Kyobo Mirasol-based ebook reader launched in South Korea

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Mirasol is a different technology from the "Triton" color eInk technology. Ectaco has a
Color eInk "jetBook" that they are already selling for academic use.

Luck;
Ken

The real question is how Mirasol and color e-ink compare. Colors, display speed, battery life, background whiteness, etc. At this point they both aim at the same market.

[markbot]

This technology looks ready for prime time to me. The colors appear vivid enough, given the benefits of longer battery life and a nonreflective display. The readability of text appears to be better than the eink pearl display also.

Other than cost? What's the holdup on wide adoption?

Qualcom mentioned that they are looking into the next generation of this display tech, so perhaps that is it.

[pata]

Today is the shipping day, right? Did anyone order?

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The real question is how Mirasol and color e-ink compare. Colors, display speed, battery life, background whiteness, etc. At this point they both aim at the same market.

The color e-ink displays currently in production can't do full motion video. This mirasol display can. The color e-ink devices available are strictly readers. This mirasol device is a tablet. There is some overlap between the two but they aren't targeting the same market.

[zinj]

Originally Posted by pata

Today is the shipping day, right? Did anyone order?

Waiting for someone in the US to try and get one.

Anyone find a youtube video of the Kyobo reader outside yet? I figure there should be a lot of people in South Korea with one by now.

[markbot]

Hypothetically, let's say an LCD tablet gets 10 hours of batter life when web browsing. How much battery life would it get with a mirasol screen? days?

I'm assuming video takes more power.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by markbot

Hypothetically, let's say an LCD tablet gets 10 hours of batter life when web browsing. How much battery life would it get with a mirasol screen? days?

I'm assuming video takes more power.

The press release says 'weeks of use', but that is defined as 30 minutes use a day. If 'weeks' is 2 weeks, that is 7 hours usage, if 'weeks' is 3 weeks that is 10.5 hours usage. So really no better than an LCD tablet.

[zinj]

Originally Posted by markbot

Hypothetically, let's say an LCD tablet gets 10 hours of batter life when web browsing. How much battery life would it get with a mirasol screen? days?

I'm assuming video takes more power.

Unless you do all of your viewing outdoors where the frontlight isn't needed, I don't think it would be significantly different.

[ShellShock]

Unless the battery life is much better than a LCD, what's the point? I hope it will be as readable as e-ink without the light, with similar battery life. We will see.

[markbot]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The press release says 'weeks of use', but that is defined as 30 minutes use a day. If 'weeks' is 2 weeks, that is 7 hours usage, if 'weeks' is 3 weeks that is 10.5 hours usage. So really no better than an LCD tablet.

Someone kick the person that wrote that press release. That is so lame to state it in that way.

[Ken Maltby]

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=159341

Some stats of the Ectaco Color jetBook listed that could help in the comparisons.

Luck;
Ken

[pdurrant]

The Triton Color is interesting, but very different to the Kyobo reader. For a start it's much bigger: 9.7" compared to 5.7".

It's also much lower resolution. The Color jetBook claims 1600x1200, but that's the sub-pixel resolution; if you count colour pixels it's only 800x600.

The Mirasol 5.7" screen is 1024x768 when counting the colour pixels.

[carpetmojo]

What's the support network like ?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

What's the support network like ?

Well, I suspect it's quite good in South Korea, and non-existent elsewhere!

I'm not interested in the Kyobo ebook reader as a potential purchase, but as a proof that the Mirasol screen is going into production, and hopefully into mass production shortly, and that we can probably expect improvements to it to appear over the next few years.

Until the launch of this ebook reader, the Mirasol display was only ever available as samples, with no guarantee that it would ever reach market.

[pata]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The Triton Color is interesting, but very different to the Kyobo reader. For a start it's much bigger: 9.7" compared to 5.7".

It's also much lower resolution. The Color jetBook claims 1600x1200, but that's the sub-pixel resolution; if you count colour pixels it's only 800x600.

The Mirasol 5.7" screen is 1024x768 when counting the colour pixels.

Whoa! Could you expand on that? Is it like the pentile SAMOLED versus RGB SAMOLED displays?

Originally Posted by zinj

Unless you do all of your viewing outdoors where the frontlight isn't needed, I don't think it would be significantly different.

We can't even say for sure if the frontlight isn't also needed outside. We have yet to see one video/review of this device in actual real world conditions.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by pata

Whoa! Could you expand on that? Is it like the pentile SAMOLED versus RGB SAMOLED displays?

Something like that, yes, only worse The 1600x1200 claim counts every R, G & B subpixel separately, whereas it takes all 3 to actually make a 'real' color pixel, of course.