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Asus Plans Dual-Display E-Reader
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.
~$200 may be low-end, but that's still not mainstream. E-books still have a lot of cons they have to get past, and a 200 entry fee isn't helping. As a college student, I would need to be able to resell books, but e-books are "rentals" where I can never sell them, without selling the account. IMO that's the biggest reason E-books are still on the launching pad, many (college) books are bought for $120, but resold for $80, so effectively, I payed for a $40 book. With E-books, it's the same price, but I can't sell them. Once we can buy and sell e-books like used books, I may look into it, but that and the high entry cost basically guarantee that I'll never buy one.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
I refuse to get excited until I know whether it's More of the Same (TM) or not, shiny features be damned.
Backlit screens are useless outdoors. In my recent quest to replace an aging mp3 player, I found everything has color screens now, which suck because a) they're hard to read outdoors and b) they burn power, so you have to push a button to turn them on. E-ink seems fine, but I also think there is a large, unjustified bias against good old black & white LCD - yeah, like a Casio digital watch, or a PDA from 1999 - but so what? Those screens were/are very useful.
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?
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.
Why not use colour e-ink displays? Surely they've got the kinks ironed out by now...