Another Asus ebook reader leaked: DR-950

[Nate the great]

from electricpig.co.uk:

The Asus DR-950 is Asus’s second e-reader outed this morning, and this one’s gunning straight for the Kindle DX. It’s a black and white job with a spacious 9-inch touchscreen, and we’ve got all the details on it here.

The Asus DR-950 may not have an OLED screen, but at 9mm thin it’s still shaping up to be an impressive piece of engineering, and at 370g, will weigh less than the half kilo Kindle DX.

The Asus DR-950 will pack a 1024×768 resolution display, and on the software front will offer RSS feeds, translation and text to speech. It’ll also pack 2 or 4GB of internal memory and an SD slot, Wi-Fi and HSDPA or even WiMax, plus a USB port for sideloading, a 3.5m audio port for music.

The Asus DR-950 will support PDF, TXT, Audible, MP3, ePub, HTML, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP file formats. There’s no word on a release date just yet but check out the pictures while we gather more details.

[LDBoblo]

Too bad about the resolution. Looks pretty neat though. We guessing plastic/foil sub EPD?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Too bad about the resolution. Looks pretty neat though. We guessing plastic/foil sub EPD?

What's wrong with the resolution? It's about what I'm using on my 12" laptop.

[Phantom-Rose]

Sounds good. No proprietary formats. But will it be a ble to read DRMed PDF's, etc. It's still an issue reader manufacturers have to take into account, until the douchebags that insist on DRMing their shit wake up & realize they're only shooting themselves in the foot.

[Sweetpea]

No non-DRM mobipocket? and I presume it's e-ink...

[DawnFalcon]

Guessing that has to be a transflexive LCD screen then...

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Guessing that has to be a transflexive LCD screen then...

Why? With only black and white? It'd be a waste of transflective technology...

[DawnFalcon]

*blinks*

It's not like it'd be the first, and you really think it's a good idea to use a reflective LCD?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

What's wrong with the resolution? It's about what I'm using on my 12" laptop.

Your 12" laptop also has pretty white whites and pretty black blacks, and the ability to smooth fonts without rendering them weak and almost unreadable. EPDs like E-Ink have no such advantage.

If they can jack up their resolution to approach print, they can probably get by with their weak contrast. If not, they need more contrast to compensate.

The main reason I dislike E-Ink is not speed or color, but basic black and white contrast and readability. It's just not good enough yet.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

*blinks*

It's not like it'd be the first, and you really think it's a good idea to use a reflective LCD?

My suspicion is that to accomplish their thin and light without being terribly fragile, they're using foil or plastic backing, and that seems to be the hotness with EPDs right now.

EDIT: Hmm. Engadget article says SiPix. Shame if it's accurate.

[Not_A_Crook]

My two cents, but this one over the other. (I really do think color OLED/LCD is less reader-focused)

[osama_jamal]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

My suspicion is that to accomplish their thin and light without being terribly fragile, they're using foil or plastic backing, and that seems to be the hotness with EPDs right now.

Guys Engadget says that the screen will be a 9-inch Sipix panel with 1,024 x 768 pixel resolution pushing 16-levels of gray just like the Jinke reader unveiled at CES.

I'm not sure though if Sipix is a reflective screen. Is it?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by osama_jamal

Guys Engadget says that the screen will be a 9-inch Sipix panel with 1,024 x 768 pixel resolution pushing 16-levels of gray just like the Jinke reader unveiled at CES.

I'm not sure though if Sipix is a reflective screen. Is it?

Yeah SiPix is very similar to E-Ink. They're both EPDs (electrophoretic displays), and operate on the same general principles. SiPix has some advantages in thinness and durability, though it is visually a little inferior to E-Ink (lower white reflectance in particular, making the screen a little more gray. The numbers I see are ~30% for SiPix, ~40% for E-Ink)

Here's a video that shows a reader that uses a SiPix Microcup EPD screen:

After 2 minutes you'll see the display in action, and you'll notice it's slow, just like most E-Ink devices. Demonstrators love to re-tap and re-swipe to try to conceal the lack of responsiveness in a device. To be fair though, that's likely the processor and software. Personally I think their huge demonstration "reading" text is hilarious.

[DaleDe]

Here, try this comparison. The one on the right is a capacative touch screen using SiPix 6" like the above against an EZREader 5" screen.

Dale

[DawnFalcon]

The one on the right looks considerably better...