New ASUS e-reader details emerge

by Scott Bicheno on 18 January 2010, 18:22

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

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Reading the signs

At the first press event of CES, ASUS stressed its heritage as an innovator. While we're surprised to see it beaten to the ARM-based notebook punch by quite a few OEM, the kudos of being the netbook pioneer remains.

ASUS has decided to go public on is its e-reader plans, which are extensive. Sometime after CeBIT, ASUS will be launching what it's calling the world's first nine inch touch eBook reader - the DR-950.

It doesn't have a hardware keyboard, so it's thinner and lighter than Amazon's Kindle, but it does have a software one and can recognize handwriting. It also has a text-to-speech functionality.

The nine inch monochrome screen has a resolution of 1024x768. It has 802.11g, HSPA and WiMAX connectivity options and can be used in portrait or landscape alignment to better view web pages. There will also be a six inch variant launched, hopefully not long after.