Color E Ink To Be Sold In Hanvon E-Reader

NYTimes.com:

E-book readers are lightweight and use little power, but most have a distinct disadvantage to colorful tablet computers: their black-and-white displays.

But on Tuesday at the FPD International 2010 trade show in Tokyo, a Chinese company will announce that it will be the first to sell a color display using technology from E Ink, whose black-and-white displays are used in 90 percent of the world's e-readers, including the Amazon Kindle, Sony Readers and the Nook from Barnes & Noble.

Read the whole story: NYTimes.com

Comments

[rmaenza]

11:27 PM on 11/10/2010

About time! Hope they catch up soon to the 21st century, speed is essential and I hope they increase it soon.
mainstreethost.com

[WurrdUp]

08:52 PM on 11/10/2010

Welcome to 1990. They've caught up. Now run fast and maybe you'll make it into the present.

[Box Head Man]

11:05 AM on 11/09/2010

Boy, do I understand wait, wait, wait. I have an enhanced ebook with videos in the Apple store. So far it can only be read by the iPad. I was hoping the new color screens would be an advancement but after reading the article I see they show only muted color and simple animation. C'mon folks we are ten years into the 21st century and thirty years into the age of information. Developers need to get caught up with the pent up demand.

[iamvalid]

09:13 AM on 11/09/2010

Now to sit and wait until the prices come down to the point where everyone can afford on of theses devices. I have a Kindle 3 reader and I fail to find its supposed great features. It reads books fine, but when will PDF support actually result in a PDF file I can actually see? It's Linux based, so I hope someone will be able to do the actual design work for Amazon and then they came claim it as their own work. Come on now, my hacker friends, Jeff Beezos needs your programming efforts. Uhm, err, for free of course.

Until then it's wait...wait...wait.

[hereone]

12:26 AM on 11/09/2010

The Nook Color will not run apps straight out of the Android Market, but that does not mean it cannot run them. In fact, they have done a lot of tests on apps from standard Android smartphones and they pretty much run on Nook Color, which has Android 2.1 under the hood. (The Nook native interface and apps are just standard Android application layers.) Barnes & Noble special Nook SDK runs on top of the standard Android one and gives developers access to exclusive extensions and APIs for the Nook and its interface. So porting Android apps is not difficult. B&N says it is more like optimising them for Nook than porting them. Nook Color screen is supposed to be better (less reflective) for reading than iPad thanks to new LG screen with anti-reflection coating. It allows to watch videos, listen to the music, view Office documents and PDF's. If you prefer e-Ink screen, the original Nook is still available from BN.

[totalliberal]

07:46 PM on 11/08/2010

I prefer e-readers because the glare of LCD screen hurts my eyes. There is also the extra long battery life and easy outside reading ease that sell them for me.

[ResearchtheFacts]

03:28 PM on 11/08/2010

Tablets only hold one major function for me...the ability to make a call.  I'm not interested in carrying around a bunch of devices that do different things.  Just give me one that does it all.

[Frothy Goodness]

02:22 PM on 11/08/2010

There seems to be a great deal of confusion in the development of e-readers. I get the impression that designers are paying more attention to the market than common sense and usability. The iPad makes the problem very clear.

iBooks have not been very popular. I attribute that in some part to the weight of the iPad which I don't find comfortable holding up for longer periods of time. However, the 'read in bed' display and true multi-functionality of the iPad make e-readers look archaic. As other smaller, lighter, and less expensive tablet computers are release, I can't imagine e-readers holding consumer attention for much longer.

With that said, I think the current b/w kindle is a usable device that fills a niche.

[Angelus2007]

08:27 PM on 11/08/2010

Part of the reason iBooks hasn't done well, isn't as much the size, but Kindle and Nook both have apps and larger selection. Might as well get the Kindle app, and use it on the iPad.

[iamvalid]

09:15 AM on 11/09/2010

Good point. You could also skip the Kindle app entirely and go with Epub or perhaps use Calibre to convert into any format. Alternatives, it's always about alternatives.

[WinterFox]

01:42 PM on 11/08/2010

I like it. But until they have the technology to make the e-reader faster.. (let's say like an ipad) while still maintaining it's small size (kindle 3) all I am ever going to do with my kindle read books. Hence i don't care about color.

Plainly said.. I would use color if the Kindle remained the same size while increasing it's speed so I can do things like browse the net without getting annoyed because its slow.