Three new eReaders from Astak

Original Post from May 15th 2008.

I guess the IDPF conference (New York, May 14th - yesterday) is the reason for this recent flood of eReader devices...anyway, here comes Astak with three new devices, each with different sized e-Ink display, 5", 6" and 9.7".

For people wanting the larger size that last model could be interesting, although we will see many more of these since e-Ink rolled out the 9.7" display last year and shipped development kits with it etc.

Their image of the 9.7" device (above) has a smaller bezel (in proportion) than most other devices and I'd like to hold it to see, it is a significant chuck of screen real-estate in that form factor of a device, and they state it's at 170dpi, 1200 x 825 pixels, 4 grayscale (I assume that means 2-bit).

There website (here) states that touchscreen (but spec-sheet clarifies that means stylus!), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are options on the two smaller models and standard on the larger one. I'd be interested to give that touchscreen e-Ink based device a test drive, especially as the images don't make it easy to see button placement and design etc.

Whereas most (not all) others have gone the Linux route, this one goes with Windows CE (and "warns" us about the splash screen at boot!) for the bigger one, and states Linux for the smaller ones. Two OS developments just for these devices...I have to assume that drivers are the main issue (BT, Wi-Fi, and Touchscreen) and I wonder if you order those options on the smaller devices do you get switched to Windows CE?