Archive for the ‘Color eReaders’ Category
Qualcomm Mirasol Ereader This Fall; iPad Ebook DRM no comments
Slashgear has a nice video of a Mirasol display panel in action. Qualcom is saying that an ereader using their color display will be out in the fall, but won’t name names. Could it be the next Kindle?
iPad Ebooks Will Come With FairPlay DRM
The LA Times is reporting that publishers whose ebooks are sold on the iPad will have the option of using FairPlay DRM. Apple formerly used FairPlay to limit the number of times music tracks could be copied to different computers. FairPlay is still used on movies and television shows at the iTunes Store.
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Happy Birthday Kindle 2 – Where is Kindle 3? 1 comment
Happy birthday Kindle 2! Amazon announced the Kindle 2 ereader on February 9, 2009, and began shipping it on February 24. It has already been a year since the Kindle 2 was released. Are we going to see Amazon release a new version of the 6-inch Kindle ereader this month? If not, when can we expect Kindle 3?
In the latter half of 2009 we had many rumors and announcements of new ereaders that would be unveiled at CES in January. Sony released its new family of ereaders and Barnes & Noble announced the nook, which promptly sold out in preorder.
At the time it seemed likely that Amazon would release Kindle 3 before the holidays because of all of the new competition. In retrospect (which like hindsight has that famous 20/20 vision) it would not have made much sense for Amazon to release a new ereader at that time. Instead the Kindle 2 was made available internationally. In addition Amazon improved the Kindle family’s feature set and has announced more feature upgrades to come. In retrospect this was probably the best and only course that Amazon could have taken.
Why do I say this? Because the technology needed to make a dramatically different and better Kindle was not yet in place. If Amazon had released a new ereader at the time it would have probably had only incremental improvements and therefore the firmware upgrades to the features of the existing models made much more strategic sense.
So now it has been a year since the Kindle 2 was released, and there is even more competition – including the iPad. Tech companies need to release new models at least once a year or they become obsolete, right? Well, if Amazon were to introduce a new Kindle now what new technology might it contain? And if they were to wait just a few more months would it make a big difference in what new tech they could put into a new ereader?
Endless Ideas has announced a new BeBook ereader – the Neo, which will be available on February 25. One of the new ereader’s features is a chipset by Freescale that Endless claims makes it 2 1/2 times faster than other ereaders already on the market. Marvell is also making faster chipsets to work with e-ink displays that promise page turns of 3 times faster than current ereaders.
Amazon bought a touchscreen technology startup last week. While we don’t know how long it will take to integrate this into any new Kindle design, let us assume that they could introduce a new Kindle 3 ereader within the next month or so that would include their newly acquired touchscreen tech.
So say that we have a new touchscreen Kindle ereader at the end of the month with a faster processor and probably an appearance upgrade as well as a few miscellaneous hardware and feature upgrades. A faster Kindle would mean faster page turns, easier menu navigation and library management, and would no doubt better handle the Kindle apps that Amazon has promised for later in the year. The appearance upgrade is important as well – especially after the nook.
No doubt about it – this would be a nice evolution of the Kindle. But what if Amazon were to wait a few months more? What other new ereader tech is coming in the near future?
Prime View International makes the e-ink displays used in the Kindles and most other ereaders at the moment. PVI is working on flexible e-ink screens using a plastic base rather than the current easy to crack glass-based displays. These new shatterproof e-ink displays should go into production towards the end of the 2nd quarter this year. In the beginning these flexible screens will no doubt be more expensive than the current screens, but with time they will become cheaper than glass displays to manufacture.
If you were to add a flexible display to the faster, better looking touchscreen Kindle 3 described above, then you are talking about a major advance. I don’t think that it would make sense for Amazon to introduce the next Kindle ereader before all of these features are available to go into it.
And what about color? This is probably the next new feature that gets the most hype. Right now there are at least three color display technologies on the way that Amazon could choose from:
- Qualcomm’s Mirasol – By all accounts Mirasol should go into production in the 3rd quarter, so it should just make it into ereaders in time for the holidays. The demos that I’ve seen so far look good, but seem to have a slightly metallic and sepia cast – although this may not be present when the technology is ready for market.
- Liquavista – Liquavista probably won’t be ready for market until the beginning of 2011, at least from what I have heard so far. Liquavista displays do look nice. This type of display reminds me of a comic book page; not the newer vividly colored comics, but the older ones with somewhat more muted colors.
