LG Presents Solar Powered E-Book

MikeChino writes "At first glance, e-readers offer a great set of benefits over paper-bound books – they’re light, versatile, and a great alternative to lugging around a tote full of dead tree tomes on your next trip. However these new reading mediums have one glaring fault — can you imagine the frustration of running out of juice mid-sentence and halfway through Infinite Jest? LG's new solar e-book aims to address this issue by harnessing the sun's rays to power its display. The device features a 10 centimeter wide thin-film photovoltaic panel that can power the reader for a full day's worth of reading after 4-5 hours spent sitting in the sun."

Comments

Kinda pointless considering that

[Zouden]

The e-book itself is using an OLED display. This is different to the Kindle's eInk display which only requires power to update, so it has a battery life of several weeks. Chances are you'd be able to plug it in during that time, so there's not much need for a solar panel.

LG are a big manufacturer of LCD and OLED screens. Adding a solar panel to their e-book is simply to make up for the fact that their display uses far more power than competing products.

Re:Confused by the photos

[erayd]

I'm not sure. The reader pictured is very definitely a PRS-505. My guess is simply that the reporter was clueless and didn't realise that it was an older Sony product rather than something new out of an LG lab - the only part of that picture that belongs to LG is the solar panel itself.

Re:Two Words, Lithium Batteries

[JohnBailey]

Not to mention the rest of the device -- I'm sure you've seen what happens to plastic left in the sun! That clear plastic screen will look great once it turns yellow. Of course, I imagine it's a) mainly a gimmick and b) designed to die (so we can buy the newer model) long before sun damage...

Given the most e-ink readers last about a week or more on a single charge, and can charge from a USB port, I'd say the chances of this being a gimmick are pretty high.