Colour E-Ink hitting the market by the end of the year?

[stargazertony]

Think that those who disagree with a color e-ink device for any reason are way off and miss the point. This technology needs to be developed. So what if a color e-reader costs $600 or $6000 at the beginning, someone will buy it and the technology will advance. There are lots of examples of things we didn't need that have become mainstream and now even obsolete. The CD player that once cost over $1000 is now being replaced with an electronic chip. The microwave that was once only found only in industry is common in almost every home kitchen. The automatic transmission, electric windows, electronic calculator, garage door opener, cruise control, color TV, remote controlled devices, cell phones, game consoles, etc. were all once only the province of the rich and even deemed unnecessary by some. I think that color, touch screen, voice activated, and other things that I can't imagine in e-readers will become mainstream.

[Juliette]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Wow, you guys are getting super excited over.... a press release.

In fact it's pretty close to the same PR that E-Ink has been putting out for years.

This kind of stuff means nothing *cough* Pixel Qi *cough* Plastic Que *cough* Mirasol 2013!

Wake me when there's a shipping product.

The same goes for me

[rdavis184]

Color e-ink displays will not add appreciably to thickness or weight, and will only slightly (we're told) affect battery life. Color e-ink cannot refresh fast enough for animation and it isn't back-lit. How does this place Kindle in direct competition with iPad?

I think that as long as color e-ink displays can maintain the same resolution, presence and "crispness" that the monochrome screens do, it's a winner.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by Papi

Wondering if the color filter will alter the quality of the contrast in B&W mode...If it doesn't, it looks tempting, at least to me.

if anything I think it should add to it, actually using the color white and black instead of varying shades of gray.

I think this benefits all e-readers and I do feel it has to work in the 6 inch e-book readers. I do think it would be very enjoyable in all sizes but if they just concentrate on the 9 inch plus market, I think it will fail. It would isolate the vast majority of e readers who prefer the 6 inch, 6 inch is that sweet spot between portability paperback style and the right amount of content per screen.

the 9 inch would be to close to the price of an iPad or other tablets slated to come out for it to be successful and the vast majority of e readers would just rather have a more portable reader.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by m-reader

Here we go ...

I swear I read that same article in 2007. Maybe it'll come true this time.

[EricDP]

Originally Posted by rdavis184

I think that as long as color e-ink displays can maintain the same resolution, presence and "crispness" that the monochrome screens do, it's a winner.

Now that will be the challenge. With B+W display, we're currently seeing them running at 160 DPI/PPI to 200 DPI/PPI. DPI = PPI on a these screens because each pixel is a single dot.

With colour display, you need three dots (red, green, blue or cyan, magenta, yellow) to make up a single colour pixel. So given the current dot-pitch, the same pitch on colour screen would, at best, be 200 DPI = 66 PPI. That's super low and not crisp at all. A normal computer screen is about 100 PPI (300 DPI).

So to keep it crisp. they will need to significantly increase dot density. To achieve 160 PPI, they'd need to be able to make these screens 480 DPI. Wow! That would make a super-sharp B+W screen! And a 480 PPI B+W should cost less to make than the 160 PPI colour because it doesn't have any of the colour complexity - every dot is the same.

I'm sure the market will bring us colour because some people think it's good, and one day, they will have increased the density sufficiently to make 200 PPI (600 DPI) screen -- which is really what I think we need to make them adequately sharp. But there will always be a market for B+W, which will be cheaper and sharper because they will always have fewer dots to achieve the same level of detail.

[tomsem]

No doubt everyone's read this: Why Nobody Will Buy a Color E-Ink E-book Reader

E-ink may not have a long future, but until LCD can learn some very difficult new tricks, it'll survive. Diluting that purpose for half-baked progress to compete with tablets is the wrong direction for e-ink.

And then there's this response:
Why people will buy a color E-ink e-reader

But I still think we’ll see a color E-ink screen (if not E-ink then Mirasol or Liquavista). Another detail I’ve noticed is that $200 Android tablets all have really crappy video ability and general poor performance. This gives dedicated e-readers a pretty good shot at competing in that price range; basically e-readers do one thing well and cheap tablets do a bunch of things poorly.

Of the two, I find Nosowitz much more convincing.

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I swear I read that same article in 2007. Maybe it'll come true this time.

I should have said "Here we go again"
I do think (hope) it's for real this time.

[delphidb96]

I *want* color e-ink... But I want at least 256-color with solid contrast. So when the first-gen color e-ink arrives I will *not* be an early-adopter.

Derek

[Jack Tingle]

That's a real nice press release. Let me know when the 256-color, 170 color pixel per inch, large screen magazine reader shows up at Target for under $150.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[Teyrnon]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

That's a real nice press release. Let me know when the 256-color, 170 color pixel per inch, large screen magazine reader shows up at Target for under $150.

Hmm, is 8-bit color really enough, though?

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Teyrnon

Hmm, is 8-bit color really enough, though?

If the resolution is high enough, I don't see why not. Much of print media is 4 colors, dithered (so 2-bit color.)

[Solicitous]

I'll await for the production of plastic e-ink screens first. In my view it would be far easier to mass produce e-ink screens with a plastic substrate rather than mass produce a new colour e-ink screen. The media have been reporting on colour e-ink screens for a few years now, I'll believe it when I see it, but as I said, I think plastic substrate will be released first.

[bhartman36]

Granted, the technology is always improving, but the color e-ink screens we've seen so far have looked (at least, to my eye) washed-out and crappy. It's going to be a long while before they can approach something close to what we expect to see on paper.

It's true that technology can advance and get cheaper -- except when it doesn't.

Three words: Digital audio tape.

Now, I'm not saying color e-ink readers are dead in the water, necessarily, but as expensive and niche as the technology seems to be right now, it doesn't really look great for it. I think if you really want to read color e-books (which again, I think would fall into the art book, comic book, and maybe scientific text categories), an LCD screen can do what you want. E-ink is better suited for text-heavy books. I just don't see color e-ink devices gaining enough traction to bring the cost down. Not when most people will only be using the color to view book covers.

[harryE123]

Yeah, I am unimpressed as well, the issue here is tec that more closely resembles printed paper AND can have a capacitative interface. Those two have not materialized yet. So I am not holding out for colour. If you can't do grayscale well enough so far to approach the printed page, not much interest in colour just to see a few pictures where an lcd is the undisputed king.