A flexible E Ink screen that could be in the 2014 Kindle

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-18438_7-57592886-82/heres-the-flexible-e-ink-screen-that-could-be-in-the-2014-kindle/

by davidw • 13 years ago

96 81 13 years ago

reviews.cnet.com

chm• 13 years ago

I own an Onyx Boox M92. It is a great device. I read tons of PDFs on it.

One issue is their choice of connector: they ship with USB mini connections, which are prone to stop working. Another is their web browser: it is unusable.

I'm really excited to see what the Sony product will look like! At 13 inches it's even better to read large PDFs than my Boox.

AlisdairO• 13 years ago

Another happy M92 user here. It's a big enough size to read technical books fairly well.

acjohnson552• 13 years ago

It's sad that color e-Ink still seems to be nowhere within sight. It seemed for a while that Pixel Qi's hybrid screens were on the horizon, but I haven't heard much about that lately.

I personally love the e-Ink screen on my Kindle Keyboard 3G. I wish I could upgrade to the next generation, but Amazon has gone with the wisdom of the day and eliminated buttons from the newer generations of Kindles. I also wish I had a screen with high enough res to read PDFs comfortably. As it is, without the ability to reflow PDF text, paging through the document is an awkward experience.

davidw5• 13 years ago

I too am mulling over purchasing a new Kindle during an upcoming trip to the US, and am not wild about touch screens. Also, I'm quite sure that shortly after I buy the silly thing, they'll announce the new ones.

netcan3• 13 years ago

My advice: Get a cheap basic ereader. Turn off all the features you can(airplane mode works). Use Calibre. Every 2-4 weeks charge it and put books in it (not too many!). Forget about upcoming models. It's a book. You wouldn't care if a new edition of a novel came out with a different cover and font.

Mine is just for reading books (not articles, reports, emails, blogs, etc). When I pick it up, I relax. I read books. Completely different to the ADD experience of picking up my ipad. Strangely, I went back to reading fiction after buying it.

neonkiwi• 13 years ago

Funny you should say that; I would still buy one of the older models rather than buy from the current lineup. Maybe some surprise will come from the next Kindles that will change my mind, but I've evangelized the Kindle Keyboard 3G (it was once called the Kindle 3 with 3G) to my friends and family, as you get Internet access internationally without wifi.

It's amazingly handy while traveling to be able to read the news, check for important email, etc, without roaming. The current Kindles with 3G limit you to a small subset of the net, but the Keyboard is unlimited.

mhb2• 13 years ago

Kindle DX isn't good for this?

http://amzn.com/B002GYWHSQ

Sprint2• 13 years ago

Direct link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GYWHSQ

smackfu3• 13 years ago

It's just expensive old tech at this point. It's ok, but the screens in the newer Kindles meant for reading are much better.

philbarr3• 13 years ago

You've set up something for Amazon links that adds your affiliate link on the end? I don't mind affiliate links, but that's pretty sneaky.

acjohnson552• 13 years ago

Too big! I've got good eyes, so I prefer a small, high-res screen. I love the size of the regular Kindle models

Gregordinary• 13 years ago

The ECTACO jetBook Color 2 is color e-Ink: http://www.ectaco.com/jetBook_Color/

Here is a review of the first jetBook color. Haven't seen much on the 2nd model: http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/ectaco-jetboo...

It's rather expensive, which would be my guess as to why it hasn't had a rapid expansion of market share.

curiousdannii2• 13 years ago

After using both a Kindle Keyboard and a Kindle Touch, I much prefer the touch screen. I wouldn't mind having page turning buttons though.

Switching orientation to landscape makes most of my PDFs readable, at the cost of scrolling three times per page. It's not fun, but if necessary you can put up with it.

winter_blue• 13 years ago

Is there anything that lets you "reflow" PDFs, so as to make them more readable on Kindles?

JonSkeptic• 13 years ago

The company has managed to add some color to its technology. With those digital price tags, for instance, there will be a red e-ink option to help draw attention to sale items.

I did not know that color had been a possibility with eInk displays. That, combined with the increased resolution and removal of artifacts when updating, makes me a little more excited for the technology. I'm hoping they improve the technology even more, I would dearly like to see this proliferate. Ideally, I would like to see it reach most of the capabilities of modern LED displays, but I will not hold my breath.

netcan3• 13 years ago

e-ink phones are an interesting idea.

If I look at apps most people use, most could just-as-good e-ink versions: phone, contacts, sms, skype, viber, mail, whatsapp, weather, radio, podcasts, buses/trains, ebooks, banking. Some could have functional but slightly lamer versions: Camera, browser, dating. A few can't be done: videos, video calls, games.

