Color eInk Kindle incoming?

[fjtorres]

It's from Digitimes so take with a pound of salt:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120220PB200.html

Allegedly eInk is to start shipping 6in Triton Eink screens to Amazon in March.
Peaking at 3 million a month at some point down the road.

March screen deliveries means May-June deliveries.
I won't hold my breath but it's worth keeping an eye out.

[wallcraft]

I assume this would be 764 × 1024 pixels, or 382 × 512 when allowing for the color mask. Based on the Jetbook Color reviews, the effective text resolution will be good (likely similar to the current 600 x 800 screens), but the screen background will be darker than a greyscale Pearl screen and page turns may be slow. Also, bright light will be needed for good color.

[Barty]

Sounds crappy. Meh!

[andyh2000]

I bought a jetBook Color, but there's no way I'd buy a 6" version if the screen tech was the same. You'd have the worst of all worlds - small screen, low res and low contrast.

Andrew

[azazel1024]

Yeah, I hope to goodness that the screen resolution, effective, at on par or better than current 6" eInk Pearl screens. Contrast better at least be on par.

I'd be interested in a color eInk reader if that was the case and price was not much over the current eReader prices. However, if effective resolution is going to be lower, or contrast lower and/or screen refreshes slower, there isn't a chance in heck.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, unless color eInk tech can be at parity or better than B&W eInk at not much higher price, it isn't worth it. It is a BOOK reader, not a tablet. Color is nice, but it falls somewhere around maybe feature number 5 or 6 that I am interested in and I think that is the case with a lot of people who have bought or would buy an eInk based ereader.

Right now the 600x800 resolution is about as low as I am willing to tolerate. It looks nice for the most part, but if I look closeish, I can see the pixelation (even if it is a "nicer" pixelation a bit closer to news print than a non-eInk screen). Especially in images, a higher resolution would be really nice...which is what color eInk would be hopefully delivering (a color, IE better, image experience).

Frankly for me an ideal would be 256 levels of grey, double the contrast split evenly between lighter whites and darker blacks and 720x960 or 768x1024 resolution. Faster refresh would be icing on the cake. Oh, and that neat edge illuminated tech I saw a few weeks ago.

Get me all of those and I'd go out and buy a new eink reader tomorrow (okay, maybe by the end of the week). Get some one of those and I'd upgrade at some point. Simply throw color at me, and I am going to have absolutely no reason to ever upgrade.

Especially if having color either reduces contrast, lowers effective resolution, reduces refresh rate and/or shortens battery life. Even if some catagory improves, is ANY of those gets worse it is not a resonable trade off to me. Okay, I might sacrafice a hair of battery life for better resolution, refresh rate and/or constrast AND color, but not all else being the same and worse battery life just for color or else resolution, contrast or refresh rate being worse off just for color.

[andyh2000]

I just don't believe Amazon would use a colour screen like the one on the jetBook Color but at a 6" diagonal size and lower resolution. Not going to happen. What they might use I suppose is the underlying black and white eInk layer without the colour filters - as used on the Hanvon E920. That's supposed to have equivalent contrast to the current Pearl screens and looks great in the few vids/pics of the device.

Andrew

[elemenoP]

Amazon has said before that color E-ink is not ready for prime time yet. And now that they have a successful color product, there is even less incentive to get color e-ink out there. EITHER they have developed something really great that we haven't seen yet, OR the rumor is false. I'm betting on the latter.

eP

[andyh2000]

Probably false as a very false thing...

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...dle-this-year/

Andrew

[fjtorres]

Hey, it's Digitimes.
If they can't find news, they make it up.
Like the ancient mariner, they "stopeth one in three".
Good for rattling a few cages on a slow news day if nothing else.

[mr ploppy]

I don't see the point of a colour screen that small. What would you read on it? Magazines and comics would be too small, I can't think of anything else that would need colour.

[andyh2000]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I don't see the point of a colour screen that small...

I think there might be one or two iPhone owners who disagree with you.

Andrew

[Giggleton]

Cookbooks would be nice, if the colors are decent enough. I suppose it would be better for gaming although I rarely see anyone using their ereaders for games.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Cookbooks would be nice, if the colors are decent enough. I suppose it would be better for gaming although I rarely see anyone using their ereaders for games.

Browsing and email would benefit from color more than fiction ebooks.
Other color-dependent content needs a bigger screen and/or much higher resolution for *mainstream* acceptance.
(or a bundled jeweler's loupe)

But for now the biggest hurdle is color saturation.

[HansTWN]

Even 9" is rather small for magazines. Reading a magazine like NatGeo on a tablet means that you can't really enjoy full page photographs in their real glory. And it is obviously worse for two page spreads.

So wake me up when they have a 12" or bigger reader with saturated colors and a non-backlit screen.

[RainingLemur]

I would LOVE to see a color eInk Kindle. I'm not getting my hopes up, but a man can dream.