Apple exploring hybrid e-ink & LCD display...

Hybrid E-Ink, LCD Apple Mobile Device to Challenge Kindle

But it looks like different parts of a single screen could switch back and forth between the two display types, so not exactly the same idea as the eDGe.

Sounds a lot like Pixel Qi and Mirasol technology...

If somebody can a) make that hybrid technology work and b) put it in a hand-annotate-able dual-screen configuration, so that you can read an e-book like a regular book, two pages at a time, and c) make it decently compatible with the big course management systems, I will give them all my money.

This:

"The patent was originally filed in 2009. As with Apple patents, Apple could be researching technologies and applications that may not see a commercial release."

Apple, of course, has a nasty history of obtaining, and suing under, ridiculously broad patents. They may actually have some sort of technology they're developing, but they may just be stocking up on legal ammunition.

Mirasol and Pixel Qi are both a little problematic. Mirasol is just for smaller displays; tablet-sized screens are at least several years away. The PixelQi screens by themselves look good, but they get a bit crapped up when you put a touchscreen interface on top of them, as in the Notion Ink Adam. (There's a similar problem with the e-ink display on our ENtouraGes, although arguably not so bad.)

I was thinking off buying an Adam with Pixel Qi, but there are many who think they should develop a bit more.

Do you have any experience with Pixel Qi, gecko?

Originally Posted by Franky

I was thinking off buying an Adam with Pixel Qi, but there are many who think they should develop a bit more.

Do you have any experience with Pixel Qi, gecko?

Not personally (animally?), but I was thinking of buying one and hung around their blogs and associated message boards for a while. I still keep an eye on them, one eye only, but they're not really for me. There's general consensus that the PixelQi version looks best in sunlight, not quite so nice (although useable) in normal interior light. The normal (un-adam) PixelQi screens are supposed to be extremely easy on the eyes in interior light if you turn the backlight on just a little bit, but the Adam has a capactiive layer on top of the screen, which is very glossy; most people find the high gloss annoying, so there's yet another layer on top of that which oiriginally was supposed to be applied by the end user, but too many people complained about having trouble with that (dust, bubbles), so now they put it on at the factory, and you can removoe it if you want. The upshot of all of this is that the PixelQi version isn't quite so nice to read at normal room lighting levels. (There's an LCD version, also.)

But all this is hearsay.

The other bad thing for me about the Adam is the capactitive screen, so you can't annotate PDFs with anything smaller than the end of your nose (and there's no built-in software for that, which is not such a big issue; but the software that is built-in is a bit of a mess, although that's slowly being fixed).