I think it's got a decent chance at success. But someone has to have the balls to really make it work. You can't just stick android on it. The Apps & OS need to be different or its going to feel like using an android phone that's been in the pool.

Zigurd• 13 years ago

It's something that can be done in theory, with a few fundamental changes to resource qualifiers and, maybe, drawing primitives. It's close enough to be tempting, but I believe it would be a better design to use e-ink as a secondary display.

That, of course, reduces the power benefits of e-ink in such a product. Only when an e-reader is in use would the color display be drawing zero power.

But, if you add up all the issues, tempting as it may be, a monochrome e-ink Android would just suck too much. An e-ink OLED combination might be just right.

untog• 13 years ago

But where is the actual advantage to using it? Better battery life, sure, but most people are fine charging their phone once per day.

scarmig• 13 years ago

Viewing in daylight, for one, and text is still easier to read on it than on LED.

And I think you understate the battery life aspect of it. Getting it from one to two days is of limited value, but right now people's behavior is driven by the pattern of charging the phone at night. They want to use their phone more, except they don't want it to have run out by 2 PM, so they moderate their usage. If they knew they could use it with abandon and have it last until they went to bed, they would. Or so goes my theory.

netcan3• 13 years ago

Battery life. It's a big advantage to some people. Maybe most people are OK charging every day, but a big minority aren't.

Camping, multi day festivals, unplanned promiscuity, overnight business trip to someplace with different sockets. 24+ hr traveling (EG London to Sydney). Even outside of these, people ask for chargers all the time.

Trade off is worth it to some people. Especially if they rarely do the things e-ink is is bad at like games and videos.

zeckalpha2• 13 years ago

Gnome 3 might work well, but you won't be able to middle click.

oftenwrong• 13 years ago

I would be all over an eInk smartphone. I would gladly accept all of the disadvantages of eInk for that battery life.

UnoriginalGuy• 13 years ago

Someone was showing off this really incredible concept phone where the screen was BOTH eInk AND a regular LCD screen in one. Basically the eink display would constantly show your notifications, and you could turn it on (LCD) to get full apps, web-browsing, etc.

Unfortunately it was a concept by a really small company, so I don't know if we'll ever see it come to market.

hepek• 13 years ago

http://www.yotaphone.com/#/en/

DanBC• 13 years ago

Motorola had an eink dumb phone in 2006. (http://betanews.com/2006/11/28/motorola-unveils-9mm-entry-le...)

Samsung had, er, this thing in 2009. (http://gizmodo.com/5251232/samsung-alias-2-e+ink-flip-phone-...)

People complain about input lag - see some of the comments about the Mozilla firefox phone. I guess they'd hate the refresh rate of the eink.

And isn't a lot of the power going to WIFI or 3G, rather than the screen? How much advantage is there?

smackfu3• 13 years ago

The big problem with that Moto phone was that it was using a segmented e-ink display, like a e-ink calculator screen. So it could display phone numbers well, contacts poorly, and texting was a joke.

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

Just from personal experience, Android always reports my display as consuming the majority (around 60%-70% usually) of my battery, anytime I've cared to check. That's for general usage as a phone/music player.

zeckalpha2• 13 years ago

I wish this was still on the market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_%28mobile_Internet_device...

ddeck• 13 years ago

Onyx are "apparently" releasing one shortly (this quarter).

https://onyx-boox.com/coming-soon-e-ink-news/e-ink-smartphon...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420952,00.asp

EDIT: updated link

Matti• 13 years ago

The 13.3" e-reader from Sony mentioned in the article is interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZSGZkEEVfQ&t=3m25s

I often find myself leaving my Kindle on the shelf because it isn't suitable for reading PDFs.

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

That's a sweet e-reader. Hopefully they'll support MOBI/EPUB files. If so, this is the first e-ink product that I've seen that I would want to upgrade from my old Kindle DX. Very nice. I could get a lot of use out of a product very close to this. All I want is document/book consumption. I don't want browsing, I don't want games, I don't want music or motion-sensors. Just do one thing and do it well, please.

hyperbovine2• 13 years ago

Oh sweet. My Kindle DX died and I had all but resigned myself to getting whatever new iPad they release next month. Looks like I can stay monochrome for years to come! :-)

sliverstorm2• 13 years ago

The DX is back (or was?) in stock @ Amazon, in case you were not aware.

cmccabe• 13 years ago

There are a bunch of e-ink readers out there already that do well with PDFs. I have an e-reader made by PocketBook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PocketBook_International) which is 10.5 inches long and does PDF very well. Amazon also made a bigger Kindle called the DX. That one wasn't quite as good as PocketBook at doing PDFs, in my opinion, but it offered all the other Kindle features.

