
A flexible E Ink screen that could be in the 2014 Kindle - davidw
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-18438_7-57592886-82/heres-the-flexible-e-ink-screen-that-could-be-in-the-2014-kindle/
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Matti
The 13.3" e-reader from Sony mentioned in the article is interesting:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZSGZkEEVfQ&t=3m25s](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.

~~~
revelation
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.

~~~
hyperbovine
Seems real:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZSGZkEEVfQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZSGZkEEVfQ)

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

~~~
DanBC
Motorola had an eink dumb phone in 2006.
([http://betanews.com/2006/11/28/motorola-unveils-9mm-entry-
le...](http://betanews.com/2006/11/28/motorola-unveils-9mm-entry-level-phone-
with-e-ink-display/))

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

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?

~~~
MichaelGG
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.

~~~
Someone
In other news, the light bulb in my refrigerator is always on, anytime I've
cared to check.

In other words: chances are that you only check power use when your display is
on. If the display is off 80% of the time and all other components stay on
full time, that would sink the power use of the display to around 25%-30%.

~~~
aquark
The usage report is cumulative, not instantaneous. The act of checking
probably isn't a significant fraction of their phone usage.

So if for a given usage pattern the screen does consume 60+% (which is what I
often see) then keeping it off all the time certainly helps ... but also makes
the phone a lot less useful!

------
acjohnson55
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.

~~~
mhb
Kindle DX isn't good for this?

[http://amzn.com/B002GYWHSQ](http://amzn.com/B002GYWHSQ)

~~~
philbarr
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.

~~~
jimktrains2
That's not an affiliate link. Affiliate links are tag=, not ref=

Please get your facts straight before lambasting a guy providing a link.

~~~
philbarr
Forgive me for making an incorrect assumption. Why provide the amzn.com link
instead of the normal amazon.com link then?

And what is the ref= for?

~~~
mhb
I acquired this link from the Amazon icon used for sharing via email. I
thought it would be looked upon more favorably than the long Amazon link in my
address bar. Sorry for giving offense.

~~~
philbarr
Oh right, I didn't know. So I guess the "ref" is for Amazon's own use. Wow did
I lose karma for a simple mistake.

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

------
WalterBright
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.

~~~
lutusp
> 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?

~~~
WalterBright
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.

~~~
lutusp
Okay. I only mention environmental lighting because I have a GPS unit with a
color reflective display -- in the field it's readable in direct sunlight, a
great advantage. So I know it can be done. As to whether the display can be
made beautiful and have the high resolution people expect, I don't know, but I
suspect it's feasible.

------
netcan
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.

~~~
untog
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
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.

~~~
the_rosentotter
> right now people's behavior is driven by the pattern of charging the phone
> at night.

Exactly. With e-Ink the screeen would always be on, showing the time,
messages, inbox or whatever, no need to "pick up phone -> click power - >
swipe to unlock" every ten minutes.

------
gryphon65
I don't really care about color or refresh rate. I want a poster sized display
for fairly static content.

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

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

~~~
diego_moita
Me too. I use my e-reader to keep lots of recipes. Would like a spill
resistant machine.

------
JonSkeptic
>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.

------
zokier
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.

~~~
davidw
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
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.

~~~
davidw
I have a Kindle and a Nexus 7. Both are nice devices, but serve very different
purposes. You can certainly read on the Nexus 7, but it's an LCD screen: eye
strain. Also, there are continuous distractions, and sites like this one are
just a few taps away.

Taken all together, this means the Kindle is way better for just reading - you
can really lose yourself in the book, something that I can't do at all with a
regular tablet.

------
juandopazo
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...](http://www.spareone.com/spareone/spareone-plus-emergency-phone.php)

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

~~~
Tcepsa
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.)

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

