Color E-Book Displays Coming From E Ink Next Year

waderoush writes "E Ink, which makes the monochrome electrophoretic screens used in the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader line, and other e-readers, is gearing up to supply manufacturers with the first color versions of its displays by early next year, according to an Xconomy interview with T.H. Peng, a vice president with Taiwan's Prime View International, which bought E Ink last year. Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading. Nonetheless, the company says its first color screens in 2011 will have newspaper-quality color, followed within a couple of years by improved versions that can handle magazine-style content."

Comments

I've got a better idea

[Pojut]

How about you first find a better process for making monochrome e-ink displays so the devices that use them aren't ridiculously priced?

Re:I've got a better idea

[Monkeedude1212]

No one makes money on Niche products by making them less expensive. They could find a way to cut a dollar off production costs and they'd still charge you an arm and a leg.

Re:I've got a better idea

[Pojut]

There is a science to optimizing cost vs. production costs vs. demand. For niche product, the consumer's cost is going to be high.

That's just it though...the only reason why it is such a niche product is because they are prohibitively expensive.

If the readers dropped down to $150 average for a GOOD one instead of a no-name bad one, I would buy an e-reader tomorrow. I doubt I'm the only person who doesn't own one just because of cost.

Apple could offer a model with eink screen ...

[perpenso]

Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading.

E Ink certainly has less to fear from Apple since E Ink could sell their screens to Apple just like they sell to Amazon, Sony, etc. If the eye strain issue becomes a concern Apple could simply offer an iPad version, or a new product derived from iPad that is more focused as an eReader and not a gaming/multimedia platform, with an E Ink screen. I think it is premature to say that Amazon and Sony has nothing to fear.

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Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN

Re:Cool, I'll wait for the magazine quality ones.

[91degrees]

Yes, early adopters often get shafted. Rapid obsolescence is one of the costs of the bleeding edge.

The actual cost is still more important. but...

[Caue]

The reasons I love printed books are still overseen by the manufacturers: lendability, durability, exchangability, highlightexability, pencilnoteability, trashability (when I simply don't enjoy the book, like reading dan brown for the first time.. urgh.)

Re:Still not convinced about e-ink

[buruonbrails]

Just read from E-Ink screen to feel the difference. I was skeptical about E-Ink too before having tried it out. It looks almost exactly like the real paper. So, now I can't imagine using LCD for prolonged reading when you can use E-Ink device or (even better!) good old paper book.

By the way, another key advantage of E-Ink is energy consumption: it doesn't use battery when static, and uses quite a small amount of energy to redraw the page. Due to this feature, eBooks can run for weeks or even months on a single charge.

Why improve mono, just replace with color ...

[perpenso]

How about you first find a better process for making monochrome e-ink displays so the devices that use them aren't ridiculously priced?

Why? Mono is probably a dead end technology. It may be better to get to color as quickly as possible and then concentrate on process improvements. A color Kindle would be a much better commercial product. It is difficult to imagine textbooks moving to electronic media without color. Regarding the possibility of reduced eye strain with mono, perhaps a reader app on a color device could choose to only show black and white for pure text content.

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Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN

Re:Still not convinced about e-ink

[MozeeToby]

After an hour? No. After 12 hours a day, 5 days a week? Yes. If I've been sitting in front of a computer screen for several hours and close my eyes I can feel the muscles unwinding. It's not something I'm conciously away of until I look away from the screen, but the muscles of and around my eyes are constantly tense when reading off a monitor.

As for the refresh rate of e-ink, for me it is almost exactly equal to the time it takes my eyes to travel from the bottom to the top of the page. The only time I notice it is if I need to go back/forward several pages, then the slow refresh is frustrating since you have to wait for a page to display before you can move to the next one.

Eh no?

[SmallFurryCreature]

He was a LATE adaptor. If he had bought his palm pilot at the beginning, then he would have had one for a long time before the color version.

And if you buy an E-ink device now, you are also a late adaptor. Bleeding edge was passed long ago.

Re:Bendable

[Ephemeriis]

A few years ago I saw a demonstration by Philips on TV of a bendable e-ink screen. I think bendability is more important than colour. If the screen is bendable it can behave more like a real book.

I'm not sure how much I care about the ability to bend my books.

Yes, paper bends... As I turn a page it bends... But bendability isn't really something fundamental to the function of a book. A book's primary purpose is the display of information.

I mean... Is a magazine somehow better than a 500 page novel just because it's more bendable?

Are hardcover books somehow inferior to paperbacks, simply because they're less bendable?

I have a nook, and I read plenty of books on it. And I have never, ever found myself thinking you know what would make this ereader perfect? If I could just bend it...