- PVI is also working on color e-ink displays. Color e-ink might be ready in time for the holiday season, but most likely will not be ready until the beginning of next year.
Amazon could also conceivably use a Pixel Qi display to bring a color Kindle to market sooner, but Pixel Qi seems more suited to multifunction devices and I doubt that Amazon wants to get involved with that. On the other hand …
Is it possible that Amazon is planning to introduce a multifunction tablet-like device to compete directly with the iPad? My feeling is no, because I think that most long-form readers who buy and read the most books will want to do so on a reflective display such as e-ink. Amazon is, after all primarily in the business of selling content. But a Pixel Qi screen with its switchable modes would accommodate comfortable reading without eyestrain as well as the other functions one would expect from a multifunction device. In addition Amazon does have the sales figures for Kindle books going to iPhones, Kindle for PC, etc., so I think that it could possibly happen if they feel that the buyers of such a device would also be active ebook purchasers.
Okay, so time to get out the crystal ball and make some predictions. Making
predictions is always fun, especially for those who get to laugh at the predictor when all goes awry. So here goes.
Kindle 3 will be faster, look better and have a shatterproof touchscreen. I think that it will ship in July, or at least be announced around then. I also expect that Amazon may have a couple of different models of the smaller format Kindle, just as Sony has the Pocket Edition and the Touch Edition. Or possibly the current Kindle will continue to be sold at a lower price than the newer model and serve as a lower priced option. There is also a good chance for a Kindle for Kids with a shatterproof screen.
Color Kindles won’t arrive until the holidays or until after the beginning of next year, unless Amazon brings out a multifunction device with a Pixel Qi display. Not everyone will need a color ereader or want to pay the extra price for one, so the black and white models will not disappear.
Whatever happens, 2010 is becoming more and more interesting for ereaders and their users. All of the hardware competition will continue to drive innovation, which will be great for readers – as long as the publishers allow the ebooks to continue to be reasonably priced.
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The “Real” iTablet Reveals Itself; e-Ink News no comments
While the press debates whether or not the iPad will make dedicated ereaders obsolete, the iPad is itself coming under increased pressure from newly announced tablets. The battlefields of the tablet wars are getting almost as crowded as those of the nearby ereader wars. Of course none of the other combatants has the Apple brand or the app store behind them, though one of them apparently does have the temerity to copy Apple’s naming conventions.
Electricpig has the goods on the iTablet by X2 Computing. This new iWannabe will run Windows 7 and come with a 250GB hard drive. It also comes with a few features that the iPad is famously missing such as a webcam and USB ports. The iTablet will come with screen sizes of 10.2 inches and 12.1 inches, and is a rather bulky 1.38 inches thick.
It is beginning to look as though any company capable of making a toaster will have either a tablet or an ereader to market by the end of the year.
e-Ink Expanding Production and Features in 2010
Meanwhile Prime View International, which makes e-Ink displays, doesn’t seem to be a believer in the prophesies of coming ereader obsolescence.
Digitimes reports that PVI is increasing its production capacity, which will enable the company to triple its output of e-ink, e-paper films and back-end modules by the end of the year.
PVI also plans to introduce flexible and color e-ink displays this year. Touchscreens and e-ink displays with a response time fast enough to support animation are also in the works.
PVI chairman Scott Liu is quoted as saying that he expects ereader shipments to possibly exceed 10 million units globally in 2010, with over 50 new vendors expected to launch ereaders this year.
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The Apple iPad 2 comments
The wait is finally over; Steve Jobs presented the iPad today, and it is a pretty impressive giant iPod Touch.
Just to recap the features, which you have probably already seen:
- 9.7 – inch backlit LED multitouch display with a fingerprint – resistant coating; 1024 x 768 resolution
- 16GB, 32GB or 64GB flash drive
- Lots of formats supported, including MS Word, PDF, MS PowerPoint, EPUB
- Language, keyboard and dictionary support for European languages as well as Japanese and Simplified Chinese
- Video playback up to 720p
- Battery life of up to 10 hours playing video, using Wi-Fi, etc. Up to one month standby
- Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1; optional 3G
The most surprising thing for me is the pricing: $499, $599 and $699 depending on the size of the flash drive. 3G will cost an additional $130 plus a monthly data plan. I was expecting pricing starting at around $700. Unfortunately (for me anyway), Apple has decided to go with AT&T again for the 3G, which would be unacceptable for me. If I buy an iPad I guess I will have to just get the base model with Wi-Fi.
