Polymer Vision's Readius e-ink phone coming mid-2008 to Italy

It seemed obvious back in mid-December of last year that Polymer Vision wasn't going to nail its timetable for production versions of the 3G-equipped, e-ink wonder known as the Readius. Now word is that the company will have a commercial version of the phone / e-book reader available sometime in mid-2008 in Italy via Telecom Italia -- provided that everything goes according to its diabolical plans. If you'll recall, the device features a foldable, grayscale, 5-inch QVGA display, and boasts a slew of features, including HSDPA, a 400MHz ARM CPU, and a battery life up to "six times longer" than current mobile phones. We'll admit we're intrigued, but don't make us wait too long over here, okay?

[Chris @ Feb 3rd 2008 9:54PM]

I'm sure it's cool and all but I'd prefer to have a color screen, especially for 5in. Mabey they Italians have different taste in phones.

[gfunk @ Feb 4th 2008 12:16AM]

Yeah, maybe italians LOVE black and white displays... what the hell man. A crappy phone in china is a crappy phone in senegal and everywhere else in the world.

[BootWolf @ Feb 4th 2008 3:32AM]

Do you realise that this is an E-Paper display (like the Kindle, Sony Reader, iRex)? It's "Bi-stable" so uses no power to keep an image on the screen, hence the battery life is incredible. Also, as is it a reflective display, it's really easy to read, just like you were reading off a piece of paper.

The ability to be "foldable" is mainly to do with the electronics behind the E-Ink also being flexible (something LCD's can't do, think about pressing your LCD monitor with your finger).

I predict that there will be a robustness problem where the creases are though, just like when you continually flex a paper clip it will enventually break.

frogger: "color, bendable(not foldable) and touchscreen(preferably multi-touch) and i'm in!"

Well color would be great, but all the flexible color E-Papers out there ATM have very poor contrast when displaying colors. It will happen though....eventually.

The main problem with touchscreen on an E-Paper device is how fast it updates. Think about the Sony Reader and how long a page takes to update. If you want touchscreen I would assume you would want some kind of annotation function or hand writing recognition. This would be mostly impossible/rediculously hard to use as the screen would be updating all the time to keep displaying the line you are drawing on screen.

sTEVEN: "does it have a backlight?"

Doesnt look likely, and anyway a backlight wouldnt help much, it would have to be a top light (like the 3rd party addons for the old gameboys). This could be a real issue as I am sure people want to make calls at night.

sTEVEN: "and yeah QVGA is kinda low isnt it? i'd expect VGA instead"

The resolution is down to how well/small they can make their flexible backplane. It is also limited by the size of the E-Ink "balls" that make the colors appear.



Apologies for the rant, I do reckon this technology has a BIG future though......watch this space.


:-D

[mike @ Feb 3rd 2008 9:55PM]

Plus, 5" is too big for QVGA!

[Danny Gdam @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:11PM]

the communicator thingy from Gundam 00 looks exactly like this. I wonder if they're related.

[shiftyeyedgoat @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:13PM]

And look where the creases are... it already reeks of wear and tear.

[frogger @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:18PM]

color, bendable(not foldable) and touchscreen(preferably multi-touch) and i'm in!

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:24PM]

GIANTS WON!W00TNESS!! GO TEAM!!!! NEW ENGLAND SUCKERS!

[silverblackvoid @ Feb 4th 2008 7:30AM]

what???

[Backlin @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:35PM]

Sweet, something smaller than a newspaper that I can read in the bathroom.

[Backlin @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:37PM]

Yeah dude, a tech forum would be the best place to celebrate the Giants winning .>

[aguiluz @ Feb 3rd 2008 10:37PM]

And, the screen folds so it may develop creases that is annoying.

[rob @ Feb 3rd 2008 11:24PM]

but do they make a LEFT HANDED version??????

they kill us with the rings on notebooks and binders, and now even with e-paper we have to deal with a huge gum package like box??? wuts the deal

[Backlin @ Feb 4th 2008 8:18AM]

Actually, with an accelerometer, that can be entirely possible.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Feb 4th 2008 12:02AM]

Ai-yai-yaiphone. You mean that thing actually folds up? I'm impressed with the foldability. But in time I guess those folds will cause problems with the display.

Why would they make one for left-handers. Left-handers should learn to use their right hand to do everything. Heh-heh.

[Camperton @ Feb 4th 2008 2:51AM]

Looks awkward.

[Kendall @ Feb 4th 2008 9:49AM]

BootWolf, why are you trying to sell this device to us? Hmm, could it be you work somehow with Polymer Vision. Gee, let me think.

[BootWolf @ Feb 5th 2008 3:35AM]

Hehe, you might think that huh. Unfortunatly not, I wish I was in this business but I just love E-Ink (love my trusty Sony Reader 505). Only thing is the page refresh speed, sometimes it's just too slow.

I don't see how you could read books on this thing aswell.....bit of a small screen (even when compared to the sony, which would be nicer if the screen was bigger, would save me increasing the font size in all the time)

[Kendall @ Feb 4th 2008 9:52AM]

It looks clunky and QVGA is too small a resolution.

[Andy B. @ Feb 4th 2008 10:59AM]

I still want to know: How the hell is this thing supposed to be held when using it as a phone?
Images of this thing have been floating 'round these interwebs for months, but they don't show how it actually functions as a phone (except that you can view contacts... oooo). :-\

[Tracy @ Feb 4th 2008 2:49PM]

The Sony 505 is adequate to solve the problem. The issue is price and ease of eMail reading. Not a fanboy of Sony, but it does work.
$300 is just not the magic price to sell. Maybe $150 -199. I believe the unit must be an aid to reading eMail away from the computer. More reading is done getting thru the memos than reading for pleasure. If it can be done away from desk like the wasted time waiting for face to face meetings Corporations will pay for them.
If Kindle can get newspapers and magazines to chip into the price it might just make it. Before I retired I read $400-600 in subscriptions mandatory for work ( they paid ). Paper and delivery costs money.

[Sol @ Feb 4th 2008 11:16PM]

so this will be a gsm phone from Telecom Italia...that means we can use it here (USA). Also the guys that were talking about creases, it seems that the screen folds itself around the rounded edges...so no creases? dunno though never held one.

[vimal @ Mar 20th 2008 12:33AM]

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