After
years of teasing -- FLEPia was first announced in April of 2007, and
first proven in 2006 -- Fujitsu has at last released its color e-book (or e-paper mobile terminal, as they'd like you to call it) to the masses. Featuring an 8-inch XGA screen capable of displaying 260,000 colors, along with Bluetooth, WiFi and up to 4GB of storage via SD card, and measuring less than half an inch thick, FLEPia's not just getting by on color alone. Fujitsu promises 40 hours of continuos use, and the unit can be operated by its touchscreen or the assortment of function buttons. Naturally you can do the regular e-book thing, but the Japanese version of the device also includes full-on Windows CE 5.0, which would probably be a bit of a chore to use with the relatively slow screen refresh times of e-ink (1.8 seconds for a single wipe), but undeniably retrofuturistic. FLEPia ships on April 20th in Japan for 99,750 Yen (about $1,010 US).
Update: Now with snazzier press shots!
[Via
Engadget Japanese]
Read - English press release
Read - Videos of FLEPia in action
posted Mar 18th 2009 10:58AM
Combine this with the popularity and support that is the Kindle, and you've got a sweet deal on you're hands
Let me rephrase: Combine this with the demand and preexisting cost of the Kindle and you've got an expensive-ass E-book reader on your hands.
Sure I'd love to have one, but if they mashed the 2 together into some glorious, full-color, wireless, internet-connected, wonder-device, it's definitely NOT going to be priced for the everyman.
P.S. And for all those whose brains instantly went there: Turn that Everyman into a BEVERYMAN!!! BEVERY stands for BEVERAGE!!!!
Let me rephrase:
Combine this with the demand and preexisting cost of the Kindle and you've got an expensive-ass E-book reader that can only do the few things that neither Amazon nor the eBook suppliers can find a excuse to sue and/or send C&Ds about.
@Chird
what about me and my blue collar????????
The only thing it melted so far was my vision of "sane product policy".
Who needs a color e-book reader for $1000 if you can get a decent notebook for that money?
Ah, yes, those people who buy Monster HDMI cables and fire-proof speakers and THX-certified doors...
Oh, wait, I can see another hope melted - hope for sub-$100 ebook readers with decent screen, no wifi, no mp3, no RSS, no web ect.
@shinigami
Reading from e-ink is supposedly far easier on the eyes over long periods of time than reading from LCD, plus I think it's also supposed to fair better in sunlight (though perhaps I'm thinking of something else). Also, you'd be hard pressed to find a notebook that lasts 40 hours on a single charge. Despite all that, I do agree with you about it being too expensive for the benefits, at least as far as it'd benefit me. I might consider it if it were about half the price since a lot of the books I would use it for have useful images (ala CG Tutorial), but the print versions often use B&W imagery, so they'd have to release the e-version in full color. Then again, most of my books I use just for reference so I'm not reading them for extended periods of time.
I guess color (at this price) would be desirable for business people who sift through a lot of documents with charts and graphs? Still, cool technology.
Yes its way better in sunlight. Actually ebooks reader like the prs-505 are at best in sunlight.
@Nick8708
I do agree that reading from e-paper is supposed to be easier for the eyes (it doesn't flicker). I also agree about having a long battery life but I have no problem with connecting it to a power source.
As for the price, the two main concerns I have about these e-books is that they're expensive and have small screens.
I would prefer A4-sized screens with high resolution (800x600 or higher).
And I would love to have them for a smaller price. Not because I don't want to shell out $300 for a e-book reader. Because I don't want to have ONE sheet of paper I am viewing documents on. I want at the very least two. But they're too expensive to buy even one, IMO.
perfect for all those colorful children's books, give one of these to your toddler!
@nighttime__
juice springsteen!
Looks cool!
I'll wait till the price drops to $20 in the next 15 years before I get it....
With the coming inflation it'll still be $1000, but will be like $20 now.
Anyone told Fujitsu about our antidote thing yet?
My books only need two colors and so do my e-books
Color can convey a lot of information. Text-only is fine for some books like novels but color charts, graphs and diagrams can be very useful in educational textbooks and technical reference books.
Don't forget that many people read news on their ebook readers and color pictures would certainly enhance the article.
Good points. I'm probably in black and white mood because I've been studying Calc for the last few hours
But these guys can tap into artbooks and such, even if the load times make it somewhat impractical at the moment. Hell, if you go to their web store 'Fleppi-ya' which seems to be already active ( http://www.ebookbank.jp/flepia/ep/top/ ), they already have a few of those kinds of books available.
Their selection is very sparse though, lack a lot of new titles and lack some big publishers. Hope some other company does tap into their tech, as like Japan's side of the Sony ebook reader I don't see these guys lasting very long.
Most people said the same thing when the iPod Photo was released.
I'm excited to see how this will evolve.
I think it would be good for my comic books.
you spelled "continuous" wrong.
You didnt capitalize the first letter of the first word in that sentence.
Grammar police. Its annoying isnt it.
@H0rK:
didn't*
It's*
isn't*
he's writing in a forum post; the individual he's addressing is writing a column. Different requirements, expectations and consequences. :D
He was trying to be helpful. You were trying to be snarky. :o
Who gives a shit!