Some things that the iPad doesn’t seem to have (at least not yet):
- No Flash support for internet browsing
- No Multitasking
- No expandable memory
- No non-backlit screen for ereading
So is the iPad going to make the dedicated ereader extinct? Am I going to rename my favorite gadget the ereaderosaurus and make plans to visit it at the museum? I think not.
I think that the iPad will probably appeal mostly to fans of multifunction devices and, as far as ereading goes, to casual readers. It will be great for reading magazines. Textbooks and other graphics–rich material should also be well suited to the iPad, at least until a color Kindle comes along. Schools will not be embracing the iPad or any other ereading device that does not include accessibility features, but students who choose to do so should still be able to utilize a digital version of their textbook on the iPad rather than the paper version. The iPad does have a VoiceOver screen reader and full screen zoom features, but not sure if this will be enough to satisfy the NFB.
For serious readers who want an ereader to read a lot of books that are mostly text a dedicated ereader will still be best. The iPad’s LCD screen does not compare to e-ink or other non-backlit ereader screens for reading. There are also reports that Apple is letting publishers set the prices of their ebooks, so they will likely be more expensive than versions from the Kindle store. It’s not clear yet if Kindle iPhone apps will be okay on the iPad.
Obviously larger format ereaders will feel more competition from the iPad than the smaller ereaders with 5 or 6-inch screens. The one ereader that I see taking the biggest hit form the iPad is the Plastic Logic Que. At an announced price of $650 and $800 the Que just doesn’t seem to be a viable business plan after today. I hope I’m wrong, of course, we’ll have to wait and see. I can’t imagine that there are many smiling faces at the Plastic Logic compound today.
Multifunction devices such as the Entourage eDGe and even the Spring Design Alex will also probably stand to loose sales to the iPad. Prices will have to come down on these devices as well as the larger format ereaders such as the Kindle DX for them to stay competitive for some shoppers. Netbooks are probably also going to be under pressure from the iPad although most of these are $100 -$200 less expensive.
It also remains to be seen what Amazon has up its sleeves. If we can get a non-backlit color Kindle later in the year with something like a Mirasol or LiquaVista display that would certainly be much better than the iPad for my ebooks.
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Asus DR750 eReader no comments
The Times Online has the scoop on the Asus DR750 ereader which uses a 6-inch OLED screen. The DR750 is said to get 122 hours per battery charge, even when playing flash videos.
Wi-Fi and 3G will be included in the device.
Not sure how well this device will actually perform as an ereader as it will probably have the “looking into a flashlight” effect. This may not be as important for reading magazines, etc., but for reading ebooks over longer periods of time the OLED screen will probably not be as comfortable for your eyes as e-Ink or another non-backlit solution.
No word on any pricing yet, but the DR750 may be out by the end of 2010.
UPDATE: I’ve seen this ereader called both the DR750 and DR570 on the net – not sure which is correct yet.
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CES 2010 no comments
I was able to spend about a day at CES this year. If you are a gadget boy/girl
then going to CES is kind of like being a kid again in a mega toy store with a large candy department on the side. If ereaders are one of your most favorite gadgets, then being at this year’s CES was kind of like being Willy Wonka and getting a ticket to a chocolate factory.
One problem though, is that many of the gadgets one sees and gets to hopefully try out are prototypes and are not always fully functional as well as being subject to change (or cancellation). In some cases this seemed to be very true for ereaders this year. Many of the ereader demos only had a few public domain titles loaded, and a few had dead batteries from all of the handling.
I managed to break my camera while at CES (Spirit Guide: fortunately grasshopper could fix it when he was back home & had access to his mini tools), so some of the pics are taken with my cell phone – sorry!
Some of the booth designs are pretty amazing. The cell phone picture at the top, which is of Samsung’s walls of flat panel screens does not do it justice.
The picture at the left is of a large touch screen at Intel’s booth with 500 slowly spinning cubes, each of which represents a live website. If you touch one of the cubes a small detail window opens for a few seconds. All powered by a thumbnail-sized Intel chip. Have we left Kansas yet Toto?
eReaders at CES 2010
Plastic Logic Que
Plastic Logic’s Que was probably one of the most eagerly anticipated ereaders
at this year’s CES.
The display is quite good; newspapers look good on the Que. As you probably know by now, the Que display utilizes plastic rather than glass to create a shatterproof screen. Overall, the Que felt a bit too plastic to me. The bezel is a shiny acrylic or similar material, and I expect it to be very scratch prone. I think Plastic Logic would have done better to use a matte material.
