While the market for mobile Internet devices or MIDs hasn’t taken off yet in the U.S., it’s huge in other parts of the world and there’s no reason why it couldn’t make a dent in the North American tech market as more compelling devices come out. One such fascinating MID is the Dr. Eye MID, from Inventec.
The clamshell system has a full QWERTY keyboard to go with its 800×480 resistive touchscreen, giving users the option of typing either on-screen or with the physical keys. It’s powered by a 600-MHz Marvell CPU, runs the Android 2.1 operating system, and offers roughly 3 hours of battery life on a charge. A front-facing camera makes it an ideal system for video conferencing and an Inventec rep said they are building in their own video conferencing software to facilitate the experience.
It comes in 3 models, which have the same hardware except for their connectivity options. The N18 has Wi-Fi only while the N23 has GPRS connectivity, and the N31 has full 3G. Inventec told us starting prices will range from around $350 for the Wi-Fi only N18 to just under $500 for the N31.
Inventec told us they are not positioning this device as an iPad competitor or even necessarily as a consumer device. Their initial market is in mainland China only and they are targeting the education market there, selling Dr. Eyes to Chinese students who want to do video calls with American teachers back in the U.S. However, a rep told us that the company would love to bring its device to the U.S., if it can find the right distributor. Based on our brief hands-on, we’d like to see it come to North America.
We really liked the feel of the keyboard and the lightweight design of the chassis.We didn’t get a great look at the webcam output, but what we saw seemed smooth and clear. The only real problem we had was that the touchscreen on our demo unit was a little finicky but these were preproduction models we tested and we appreciated the inclusion of a tiny pop-out stylus that makes tapping the screen a bit more precise.