Asus announces a trio of e-readers

After teasing its intentions last year to enter the e-reader market, Asus has revealed plans and details to launch three e-readers, at least in the United Kingdom.

Asus' DR-950 (pictured below) will launch in March or April, The Register reports. It will have a 9-inch, monochrome touch screen display, either 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity, a headphone jack, 4 GB of storage and an SD card slot. In addition to supporting e-books in ePub and PDF formats, the reader will also have a Web browser, and it'll run four days on a charge. I'm not too enthused with these screenshots, as they're a far cry from the glamorous press shots Asus usually comes up with for its computers, but the interface looks promising.

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asus_dr950_01

Asus also plans to launch a pair of 5.7-inch readers by the end of 2010. One of these e-readers, the DR-570, will be a full-color, OLED display -- so, technically not an e-reader if you define them as having E-Ink displays. It'll support Adobe Flash and have a battery life of 122 hours. The other model, the DR-750, will have a basic monochrome display.

Missing from the line-up is the dual-screen e-reader Asus discussed last year, but Asus chairman Jonney Shih told The Register that the company is developing a dual-touchscreen tablet PC with e-reader functionality. Photos of this concept have been circulating for some time, but the device was still behind glass at the Consumer Electronics Show two weeks ago.

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The big question for these e-readers is price, which Asus hasn't disclosed. E-readers are popping up everywhere -- they were all over CES, from both large and unknown manufacturers -- but what makes Asus interesting is its potential to undercut everyone, as they did with netbooks. With a release for the 9-inch e-reader only a couple months away, it won't be long until we find out whether Asus will be a serious competitor.

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