The announced price of the Que ereader is somewhat stratospheric; $649 for a 4GB model with WiFi, and $799 for an 8GB model with both WiFi and 3G. At these prices it will probably be in pretty direct competition with the Apple iSlate.
Notion Ink Adam
Notion Ink’s Adam tablet is Android powered and is the first announced device to use Pixel Qi display technology. I really wanted to have a look at this, but the closest I could get was a non-powered demo in a glass case at the Nvidia booth. 
According to an Nvidia booth-boy, the only working unit at CES was in the hands of Notion Ink Director Rohan Shravan, who was booked up giving private demonstrations with it. Liliputing.com was the happy recipient of one of these sessions and you can see their video and reviews.
Pixel Qi looks very promising. Engadget said in a post yesterday that they have been told that a manufacturer that “everyone is familiar with” will be announcing a Pixel Qi equipped device in 2010. Hmmm…wonder if the manufacturer alluded to has a name starting with the first letter of the alphabet and is named after a fruit or a river?
Irex
Also at the Nvidia booth was an unpowered (or maybe just the batteries were dead) Irex DR800SG ereader. I couldn’t do much with it as it had no power, but I still think that the design has promise; an 8-inch screen in a package that is the same overall size as a Kindle with 6-inch screen.
Still no idea when this will be released. There were some rumors of a mid-January release, but Irex seems to have a history of setting release dates that don’t materialize. There is still nothing on Best Buy’s website about the DR800SG.
Liquavista
Liquavista is one of the color display technologies that should be making its way into
future ereaders. Liquavista is based on existing LCD manufacturing infrastructure. This display tech is capable of displaying color video while using very low power. It looks as though it won’t be integrated into an actual ereader that you can buy until possibly the end of 2010 or more likely early next year. Qualcomm has said that its Mirasol color display technology is on track to enter production in the fall of 2010, so it may be able to beat Liquavista to market by a few months, but of course we will have to wait and see.
The colors and video playback in the Liquavista reference designs displayed at CES were quite impressive. The display does look very paper-like.
iRiver Story
The Story ereader by iRiver has been selling in Asia and Europe, and is supposed to make it to the US this month. 
iRiver is a Korean company best known for its portable music and video players. The Story is iRiver’s first foray into ereaders.
The Story has a chiclet style keyboard similar to the Kindle ereader. The display is a 6-inch e-ink screen. There is 2GB of internal memory plus an SD card slot. There should be an MS Office doc viewer as well as some sort of comics viewer. Adobe Digital Editions as well as non-DRM’ed epub should be among the supported file formats.
The Story ereader seemed to be solidly built, but other than the features noted above, there wasn’t anything that seemed to really differentiate it from the other ereaders out there. Refresh times and navigation seemed to be pretty much on par with other current ereaders. The price and availability has not been announced yet, but the Story was selling for about $290 in Korea. I don’t see this ereader being really competitive unless it is priced less than the Kindle or nook.
Dual-Screen “eReaders”
Both MSI and Asus have their dual LCD screened ereader concepts on display at CES, but these really seem like netbooks with two screens rather than ereaders. Perhaps if the screens were to use Pixel Qi they would be more viable as ereaders. As laptop/netbooks, however, both could be quite good. The two screens can work separately or together as one larger screen, or one screen can serve up a virtual keyboard.
enTourage eDGe
After Plastic Logic’s booth the enTourage Systems booth was probably the busiest ereader show at CES.
The Kindle Chronicles has a good CES interview and video of the eDGe in action.
My take is that while the eDGe with all of its study tools and bells and whistles would be good for students and their etextbooks or perhaps as a netbook replacement, it is obviously overkill for someone looking for just an ereader. It is rather bulky for reading in your bed or armchair. Also it appears that the eDGe ereader will be tied to enTourage’s ebook store for DRM’ed ebooks. Currently enTourage claims to have 200,000 ebooks in addition to the usual Google public domain suspects.
At a price of almost $500 the eDGe is more expensive than most netbooks as well. Still, it is the most interesting multipurpose “ereader” that I’ve seen yet. A lot of thought obviously went into its development, and the eDGe is capable of doing just about anything you would ask of it.
