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Just a few years ago, e-ink was right out of science fiction. The future is very bright for e-ink. The lower power consumption may be the biggest plus, my e-ink device can run for days without needing a charge. The e-ink devices are lighter, cheaper and work better in bright light.
But there are other applications of e-ink. How many times have you seen a TV used in a kiosk to display a static image? That's an area ideal for e-ink: put the image on the display once and it can sit there indefinately without needing to be refreshed.
Flexible e-ink displays are working their way to the market. The benefit of these is not that you can bend them, but that they can flex without breaking. With a display that can flex, you can make the device even lighter, as the device doesn't need to be build to prevent flexing.
I expect that in the long run, e-ink will win out over LCD. E-ink has to do a few things first. One is color. I don't think that any color e-ink has actually made it to the market yet. Another is faster refresh rates. And another is lighting: you can't do backlit with e-ink (I won't say it is impossible, but it would be quite difficult). Sidelit screens are still a very young technology. LCD is a fairly old technology, e-ink is young. If these three factors can be improved upon, we may see e-ink tablets replacing dedicated e-ink readers. It would give us tablets that used less power and didn't suffer from the same glare problem as LCD. LCD could go the way of CRT monitors.
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