New eReader Technology in 2016

[glenk]

Stumbled across this article, don't know how much truth is in it as I am not up to date with the ereader technology.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-reaso...der-christmas/

Do people think we may see a new ereader from Kobo this year with some of this new tech? If so which tech in particular.

I am especially excited by the i.MX7. Does Kobo use the current i.MX6 chip?

Glen

[Nate the great]

A new ereader? Maybe.

One with radically new tech? I wouldn't get your hopes up. Kobo is in more of a follower than a leader right now.

[MGlitch]

color eink has been being touted for a few years now. Yet unless eink refresh rates go way up there seems to be little mainstream demand for them.

Outside of that the advances are the typical faster, thinner, smaller, better battery advances that essentially every new model from Kobo, and Amazon have claimed.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by glenk

I am especially excited by the i.MX7. Does Kobo use the current i.MX6 chip?

Glen

The Amazon Kindle or Kobo ereaders use a modified Linux operating system though there are ways of installing Android on the Kobo ereaders. As for the color displays, all three mentioned have been around for a while and so far the few dedicated ereaders with colour displays have been very disappointing in terms of colour rendition -- washed out, grey background, lacking contrast are among the kinder comments I've seen.

As far as I know, the Glo HD and Touch 2.0 use the iMX6 processor. I've seen mention of an iMX6 processor in the Aura H2O but I've also seen mention that it uses the iMX5 processor. Given the maximum refresh rate of an eInk display, I doubt I would see much difference between performance using either processor unless I broke down and tried rendering some of my pdf format tech documents -- the ones I tend to use on a laptop, iPad Pro or Nexus 7 HD (in order of decreasing preference).

[GERGE]

As far as ePub novels go, CPU doesn't really matter at this point, it is already plenty powerful.

[murg]

The CPU is doing a lot of stuff other than rendering the text.

A faster CPU will help. Especially for Kobo's. Things like selecting text, processing new books, even page rendering.

And considering that the rest of the commercially available technology in ereader land is either stagnant or at the limits of goodness (screen resolution for instance), a faster CPU is a natural marketing point for this year's models. Especially since it looks like the iMX7 costs roughly the same as the iMX6 (or is at least in the same ballpark).

[AnemicOak]

I can't remember does the iMX7 have a built in eInk controller like the 6 does? How is it on power consumption?

[glenk]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I can't remember does the iMX7 have a built in eInk controller like the 6 does? How is it on power consumption?

Probably not, the block diagram for the i.MX7 from the article in the original post only shows an LCD interface, it might also be able to work with eInk but probably not.

From the article in the initial post.

"The i.MX7 also introduces a new kind of design called Heterogeneous Multicore Processing Architecture (HMPA), which allows two processor architectures to operate simultaneously. Unlike older processors, the i.MX7 uses two processing cores: one core has a Cortex A7 architecture while the other has a more power-efficient Cortex M4 architecture.

In the world of ARM processors, there are fast and slow cores. The faster cores tend to offer performance at the expense of power efficiency while the slower cores do the opposite.

HMPA enables each core to handle tasks suited to its processing needs. In the i.MX7, the Cortex A7 handles tasks requiring performance while the Cortex M4 handles slower tasks, such as turning pages. This is nice because the Cortex M4 offers the best pound-for-pound power consumption around.

Judging from the processor specs alone, the i.MX7 represents the single biggest leap in performance and battery life in e-reader history."

[jsonora]

Originally Posted by glenk

Probably not, the block diagram for the i.MX7 from the article in the original post only shows an LCD interface, it might also be able to work with eInk but probably not.

i.MX7Dual has a Eletrophoretic Display (EPD) Controller.
http://www.nxp.com/products/microcon...m4-core:i.MX7D

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by jsonora

i.MX7Dual has a Eletrophoretic Display (EPD) Controller.
http://www.nxp.com/products/microcon...m4-core:i.MX7D

Thanks. I remember we discussed it here last year, but couldn't remember if it was available with one or not.

[glenk]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Thanks. I remember we discussed it here last year, but couldn't remember if it was available with one or not.

Hi, do you have a link to that discussion, I would like to read it.

Regards Glen