ASUS DR-570 color e-book reader gets detailed
By Thomas Ricker 
posted January 18th 2010 8:31AM
posted January 18th 2010 8:31AM
Ready for it? We've got more (and possibly less) on the color ASUS DR-570 e-book reader that stormed through our site over the weekend riding a wave of OLED anticipation. We now know that in addition to WiFi, 3G, and 122-hour real world battery life, we can expect lightning quick 0.03 second page turns (that's about 23 times faster than the Kindle and its peers as you'd expect from a non E Ink display), 124 x 170 x 8.8-mm / 200-g footprint, 4GB of onboard storage with SDHC expansion, 512MB of SDRAM, and 1,530mAh battery. It also brings a built-in RSS reader, audio/video/Flash player, text to speech engine (presumably the Svox like the DR-950), and built-in web browser when it hits before the end of the year. There's also a hint of online video streaming support via Amazon video on demand, 3D gaming and navigation (picture Blio page turning emulation), "One stop shopping for books, video, music," and explicit support for ePub, PDF, txt, MP3, MP4, and AVI content formats. The one thing we can't confirm is the 6-inch OLED display originally reported; our data simply calls it the "world's first 5.7-inch colorful eBook Reader" and we've heard rumors that Sipix (the panel of choice for the DR-950) is expected to ship a color electronic ink display in 2010. Doubt they'll achieve 0.03 second refreshes with that though. Stay tuned as we dig deeper.
Any guesses as to whether this thing will be over/under 599.99 in price?
@nachotech
Given the spec, I doubt it.. OLED is not exactly a budget display, the processor is going to need to be 1 gig + to run flash and other goodies, and the long battery life even in power saving mode of some sort while reading is still going to have to power the display.
They might have put in a battery the size of the whole face in the back, which I suppose is possible.
Either way, looks interesting.
@nachotech No idea, but anything that delivers Jessica Alba in rich, glorious color is worth something.
@nicholiservia
What has Apple got to do with anything. Other computer manufacturers have been making tablet computers in various forms for years. Just about everyone beat Apple to it.
@nachotech The way other prices are going, chances are it will be more expensive than the netbooks (Except maybe the Apple). What I need is one of Barnes and Noble's Nook ebook readers at a good price with a 5.7 screen.
Rick
Webmaster http://ebookreadernow.com
Hey I hope they deliver on everything they said 122hours though seems abit high unless they mean when you are ONLY reading pre-downloaded content.
@Federaly
That mite be with the screen back light off
@OCEAN CLAK
OLED's do not have backlights, so if it does have an OLED screen, your logic is flawed.
@Erb
I ment like can only see the screen at day time and not night time at all
Plus Asus claim my Eeepc 901 lasts upto 8hrs its never lasted me more than 5hrs 30mins with basic use, the 8hrs must be with the back light off
So dont expect the battery life Asus states
@OCEAN CLAK
You need to read up on what OLED is... The screen is self illuminated and not back lit. There is no "seeing it only during the day" because the screen does not change color or opaqueness. It simply glows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED
@Federaly - there's no way that battery life figure *can* be true if the screen truly is OLED. OLEDs are fairly energy-efficient when they display mostly dark images, but bright images can even mean that they need more energy than a conventional LED-backlit LCD of some sort.
Hence, unless this thing is 3 cm thick and 5kg heavy to due a massive battery or the battery life figure is for a screen that only displays a single grey pixel on an otherwise black screen, 122h are simply impossible.
The one thing I could think of that *might* give that kind of battery life, color & fast switching time is a Mirasol screen...
@NewL Agree, that no known OLED screen would give you that level of battery life. I thought Pixel-Qi had an agreement with Asus. Mirasol displays from Qualcomm could possibly do this, but they won't be available until the end of 2010 at the earliest, from what I heard.
@OCEAN CLAK
Didn't you see the glowing pickle?
http://techtv.mit.edu/genres/19-engineering/videos/3175-vladimir-bulovic-on-oled-displays
That's OLED. :D
@NewL you know, my recycled-paper newspaper has better specs than this silly e-book
OK .. hmm a width of 124 mm .. that's a liltte less that 5 inches wide .. u know what .. that could actually fit in my pocket.
OK, now I hope it has a front facing camera and GPS. I won't mind paying $800 for it if it's got GPS and front facing camera.
@JS
Oh yeah and bluetooth.
@nicholiservia - as it says right next to the comment box: "Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry."
In other words: STFU.
Wouldnt it be counterproductive if this thing was OLED. I own a Zune HD & absolutely love the screen but that thing is unreadable in daylight. How can a device whose primary function is reading be useful that way. Indoors I get. Outdoors I am not so sure.
Seems like we are seeing an unusual number of pictures of the device. I think it is just a pretense to show pictures of Jessica Alba. Let's just drop the pretense and post better pictures of Jessica - shall we?
@boe Ditto. If it comes with a JA screen saver, I'm all over it :)
Doesn't the lack of an e-ink display make it more like a tablet than an e-reader? It's like having a 17in laptop with netbook-like specs, and still calling it a netbook.
@jubjub If it doesn't use eink, wouldn't that reduce the ability to view the screen out of doors?
Rick
webmaster http://ebookreadernow.com
isnt it just a MID? if it can support windows then it's UMPC
Would OLED create eye strain if viewed for extended periods of time? The advantage of E Ink is no eye strain, so I'm trying to find out if that advantage goes away with OLED.
@hogbear11
I have an OLED display on one of my devices, and I can say that, while it's certainly clear and crisp and quite nice to look at, it still has all the negatives of LCD when it comes to eye strain when compared to my Kindle.
But then, let's be serious here: The people who buy this aren't the people who want to read long print-only novels. They're the manga readers, the magazine readers, and the people who want porn on the go in a bigger screen.
Nobody's going to rely on an OLED screen to read War & Peace.
And I'll also add that, unless you plan to read only classics or pirated books, you're not going to find any modern ebooks without some form of DRM which requires them to be on a specific device, whether it's Sony e-Reader, Kindle, or Nook. The publishers don't just put their novels out there in open formats, which means any non-licensed 3rd-party e-reader is not going to have all the same content options as one that is marketed by a company that has the power to work out deals with the publishing industry.
So even if you wanted to read novels on this thing, your selection will be limited.
so, it's not really an ebook reader then; but more of a stripped down tablet?
@dcoke
Yeah. You pretty much nailed it.
However, being an ASUS device, I'm certain it will be a very NICE stripped down tablet PC. My laptop is an ASUS, and I'm very pleased with them.
I just know this is going to cost a million dollars, sad bc it looks badass.
Why is the page rate only 0.03 /second (33.3 Hz) if it's not e-Ink? Shouldn't it be at least 60 Hz or whatever OLED monitors are at?
This looks promising. One of my minimum requirements for getting an e-reader is to see a faithful reproduction of Wired magazine with all its varied fonts and colors.
test
it works!
Can you imagine what it is like reading a PDF on a 6" screen? Since PDF is a 'paged', not 'flowing' format, it will be very difficult to read, unless they allow some kind of zoom and scroll functionality, which (so far) nobody has provided. Advertising native PDF support on a 6" screen should be more like 'naive' PDF support...
Does anybody really believe the 122 hour battery life promise? Because I sure as hell don't.
Ho hum. I predict that the Apple tablet will have a world-class ebook reader with books available from iTunes. It will make all of this e-book reader hysteria a moot point. I would be very nervous awaiting January 27th if I were an e-book manufacturer/marketer.
Think about it, who wants to carry around an e-book reader, a laptop and a DMP when the svelte Apple tablet should be more than capable of replacing all three of these items.