got around the Kindle he got last Christmas when he went on a trip to NY.
He talked about this e-book he downloaded and how twisted sick the plot was and the versatility of the Kindle.

The only thing he could not do with the Kindle was THROW it in the middle of the river, because at $300+, well...
Meaning you still can get crappy e-books.

HA HA! I LOL athis article....

aec007

If you have not seen the Sculley-vintage 'Knowledge Navigator' video Apple made, now would be a good time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Navigator

AriellaDrury

@aec007: Good point - there's no shortage of great books but then there's no shortage of crappy ones either. Otherwise, where would the ideas come from for all the crappy stuff on the tube?

PaddyDugan

@PaddyDugan: What they're doing is turning an e-book reader into an netbook. We already have cheap netbooks. We don't yet have cheap e-book readers.

@H2H: Thank you for those insights. I'll have to consider them. But wait, don't you think Amazon is going to upgrade to keep up with Sony and Asus? Also, do you have some knowledge of how textbook publishers operate that I don't? It seems to me that it's all about supply and demand: profits. Teachers and students will simply demand this technology once the awareness of it spreads sufficiently. The main point, for me, is that the prospect for carrying an entire class load of texts in a convenient format is just too appealing to turn down. Regardless of what any corporation or industry prefers, technology that works always wins the argument. No?

PaddyDugan

@weatherman: Great analysis, but you're thinking like a gadget person, not like a regular person. A regular person goes out and buys what's cool, sometimes taking price into consideration. This is very cool.

PS: Although I am a gadget person, and totally agree with you, I CANNOT miss this. It's just too close to Penny's computer book from Inspector Gadget that I wanted SO BADLY as a child.