New Color E-Reader Tech To Challenge E-Ink Dominance

Technology Review reports from the Consumer Elecronics Show in Las Vegas that potential e-reader competitors to E-Ink are everywhere. The current market leader in e-book displays is greyscale-only, and it takes a long time to change the display ("turn the page"), so video applications are not possible. E-Ink says they will have a color display shipping by late next year, but it will be dimmer than the current greyscale and its response time will still be too slow for video. The wannabe competitors — Pixel Qi, Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Liquavista, and Kent Displays — all do color and some of them can do video (Pixel Qi, Qualcomm, Liquavista), and some of them (Pixel Qi, Kent) are shipping now.

Comments

Power?

[chill]

The big draw of E-Ink is that it only uses power when doing a page change. Do the color versions mentioned in TFA do that as well? If so, welcome. If not, nice try but fail.

Re:Power?

[PCM2]

The big draw of E-Ink is that it only uses power when doing a page change.

This was my understanding as well. So maybe someone who owns a Kindle or a Nook can answer me something that has bugged me for a while: Why on earth do these things appear to have screensavers? By changing the image when the machine is idle, doesn't a screensaver actually drain the battery where normally there would be no drain at all? Does an e-ink screen really need to be "saved" (i.e. will it burn out/burn in)?

As for the competitors, they are all designed to use very little power. At least one functions in a dual mode, where it can either be an e-ink type monochrome screen or a backlit color screen.

Here's another article, from The Economist.

Re:Power?

[Idbar]

A couple of years ago, I had the chance of going to a talk from the guys of E-ink. They showed the B&W and Color displays before the e-readers came out. I was amazed at the picture frame prototype they had, and always wonder what happened to it.

I'm curious about the reason they are holding back the release of color screens and waited for a punch from the competitors. I had it in my hands, so I know it existed way longer than the first Sony reader came to the market.

This is before they took that off of their website

Re:Power?

[tlhIngan]

I imagine they probably decided that the 'neat' was more important than a couple of extra page changes (I think the battery lasts for more than 1,000 page changes).

Also as a quick screen lock - in case you're reading something someone else might find embarassing. One push, and poof, incriminating text is gone.

Of course, if the person you're hiding the text from pushes the power button...

But I suppose the other aspect is to pretend you "closed the book" by showing you a "cover"...

Re:Power?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

No, it cannot be disabled. I wish it could be, but it's not a big deal.

Re:Sorry, not news.

[uradu]

You should be sorry, because this IS big time news.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/09/qualcomm-mirasol-display-video-hands-on-in-glorious-1080p/

'Nuff said!

flickering with e-ink

[e**(i pi)-1]

the new technology with color, faster page build and better energy efficiency is welcome. My biggest complaint with electronic ink is the "flicking" before a page turn. I was told that it is necessary to remove any traces from the previous text. Its certainly a personal thing, but I find this annoying. Every page flip reminds on how unfinished the current e-ink technology is.

I love my kindle

[LlamaZorz]

I have a Kindle2 becasue it enables me to read more than I normally would. Certain things I would only read online like periodicals and hack tutorials were not being read due to eye strain. I didnt want to print these as it would become expensive and wasteful fast. My kindle has really long battery life and I actually get less eye strain with it than with real paper books given the grey background. I love the thing, any gloss or color will just make the device cause more strain and that's now what I wanted.

Where is my Harry-Potter newspaper?

[starbugs]

Thin, light, cheap and permanent.
That's what I thought this E-ink would aspire to be.

Why do we but such big ugly boxes around E-ink?
We're just making super-low power tablets with slow screens.

I want a sheet of paper screen that I can crumple up and throw away when I spill coffee on in.
Sure watching videos is nice. But why is it called an E-book?
This is a step in the wrong direction.

I want to end up with something like This (Caprica) or like the display sheets in the show Andromeda instead of just another tablet.

I'd prefer higher contrast

[JakeD409]

A color eBook reader is something that will really appeal to my girlfriend (who has many art books and comic books). I, on the other hand, use my Kindle to read novels and programming books. There might be a little colored syntax highlighting in my programming books, but that's the extent that color would affect my eBook-reading experience. I'd much prefer a higher-contrast greyscale eBook reader. Currently, the contrast on my Kindle (and, from what I understand, the Nook and the Sony readers) is about the same as that of a dirty newspaper (about 8:1 I believe). It doesn't bother me, but I'd buy one that has paperback book contrast (about 50:1) in a heartbeat.

Re:Real book page turn times

[xtracto]

Good, then lets put a camera, mobile phone, GPS, clock and pager to the e-book rader!

I think this make sense because I usually am waiting for a call while reading and listening for music when I am on a trip. Sometimes I want to know where along the trip am I, what time is it and if I need to take my pills. Oh, and of course I like taking pictures of the places I go to read.