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Hands-On Demo Shows Asus E-Reader Tablet In Action
MojoKid writes "Mobile computing is making its mark at Computex 2010, with tablet PCs and e-readers of all sorts coming out for the first time as rivals to Apple's iPad. After announcing its Eee Pad tablet PC, Asus offered some hands-on time with its new e-Reader/e-Writer, designed for students and mobile business professionals. The little slate's features include 10-hour battery life, 2,450 dpi resolution touch screen, pen writing and input controls, 2MP camera, USB port, and a MicroSD slot. In addition, Asus also has strong ties with Amazon, so it wouldn't be a reach to see some sort of partnership between Asus and Amazon with the Kindle bookstore as a content provider."
The screen does *not* have a 2450dpi resolution (which would be ridiculous). The dpi metric refers to the input sensitivity. The screen is a 8" 1024x600 panel.
The panel is obviously not e-ink...is this old school monochrome LCD, then? If the viewing angles are OK, I don't see why not.
Does it?
The digitizer has 2450 dpi resolution. The screen is 1024x786 with 64 grey levels.
It look like a concept I could use. For lab journals etc - snap an image, write a note.
What I would like is to use such a thing as a terminal. Use it as a screen / digitizer combination at work or at home, and to be able to use it as a separate PC when on the train. As I don't do no flash, I cannot see what OS it has and if software can be installed on it, but it could make a great, finally ergonomic, X terminal.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Give me 8.5" by 11" or A4 size screen with the resolution to replicate a FULL PAGE OF TEXT.
Why cant these tablet makers get it through their heads? 1200X600 = too small I want to see a full page and annotate it. Otherwise it is another leisure toy and not a real tool for education or work.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The specs make this look like a note taking / annotation device. That's something the kindle sucks at. Jobs won't allow a stylus near the iPad, so they're avoiding that market altogether. Netbooks are fine for typists as long as your notes are all text. As soon as diagrams are involved they suck too.
So really this is a $$$ replacement for a pad of lined paper. That said, if the applications are well put together, it might well have a market even if that market doesn't include you or me.
So I take you think it was a mistake to offer, for almost 3 decades now, color video in cameras with electronic (and typically b&w) viewfinders? Same with many bridge digicams...I guess they should revert to making b&w pictures when using their built-in electronic viewfinder.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Am I out of line by whining that we all should be well over the use of monochrome displays in these devices? When I see an eReader using a monochrome display I think "that looks so last decade...", and the strange thing to me is that it takes Apple and its iPad to deliver full color output? Like its some huge friggin' technological effort to create a tablet device with color; so they get to charge almost $1000 a pop? I don't get it. Am I missing the incredible technological leap that has been made with the iPad?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I do IT support in public schools in a major U.S. city. We have neither white nor black boards these days. All teachers now are using LCD projectors to display content that comes either from a PC or from a "document camera" -- a video camera aimed at a plain piece of paper. In addition, many teachers are using interactive whiteboards which digitize content as you write it on the board
So there is little reason for a student to take a snapshot in class -- everything is already digitized as it is displayed by the teacher, and the teacher can easily post all content on a website after class.
Without color this device simply will not attract the "note takers"..." who is the biggest market segment of "note takers" who adopt new devices quickly?
College students. Ever seen a young person react to monochrome display...?? "Yucky" pretty much sums it up.
I think it is important to realize that tablet devices are going move quickly beyond the static brick...flexible displays will allow a thin device that has all the characteristics and user experience of a magazine with moving pictures and internet access. Text books, magazines, video, personal apps, media...will all converge...onto one device. Even note taking...
Why would anyone make a device that dumps itself into a tiny niche market?? The real driving factor that people seem to miss is content. What kind of content does a person want monochrome displays for? Mass Media market content is in color. Digital content cannot be free any longer and the publisher's are all lining up to make sure of it. Mark these words:
Publisher's are working very hard to reduce the largest expense they have....an expense that drives advertising costs sky high. Printing and paper. Drastically reduce those two things and make money distributing content to mobile multi-function devices...is where publisher's are all going.
He says in the video it's a TFT-LCD. Just grayscale and not backlit. Hence the 10 hour life.
Not eInk. No interest from me in using it as a reader, or much of anything else I guess.
I am one of the "note takers," essentially a professional one. I don't use color. I don't WANT color. Color destroys readability.
Right now I use a LiveScribe Pulse pen.
1) No immediate feedback.
2) Clumsy applications.
3) Limited memory.
4) Must be synchronized to a PC.
5) No close handwriting recognition integration.
6) VERY limited user interface.
I would LOVE to be using a tablet of some kind so that I can actually see what I'm doing. So why am I using an ink-based pen? Because there is NO alternative for taking many hours worth of handwritten notes on battery power with very low weight right now. Back in the day there was the Newton 2x00 and it was, so far as I'm concerned, the Greatest Device Ever Created for my purposes and I would still be using it (I have three, two were backups) if not for the fact that the NCU (sync software) wasn't updated beyond Windows 95 / Mac OS 8 compatibility, so synchronizing is now impossible.
For a good 10 years I've been crossing my fingers hoping against hope that someone would come up with a Newton-like replacement: similar form factor, similar display, similar high-resolution stylus-based digitizer, etc. This looks damned close in terms of size and input method.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW