A walk through some of the features built inside the device

Mar 10, 2010 11:18 GMT  ·  By

CeBIT 2010 has seen ASUS announcing an impressive number of new products, some of which were among the most appreciated solutions at the show. Such is the case with the outfit's highly-anticipated e-book reader, a device that should enable the Taiwanese company to enter a market that will see it compete with the likes of Amazon or Sony. The DR-900 unveiled at CeBIT, last week, is still in development, according to ASUS. Nevertheless, it caught our attention and we decided to talk with ASUS and give us a better perspective on what the device is capable of.

The first thing you will notice about ASUS's e-Book reader is that, when compared to the popular Kindle from Amazon, this device lacks a physical keyboard. The 9-inch solution comes with a large, touch-enabled screen, which offers a relatively straightforward user interface. There are a couple of useful features built inside the DR-900, but we can't tell for sure if these will be available when the unit will be officially introduced on the market.

We have a video of the said device, at the end of this article, showing some of the features available with ASUS' e-Book reader. We also managed to find out a couple of specifications about the device, namely the technology that has been used for the screen. According to the Taiwanese outfit, their e-Book adopted a 9-inch touchscreen display designed by SiPix. From what we've seen, the transitions on the screen are noticeably slow, even for an e-book reader. However, we were told that this is one of the company's focuses, something that needs to be fixed before the device is officially introduced on the market.

Unfortunately, ASUS couldn't tell us what to expect from its e-reader, in terms of pricing, as this device is currently scheduled to arrive sometime in Q3 this year, by which time they should be able to put a price tag on their e-book solution.