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eReaders in 2010 no comments
2009 has been a great year for fans of ereaders despite the poor economy (they call this an economy?) and all of the associated pain that it has caused so many people. We have had some great ereaders introduced like the Kindle 2, the Kindle Global
Almost every week another tech company announces another me-too ereader. Most of these new gadgets are undifferentiated in terms of features, but the increased competition is driving prices down and forcing the leaders such as Amazon to rapidly add improvements to their existing ereaders. This rapid proliferation of devices may be confusing to many would-be buyers, but in the end the competition and increased choice is good for consumers who take the time to research their buys.
Of course, if your nook is now not going to arrive until next year you will not be so upbeat, but cheer up! You could always buy yourself something like a Zhu Zhu Pet
2010 looks even better, with lots of new tech on the way. The way in which Amazon has parried the competition by means of feature upgrades rather than introducing a brand new Kindle ereader for the holidays suggests to me that they are planning on including some of this new tech in the next Kindle when it’s ready. Lets take a look at some of the more promising technology which should arrive at an ereader near you in 2010.
Faster eReader Hardware
Faster hardware for ereaders means faster page turns and quicker navigation and library management. Marvell has partnered with e-Ink to integrate their Armada SoC into ereaders in the near future. Not only is this new hardware faster (page turns up to three times faster), but since it integrates multiple features including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3G modem and power management on one SoC it will help to bring manufacturing costs down, which will mean cheaper ereaders.
Marvell’s Armada system is also designed to offer fast renderings of high resolution PDF documents, so we should see improvements in PDF handling in next gen ereaders.
Some of the already announced ereaders on the horizon that utilize the Armada SoC include the Plastic Logic Que, Spring Design Alex and the enTourage eDGe. I’m pretty sure that we can expect the next gen Kindle ereaders to be on this list as well.
Flexible eReader Displays
I would also be very surprised if the Kindle 3 
and Kindle DX 2 don’t make use of flexible displays. By flexible display I’m not talking about an ereader that you can wrap around your wrist and wear like a watch. Flexible displays use plastic and are relatively unbreakable, as compared with today’s easily cracked glass ereader screens.
There are several manufacturers working on flexible ereader displays, including e-Ink, which makes most of the screens for current ereaders. Even Bridgestone (yes, the tire company) is working on flexible electronic paper. Plastic Logic’s Que also uses a flexible e-ink screen. You won’t be able to bend the screen as in the photo (courtesy Plastic Logic), but it will be shatterproof.
Flexible ereader screens will no doubt also pave the way for ereaders for children. Parents will obviously feel more comfortable buying such an expensive piece of technology for their kids if it is not so fragile. We could well see a Kindle for Kids next year. On the other hand, I can imagine that some manufacturers may not want to open this particular can of bookworms. Even though a credit card is required to open an ebook account, I would not be surprised if we have congressional hearings and demands for ebook ratings. Next thing you know – ereaders with V-Chips.
Color eReaders
For the average person who mostly reads novels, color screens are probably not a necessity, although being able to see the book cover and graphics in color would definitely be a welcome feature. Color becomes much more important for etextbooks and for reading periodicals and other graphics-rich content on ereaders. This is also a feature that will make ereaders appeal to more people and help the devices to become more mainstream.
It is increasingly looking likely that we will see color ereaders on the shelves by the 2010 holiday season. I’m guessing that it’s not very likely that the next Kindle generation will have color, but probably Kindle 4 and Kindle DX 3 will.
There are a number of color technologies being developed for ereaders, but perhaps one of the more interesting ones is Qualcomm’s Mirasol. This technology was apparently inspired by the iridescence of butterfly wings. Qualcomm has said that Mirasol color ereaders that are also capable of video playback are on track to ship by the end of 2010.
It also looks good for Pixel Qi screens to hit the market in 2010, and it is very likely we will see ereaders with this display technology. Pixel Qi displays can switch between a transmissive mode (like a regular LCD screen on your laptop) and a reflective mode (like an e-ink display). This type of display should be cheaper than a regular LCD display and also use less power. In its reflective mode it does use more power than an e-ink display, so ereaders using this tech will probably need charging more often than current e-ink based solutions. This type of display would no doubt make great notebooks that can double as ereaders.
An Increasingly Crowded eReader Market
The ereader market will no doubt continue to be swamped by a flood of me-too devices with few stand out features to differentiate between them.
We will as well see an increasing number of multipurpose devices that also claim ebook reading as one of their functions. This type of device especially seems to appeal to non-hardcore readers who cannot imagine buying a device specifically for reading.