It will be nice if Sony makes a 13.3" e-reader. Hopefully the software won't be terrible...

revelation• 13 years ago

Is this going to be a real product or just POC?

Alas, with Sony being the manufacturer, if this is ever released, it will probably be walled off and only use the SonyCloud or some bullshit.

hyperbovine2• 13 years ago

Seems real: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZSGZkEEVfQ

juandopazo• 13 years ago

While I definitely wouldn't use one every day, a smartphone with e-ink screen sounds like a great idea for a more functional version of the SpareOne http://www.spareone.com/spareone/spareone-plus-emergency-pho...

zokier2• 13 years ago

eInk has been one of the most disappointing tech developments in recent history. First mass-market devices came in 2006-2007 iirc, and there has barely been any evolution in the display tech since. The screens are still small, slow, 16level grayscale, low-contrast, and low-resolution. eInk really had a lot of promise and hype when it was new, but these days it seems just stagnated.

Sprint2• 13 years ago

I honestly wonder if that is due to patents.

smackfu3• 13 years ago

They've definitely improved the contrast and resolution over the years, and the screens are small for business reasons, not technical ones. Compare a 1st Gen Kindle against a Paperwhite, and it's pretty impressive. I think people are just spoiled by semiconductors, where things get twice as good every other year. Real products don't work like that.

pdjstone• 13 years ago

It seems that eInk technology has reached it's limits in terms of contrast. I was disappointed when I compared the new Kindle Paperwhite to my Kindle Keyboard. With the Paperwhite's backlight off, the contrast seemed a little worse - blacks were a little more grey.

davidw5• 13 years ago

Maybe it hasn't progressed as quickly as one might like, but I think it's a brilliant development: it's very good for actually reading books without notifications and beeps and whistles and all kinds of other crap popping up on the screen. Also, the devices have fantastic, stress-free battery life, weigh very little, and don't bother your eyes like LCD.

In other words,"most disappointing" seems a bit exaggerated.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

I have Kindle 3rd gen and it is awesome device (I think it blows away both kindle 4 and Paperwhite) but I am thinking about getting something with Nexus 7 2013 display if it kicks the bucket. The display in the nexus seems like it can give the kindle a run for the money for comfortable reading.

zokier2• 13 years ago

That's where the disappointment stems from; the first gen devices were so nice and promising, but the tech didn't "go anywhere" from that.

bane• 13 years ago

It's great tech in specific niches, but it seems to improve at a glacial pace...leaving it in that niche.

The original work was in 1996! Hard to imagine that it isn't far better than it is by now.

gryphon65• 13 years ago

I don't really care about color or refresh rate. I want a poster sized display for fairly static content.

AndrewDucker• 13 years ago

I want colour, and don't care about refresh rate - I want a 13" reader for comic reading.

dvhh• 13 years ago

And I want a waterproof ebook reader for reading in the bath.

bmelton2• 13 years ago

I want the exact same thing, but in a 60" model, to have changeable artwork on the wall.

Qantourisc• 13 years ago

Still sort of waiting on a read AND write eInk solution ...

ctdonath• 13 years ago

Tangent: Any word of building e-ink tech into ceramics? A dynamic display that has the look of a Sharpie on china.

Tcepsa• 13 years ago

I'd love to see this! Though I can only think of toys that I'd expect to see on ThinkGeek, like a coffee mug powered by thermoelectricity that would display the temperature of the beverage within, or a plate that could display the name of the food being served on it (updated by swiping the plate across an RFID or NFC pad or something). Would make a great whiteboard too, especially if you could also draw on it with dry erase markers (especially especially if you could then capture the drawing, etc.)

WalterBright2• 13 years ago

My dream e-reader has a 8.5*11 display (standard paper size), high res, color, glow-lit, and can flip pages as fast as you can flip them on a physical book.

It's exciting to see this come closer to reality every year.

lutusp2• 13 years ago

My dream e-reader has a 8.5*11 display (standard paper size), high res, color, glow-lit ...

Don't leave out full color display by reflected environmental light -- or is that what "glow-lit" means?

WalterBright2• 13 years ago

By glow-lit, I mean using embedded LEDs to illuminate the e-ink display, such as the Nook, Paperwhite or Aura do. After using it for a while, I like it very much. It enables me to read comfortably in less-than-brightly-lit situations, which is most of the time.

sliverstorm2• 13 years ago

What is your use model? I find the smaller Kindles are perfectly suited to novels etc.

Really, it isn't surprising how different use models benefit from different e-reader profiles. Ever notice how textbooks are monstrous 12x16 beasts while novels are often 3x6 or somesuch?

A flexible E Ink screen that could be in the 2014 Kindle

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