Polymer Vision Readius to debut this fall, detailed specs!

[Alexander Turcic]

Oh goodie, the big day is finally approaching. Karl McGoldrick, CEO of Polymer Vision, has announced the upcoming release of the Readius device, which has been setting our geeky hearts aflutter for some time now.

Our exclusive rollable display technology is the core around which we build our plans, and in the Autumn of this year we will launch Readius, the first pocket eReader. Readius offers the advantages of eReaders as known today - but now all neatly wrapped into a pocket sized device.

Readius is very much a data centered mobile product, designed around eBooks, eNews, RSS feeds, and receiving email messages. It is optimised for mobility by allowing instant access to hundreds of books from your pocket, while the integrated 3.5G data connection ensures high speed downloads of pre-ordered content and instant news updates on the go.

The first countries to get the Readius are England, Italy and Germany, according to the NYTimes. US Americans will have to wait until early 2009 before they can lay their hands on it. But don't expect the Readius to be a bargain (emphasis mine):

Thomas van der Zijden, vice president for marketing and sales, said the Readius would be more expensive than the Kindle, which now is selling for $359.

Specification:

• Dimensions (closed): 115 x 57 x 21 mm
• Dimensions (open): 115 x 160 x 21 mm
• Weight: 115g
• Display: 5-inch, 320 x 240, 16 grey levels, rollable organic thin film transistor backplane with electrophoretic front plane
• Interface: 5 touch (capacitive) buttons with optical feedback, tactile buttons for options, back and power
• CPU: ARM11 - 400MHz
• Memory: 128MB Ram, 256MB internal storage, High Capacity Micro SD external
• OS: MS Win CE
• Connectivity: GSM/GPRS/EDGE Tri-band, UMTS/HSDPA Dual band, USB, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, DVB-H (optional)
• Power consumption: up to 30 hours active reading

So we got no information about supported e-book formats. But I found something about Content World, which seems to be a platform where users can fetch pre-formatted content for their Readius device:

Content chosen via Content World can either be free (for example RSS feeds, free e-books) or paid content (newspapers, e-books). After selection, the content can be transferred to Readius in 2 ways:

• download to the PC and subsequent USB side loading from PC to Readius®.
• over-the-air transfer of the content directly to Readius at defined future moments (for example once per day, or every hour). No PC connection is required for these regular over-the-air updates

So who is going to be the first to send us some juicy unboxing photos of the Readius ?

PS: To celebrate the upcoming launch, we've now opened our dedicated Readius forum!

[zelda_pinwheel]

arg !!! readius to the west, readius to the east, readius to the south, but no readius in france !!!!!

my geeky heart is not sure whether to flutter or break.

tirsales, luigi, patricia, etc., who will buy a readius and travel to paris to show it to me ???

[pagansoul]

I was going to link the NYTimes Technology segment but saw you beat me to it. I would love to see the reader in action.

[pilotbob]

Wow, a launch in England before the US. How quaint!

BOb

[jerryleejr]

Looks like I might have to make a trip!

JJ

[TadW]

16 grey scales? Did you guys see that? That's twice as much as the Sony Reader (8), and four times as much as the Kindle (4)!

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

... US Americans will have to wait until early 2009 before they can lay their hands on it. ...

In other news, Australians have been queuing for days outside the new specialty Motorola store, just opened in Sydney, hoping to put a deposit on the just now available downunder Motorola MOTOSCIATICR. Motorola have announced revised profit earnings, up 200%. The CEO was heard to exclaim "WOW! There's a whole southern hemisphere of people we can sell to? This is going to totally revitalise the electronics industry, and save us from the brink. It's like a completely undiscovered country.":



Motorola hopes to satisfy Australians' clamouring demand for this new so-called "mobile phone" technology, and have found that previously-used land-fill sites full of superceded electrical goods have turned into unexpected gold mines with this discovery of actual real-life consumers living down under the equator.

Cheers,
Marc (I'm not bitter, honest )

[Walk Broad]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Oh goodie, the big day is finally approaching. ... But don't expect the Readius to be a bargain (emphasis mine)

Then I wouldn't expect it to sell very well.

Sure, some people can afford the premium price of the iLiad but many people cannot.

With mobile devices of all sorts being pushed to get cheaper (e.g. the 3G iPhone, netbooks, e-reading devices), manufacturers are going to have to either conceed their products to the smaller niche group of customers with higher disposable incomes or lower their prices to grab volume sales by appealing to the mass market.

They won't continue to be able to have it both ways.

[petermillard]

Hmmmm. An 8" screen that folds up into a 5" device and I might be interested, but a 5" screen that folds up into a 'Blade Runner-esq' chunk of 1980s space debris, does anyone really want that? I'll stick to my Cybook for now, thanks.

And whoever came up with the name 'Readius' should be hanging their head in shame...

Pete.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Wow, a launch in England before the US. How quaint!

BOb

Originally Posted by montsnmags

(...)
Motorola hopes to satisfy Australians' clamouring demand for this new so-called "mobile phone" technology, and have found that previously-used land-fill sites full of superceded electrical goods have turned into unexpected gold mines with this discovery of actual real-life consumers living down under the equator.

Cheers,
Marc (I'm not bitter, honest )

aw. tell you what, when they get around to selling them in france, i'll mail one to you.

Originally Posted by petermillard

Hmmmm. An 8" screen that folds up into a 5" device and I might be interested, but a 5" screen that folds up into a 'Blade Runner-esq' chunk of 1980s space debris, does anyone really want that?

(me raises hand and waves it wildly) i do i do !!! are ya kidding ? when i was a child my favorite game was "spy", just for the gadgets (which at the time were all home-made, usually out of wood or cardboard with a few metal washers and nails i found lying around the floor of my grandfather's workshop, and depended on several litres of high-octane imagination to function). i've been waiting my entire life for a device with a screen that folds into something i can stick in my pocket !!! it's right before "real minox camera" on my list.

And whoever came up with the name 'Readius' should be hanging their head in shame...

is there something i missed again ?

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

PS: To celebrate the upcoming launch, we've now opened our dedicated Readius forum!

heh, only just launched, and already so many threads inside !!

[tebaldo]

I played with it, and we made a video one year ago, if you have questions....

[zelda_pinwheel]

well the obvious question is, when is it available in france ?

[jerryleejr]

Well,
I can tell you my gottahavegadet meter pegged when I saw this, This coming from the guy that has imported things from Japan, and Korea just to have them before the Rest of the world, I wonder if I could swing a business trip to England to Coincide with the Release

JJ

[markbot]

I don't think this device really looks that good. So it's flexible. Big deal. it's also very expensive and has no dedicated content. it's going to fail. it's probably mainly a technology show case.

I also don't like how the screen is bent when it's open and how it is shiny.

And why not enhance the importance of the flexible screen by making the screen bigger and wider? instead they made is really short....thus giving virtually no benefit to the flexibility aspect.


very bad design decisions in my opinion.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by tebaldo

I played with it, and we made a video one year ago, if you have questions....

Since you're experienced, does the screen have the ability to rotate 180 degrees so that it can be held in the right hand? I like to be able to hold my reader (or book) with either or both hands.