[Marseille]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

I agree. I was really hoping for some decent alternative e-paper action (particularly LiquavistaBright as they can get a much better white reflectance than EPD/E-Ink), but so far, a prototype of an imperfect but interesting tablet is the best news I've seen so far from CES.

I hadn't heard of that before. I googled it and it sounds interesting enough.

I had a buddy telling me about a reflective layered LCD tech similar to what I had described to him about Pixel Qi, but he couldn't remember the name. It's supposed to be able to go backlight-less at much lower lighting levels. I love Pixel Qi for making cheaper low power screen tech into the market, and getting them on devices (I think there will be some laptops before June, if they're not out already); but I'm not attached to them as a final solution. Nor do I find Android especially compelling (yet). It still needs a little platform maturing. I generally agree that this is an imperfect device, but still exciting.

I actually hate Apple's approach towards control. But if they were to adopt a similar screen tech, and not tie someone to paying for 3g data as many devices do (upfront or otherwise), they could make an incredible ereader (amongst other things). Kindle, B&N and eReader all offer applications for the iPhone, and stanza is pretty popular, and that would allow a lot of freedom about which store you shopped at (if the rumored Apple Tablet uses the iPhone OS).

A decent sized color screen would also make magazines far more attractive for the ereading crowd.

Also agree about the battery life.

Engadget should have read their own sourcing (from a past Notion Ink article Paul linked in this one).

The company reckons that the integral Lithium-ion battery will hold good up to 48 hours standby, eight hours of high definition video playback or 16 hours of Internet surfing over WiFi. At its heart will be NVIDIA’s powerful, yet energy-saving, eight-core Tegra system-on-chip, which will drive the system at astonishing speeds while ensuring battery longevity.

It's not entirely clear from that what the battery life would be reading text in epaper mode. But if you get 8 hours of HD video per charge, I'm betting pretty high. I'd wager 18 - 24 hours. And that would be more than enough for me, especially considering the cost advantages and ability to do more than just read.