Convergence and multi-functionality can be a good thing; it can make devices more versatile and useful, and it can cut down on the number of devices that you need to buy and carry with you. If you do a lot of reading though (and most people find themselves reading more after buying an ereader), you want to make sure that the reading screen is paper-like and not backlit. Reading a book on an LCD screen is kind of like looking into a flashlight – it’s okay for awhile, but it gets tiresome if you read for longer periods of time. Many serious readers will also not want a device that is constantly providing distractions to their reading.
There are several convergence devices already announced and supposedly on the way.
Asus has said that it is making a dual screen “ereader” that was supposed to be out by the end of this year. This device seems like more of a netbook with two screens than an ereader. If it were to make use of a Pixel Qi screen however it could prove to be interesting.
Many people seem to be waiting for the much rumored about Apple tablet. It remains to be seen however how well it will serve as an ereader. I suspect that it will be like reading on a larger version of the iPod Touch – perfectly okay for casual reading, but hard on your eyes if you do plan to read a lot of books on it. There are some rumors that Apple will have at least two versions of its tablet, and that the more expensive version will have an OLED screen which doesn’t need backlighting and is therefore better for reading on.
One interesting looking multipurpose device is the enTourage eDGe. This gadget has an LCD screen and netbook capabilities along with an e-ink screen for reading. Below is an interesting video of the enTourage eDGe, which appears to be aimed at students. It definitely has a very robust set of study tools.
Finally, one trend that I wish would not continue into 2010 is the naming conventions that many companies are using to name their ereaders. Surely we can do better than the seemingly random series of letters and numbers and awkwardly capitalized names that are in vogue at the moment. I guess though, that in a world where even pizzas have names like Mega XL it’s a bit much to ask.
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Qualcomm’s New Mirasol Tech Could Result in Color eReaders by End of 2010 no comments
A few days ago Qualcomm demonstrated a new application of its Mirasol display technology which could be used in color ereaders. An ereader mockup with a 5.7 inch 1024 x 768 color screen has been developed and was demonstrated in an interview with Slashgear.
While not fully functional, the mockup demonstrates technology that could lead to color ereader screens that like current grayscale e-ink screens use no power when not turning pages; indeed Mirasol is said to add 20 percent to battery life compared to current ereaders. Mirasol-based displays are readable in full sunlight, and the fast refresh rate enables multimedia playback.
Quallcomm says that they plan to bring an ereader using Mirasol technology to the market by the end of 2010. Other color ereader technology reported so far usually seems to point to 2011 as being the year of the color ereader.
You can see pictures of the demo at the Slashgear link above, and Intomobile.com has some videos of a very small Mirasol screen in action.
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Fujitsu’s FLEPia; Worlds first color ebook reader no comments
Fujitsu’s FLEPia, the world’s first color ebook reader has recently gone on sale in Japan. FLEPia uses Fujitsu’s flexible color electronic paper which works by slowly rewriting the next page over the previous one.
The feature set is impressive, and it better be for the $1000 + price tag. FLEPia currently comes in both A4 and A5 versions, weighing 320g and 480g, and sporting 8” and 12” screens respectively. Both models are 12 millimeters thick. The unit can display up to 260,000 colors, is equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a touch screen which has a resolution of 1024 x 768. An SD card (up to 4 GB) is used to store books purchased from the online bookstore Papyless. The keyboard is on-screen. FLEPia consumes power only on redraw, not for the display of a continuous image and Fujitsu claims battery life of 40 hours, though wi-fi will no doubt shorten that. The FLEPia is a little bigger and heavier than the Kindle 2, and the screen takes up to 8 seconds to refresh at 260,000 colors, so you better not be in a hurry. Even at lower color settings screen refresh rates are slow.
FLEPia comes with a trio of body color choices: white pearl, pink pearl and silver. The unit also comes with a stylus. There is no word yet when or if it will be available outside of Japan. The ebook formats it now uses are primarily used in Japan.
The FLEPia has other capabilities in addition to reading books: it comes with Windows CE 5. This means support for e-mail, internet and document handling. These capabilities potentially raise the FLEPia to a level somewhere between Amazon’s Kindle 2 and more powerful computing devices such as laptops.
E-ink, used in Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s readers, will probably not be available in color until the end of 2010 at the earliest; more likely 2011. iRex, maker of the iLiad ereaders, has also promised a color model by 2011, and in addition claims that their device’s display will be three times brighter than existing color displays.
Probably the greatest significance of the Flepia is that it is a first step towards the next generation of color ebook readers, and provides incentive for other manufacturers to ready their color devices.
