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Asus set to enter ebook market

8 September 2009 0:21 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 4 comments

Asus is planning to bring two ebook readers to the market to take Amazon and Sony head on, according to reports. Asus is one of the world's biggest consumer electronics companies, and in the last couple of years it played a large part in the rise of the netbook, a low-cost alternative to a laptop. Now Asus is planning to bring affordable ebook readers to the market to undercut the Kindle.

The Times Online quotes Jerry Shen, CEO, as source. The report says that the company is expecting to offer two different devices, a budget ebook reader and a more feature-rich premium ebook reader. The readers will have a hinged spine with two screens to emulate a book, with touchscreen controls to flick through pages.

While other ebook readers are offered with a monochrome screen, Asus' ebook readers could show full color images of the pages. Some other possible uses for the ebook reader that are mentioned are using Skype with an available mic and speaker, or viewing webpages.

"Our ethos is innovation � as our brand is less well known, we have to run faster than the competition to develop new types of products," Asus is reported as saying. "Any such product � including an ereader � has to have the right combination of functionality and price. No one is going to buy one for �1,000."

Of course, nobody would pay anything close to �1000 for an ebook reader. However, the budget version of the readers, dubbed "Eee Reader", is expected to aim for a price tag of around �100.

Permalink to this article | Topic: Gadgets

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Sony unveils two new e-readers (5 August 2009)

Amazon sued over '1984' e-book removal (31 July 2009)

Kindle DX is already sold out on Amazon (14 June 2009)

Amazon markets new Kindle DX for electronic textbooks (7 May 2009)

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Amazon Kindle 2 is big seller (18 April 2009)

Author's Guild receives protests over Kindle 'text-to-speech' stance (9 April 2009)

Google and Sony team up in e-book business (19 March 2009)

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DXR88 (Senior Member) 8 September 2009 1:37
i hate ebooks, buy a real book fer crying out loud. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 8 September 2009 1:38
Shinraboy (Member) 8 September 2009 13:13
I, for one am very pleased with this. There needs to be variety in every market. Sony's reader was absolutely fantastic. The only issue for me was the size. When it came to reading my archived manga it was a little difficult. This could be improved with a few more inches which is available with the Amazon DX but 500 is just far too much/ More companies. Lower prices. Sounds fantastic. [ + quote]
shaffaaf (Senior Member) 8 September 2009 13:37
i just dont like that that they can turn off on you. on a long plane ride, id choose a book, but when on the loo, its alot easier having this, plus if it can get the daily news, i wont complain :D [ + quote]
leequick (Newbie) 28 October 2009 5:43
I was promised book readers by Isaac Asimov in the foundation trilogy. I have 4 different kinds. The best was one of the originals, the Rocket ebook. My problem with the readers is that the seller of the reader also wants to be your only provider of ebooks. They decide what they will sell. I read 3 books a week, I go to 3 or 4 ebook stores just to find what I want and still have problems getting some new ebooks because there is a "spitting war in some of the ebook stores who want you to buy a certain format because they might someday produce a reader in that format". Yes I am speaking of "Fictionwise.com". Don't get me wrong I have purchased about 800 or 900 ebooks from them and will continue to purchase. I might even buy the "sometime in the future if we can ever get it to work correctly" reader. Just don't limit the format sold on some books to "the Pie in the sky" reader you might have. There are enough formats for ebooks, there are not enough readers that are good enough for me to keep shelling out 600 or so bucks per reader. eInk is nice but you need to cart around a book light to read. LCD is beautiful, but it uses too much juice to last 20 or so hours, primary reason is that they are not just readers. We need just readers, I don't require my books to play music, show me websites or even get me more books. I can do that other ways. I do expect my books to allow me to read for hours on end, maybe even a week or two while I am out and about and cannot recharge them. I hope one day for a reader that allows me as many formats that my palm device allows, so far 3. Gee wouldn't it be nice if Palm put out a reader with Mobi, eReader and Adobe on it. Too much like science fiction for that to happen. [ + quote]