Panasonic Shows Off Its New eReader

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The ereader market is apparently still quite alive and well, with the folks out at Panasonic bringing out another new piece of hardware in the form of the Panasonic Raboo UT-PB1. And not only is this interesting for what it actually brings to the table, it’s also interesting for what it seems to have left out.

The Panasonic Raboo UT-PB1 offers up a seven inch touch screen display showing at 1024 x 600 resolution, backed up by a dual core processor and eight gigs of storage (reportedly, though, you’ll only be able to use just over half of that–4.5 gigs–for storage. It will, though, back this up with a microSD card slot, as well as a 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity and a Panasonic-specific user interface.

It can also run Android, but the bad news here is that it doesn’t seem to be able to handle apps. And further bad news for those of you who like the sounds of this thing, it’s set to come out in Japan this August for 34,800 yen, or around $440 US. There’s no word yet on a wider release.

It’s a strange combination of great utility and huge holes–I mean, come on; it’s an ereader, yet it still takes pictures and surfs the web in general as well as handles Android. This thing is almost a tablet in its own right, and it’s definitely priced like one. But it’s got precious little in the way of storage space, and just to top the weirdness off, it runs Android but it doesn’t handle Android apps.

Frankly, I don’t know what to make of the Panasonic Raboo UT-PB1, and so I open it up for you guys. What do you think of this strange little ereader? Is it an ereader that’s almost as powerful as a tablet? Or is it a tablet that’s missing a few key features? Whether this particular glass is half full or half empty, head on down to the comments section and tell us just how full it really is.