14 DAY TRIAL // Even with all the phones and tablets on show at the Mobile World Congress expo, some e-book readers still got their share of attention, such as the one developed by Onda, albeit not exactly detailed as far as hardware goes.
E-book readers are that sort of device that surprised the IT industry when they were launched, by selling better than anyone had surmised.
In a way, they were a sort of spiritual successor to netbooks, which sold surprisingly well during a time of economic recession.
In fact, they proved so successful that such companies as E Ink got very good revenues form selling e-paper screens for them.
Onda took the opportunity to unveil one such device, dubbed MyTile 10B Pro, according to the spec sheet on show alongside the electronic itself, in Barcelona, Spain.
Unfortunately, there isn't much info on the hardware, except for what one may guess just from looking at it.
It has a screen size of 9.7 inches and the e-paper screen is equipped with touch input that recognizes both fingers and styluses.
The other physical details mentioned are audio support, wireless connectivity (via WiFi and 3G) and the battery life of (supposedly) over one week.
On the software side of things, Onda was a bit less tight-lipped, mentioning the existence of Adobe DRM, a browser, an e-mail client, printing capabilities, a music player and other user friendly applications.
Other specifications include a text to speech function, recording and handwriting recognition.
All in all, it should be able to do anything that most competing e-readers are capable of, meaning that those as yet unrevealed features will make the difference when determining market value.
It is unclear how long it will take for Onda to announce the storage capacity or how much the MyTile will cost. Hopefully this mystery will be solved by the time CebIT 2011 comes along.
Note: Fellow editors Cosmin Vasile and Alex Vochin are on the floor at the 2011 Mobile World Congress and are keeping us posted with pictures and live reports on the latest product previews and launches.
