E Ink is going to attempt to get another color ebook reader on the market (hopefully things go better than last time with the Jetbook Color), and some color E Ink e-notebooks too.
E Ink recently announced that they’ve developed a new color technology called Print-Color E Ink, an offshoot of their ACeP color displays, which are aimed at digital signage markets in retail.
Among the intended uses for Print-Color E Ink is color ereaders and e-notebook for the education and business markets.
They say the new Print-Color screens are faster than previous color screens, similar to their monochrome counterparts, and they are thinner and lighter than before.
E Ink also claims the new screens have “higher optical quality”.
Details are slim at this point, but E Ink is first going to target the education market and professional applications. At this stage the price is probably too high to target the consumer market, but that could change in time.
Ultimately the price of these new color screens from E Ink will be a big factor with LCDs screens as cheap as ever. Current ereaders and e-notebooks with 10.3-inch black and white E Ink screens like the Onyx Note2 and Sony DPT-CP1 cost anywhere from $450-$600. How much are they going to charge for devices with color screens? $800-$1000? Maybe more?
Are there enough people interested in these types of devices that will be willing to pay a premium price for something that’s never going to match LCD color and performance? One theme that keeps coming up in recent years is they keep insinuating that E Ink screens are healthier for your eyes than LCD, but there is still no scientific evidence to support these claims. If that changes, then perhaps color E Ink will become more appealing to a wider audience.
Color E Ink Displays
via: CTIMES
I like the idea of colour e-ink I would only get one when they were cheap enough. I can see long lasting phones using them eventually
I am interested If it comes with a high dpi. The real challenge comes when e-readers cost more than UHD TVs.
Almost as much as OLED TVs, as is the case with the Max3, and that’s truly insane. You can get a 55″ OLED on sale for about the same price as an ereader with a 13.3″ E Ink screen. Yeah, good luck competing with even more expensive color screens, E Ink.
I’d be happy with anything 150+ dpi and at least 10″ diagonal. 300 dpi and 12+ inch would be better, especially if under $1K would be nice.
Do you know whether there are any research about damage caused by LCD screens compared with e-ink?
There’s nothing. They haven’t even proven that LCD screens cause eye damage.
I wish someone would sell an A4 sized colour e-ink reader/tablet with wifi & Bluetooth that appears on the network as colour printer, that could be used to select pages to forward to another printer, convert to archive PDF format, and email to others, etc.
If it was running android with Gmail and outlook apps it wold be better.
I would only be interested if the colour screens can be seen in bright sunlight as tablets and mobiles are worse than useless in both hot countries and in UK summer sun. P
Super-cool! Thanks for reporting this. I have Boox and Good-E-Reader/Netronix 13.3″ readers, would love a 13.3″ color I can plug in a laptop for outdoor/bright-light reading — Boox 2 “Monitor Mode” in color would be great!