Hi Robertb,
This is now a very long thread and I havent had the chance to read through it. It is also very good that someone from the actual manufacturer is talking with us all customers. This is welcome change.
My request to you:
There are a huge bunch of 6'(and a few 5') readers already available in the market. It will be really good opportunity for someone to go few steps ahead and provide us greedy people with a bigger reader, but at a more palatable price.
In the few glimpses of the msgs I have read you seem to be interested in putting in more functionality into the 9.7' reader.
This is great. But also it seems to delay the dates further, touch, wifi, colour etc., only add to the delay.
It will be good if these features are planned, but a basic reader, stable and very useable is released upfront and the rest added later. For eg., color can be an optional firmware upgrade later.
Just to compare, fujitsu, brother, PL are all knocking at bigger readers. It is not that the fastest to provide one will win, but the best performing affordable reader has the best scope for wide acceptance.
Hope to hear more about the Astak..

thanks
hari