Asus introduces the DR-950 9-inch eReader and takes aim at the Kindle DX

The Asus DR-950 looks to challenge the Kindle DX

On the heels of Asus’s pie-in-the-sky OLED eReader that supposedly can last 122 hours on one charge and bring your pets back to life in a totally non-creepy, non-Pet Sematary type way, Asus has released details on a much more realistic eReader offering — the DR-950.

Update: Asus has performed a -50 to the product name and is now calling it the DR-900. A hands-on demo video can be found here.

The Asus DR-950 uses a traditional E-Ink display with a 9-inch touchscreen and a 1024×768 resolution. It will come with either 2GB or 4GBs of internal storage, an SD slot for expandable storage, WiFi, 3G, audio port and USB. The DR-950 features text-to-speech, RSS feeds, internet browsing and translation in addition to supporting ePub, PDF, TXT, HTML, Audible, MP3, JPG, GIF, BMP and PNG formats. It’s a minuscule 0.35 inches thick, measures 8.74 inches high by 6.34 wide and weighs 13 oz.

It’s nice to see Asus getting into the eReader game except they’re kind of going about it the wrong way. Aren’t you supposed to introduce your entry-level eReader first and then build upon it? We’ve seen a dual-screened color Eee Reader to begin with, an OLED version and finally the more common E-Ink offering. We’re a fan of the Thunderdome approach though. Release them all and let’s see which one walks away victorious.

Source: Electric Pig via Engadget