Personally I'd type properly if you payed me, until then? no sir.
Although I don't think I do so bad with grammar... I'm just used to typing how I'd write.
This would be extremely useful for reading the tons of marvel comics i have scanned. I was getting tired of reaadin manga on my ebook reader. too bad at $1000 pretty much unobtainable
Do you know where I can find manga by Jiro Taniguchi? (scans I mean...)
All thumbs up!
Like they say in Chernobyl, three thumbs up!
Wonder if the manga otaku would read color ebooks. I imagine producing and transporting manga is very resource intensive.
What's the f*&king price??? $1010???? Holy cow! This is ridiculous for this product. Wasted my time on this...
Come on its the first... I've paid 6000$ for a freaking macintoshSE 20 years ago. 800$ for my first 4x cd burner. Now I am more clever and I wait price go down.
Absolutely. It's a bit spendy, it's running Win CE so it's certain to be a bit clunky but it's the first of it's kind.IMO, give it a few years and everyone will have something like this. Color Eink+touchscreen/stylus+wireless connectivity is a natural. It just needs to work well together and the price needs to come down. It will happen.
Not sure why Ashu got low ranked for his comment. He's right, over $1000 is WAAAAAAY too much for this device. I don't care if it is the "first" of it's kind, you could get a cheap tablet computer that does tons more for that price, and still be able to read an ebook.
For this product I wouldn't pay more than $250, MAYbe $300. $150 or less for the b&w Kindle. Hell, I'd pay engadget 100 buck just to stop talking about it.
Wow...now I do not have to read the words anymore, I can just look at the pictures. To pay a Grand just to have the opportunity to read a book, I would have to be that stupid!
You gotta be kidding me. They tease us with A4-sized demo models (14.3" diagonal), then make it tiny for production. I mean, if you're going to price it this high, why not go for a model you can use for color applications you would actually want, like reading magazines, business documents, or non-fiction books?
Why are ebook manufacturers so in love with tiny screens anyway? Is it because they have been so driven to build tiny phones, mp3 players, etc?
Of course, if you can put all your back issues of Playboy on an SD card for viewing on a color reader, you've got a winner of a product. This ain't it yet.
As the name implies, e-book readers are designed for reading books. That means we're talking about novels, paperbacks, manga - regular size books.
If they made them bigger than they'd no longer be convenient to carry around like the size a book.
Um. Not to point out the obvious - wait - yes, I'm pointing out the obvious.
If it costs $1,000 with a small screen, you could expect it to be in the $2,000 range if they doubled the screen size, or perhaps more (do e-ink screens have yield issues that increase with size like LCDs? because if so it could be more like $4,000).
This is pretty much the first of its kind, so the price is actually very reasonable. I'd be more concerned about the quality of the display. When it's showing b/w text, how does it compare to the quality (contrast, resolution) of the best current b/w e-ink displays? (Which already are not great in terms of contrast - paper's still a lot better.)
Even if this is as good contrast-wise as b/w e-ink, it probably won't be suitable for use as a photo frame unless you like your photos kind of washed out :) Should be good enough for photos in newspapers, diagrams in textbooks, etc though. And no doubt they will continue to improve the technology. (Probably very very very slowly like improvements in b/w e-ink...)
i can't wait for these things to reach high refresh rates. e-ink displays would be much easier on the eyes for people who sit at computers all day long (whether it be for work or play).
This particular device doesn't use eink. It's a very different bistable technology, which currently has an even slower refresh rate.
It's too expensive and it has a very unfortunate name. When do we start calling it a FLOPia?
Why does this cost more and do less than a $500 notebook that has more hardware and software? These screens are not that expensive. These things will cost $300 in two years and do way more, don't see any point in buying one now. I'm not an early adapter just for the sake of it.
EInk is at present relatively expensive compared to other existing display technologies. But that's irrelevant here, since this is NOT EINK. It's a proprietary technology, which for all we know might be extremely expensive to manufacture. At least with their current yields.
or buy a tablet for that price, and you have a whole plethora of formats readable.
Actually, these screens *are* that expensive. That's why.
At least, it's one reason. The other reason is that because it's so expensive, they aren't going to sell that many, so it'll have to be a high price for each individual one in order to turn a profit [or more likely, break even or not lose too much].
and people are complaining that the Kindle is expensive... LOL
Relax people, this is in Japan. They always have stuff we will never see, like blu-ray camcorders. We probably won't see this in the US for 5 to 10 years in the future, that is assuming that our economy survive. In the meantime, US consumers can enjoy cheap-ass plastic netbooks that only last 3 hours max on battery. Oh wait, we have the Kindle... but no, that's too expensive too. :P
Manga on the Kindle... Amazon, are you reading this?
i love how now one cares it 1000 bucks
You mean you are not a fake millionaire like the rest of us and you really care about how much things cost?
Speaking of price, what is so important to read that would make someone shell $ 1,010 USD.
Ummm... several people commented on the price before your post.
Its only sold in Japan, with Japanese menus, it ain't like anyone is actually going to buy it. People are interested because of the technology and in anticipation that we will see this in future versions of E-books that will be available in the rest of the World. By that time it's assumed that the price will come down. Even at $359, the Kindle is still priced more then what most people can afford.
I don't mind $1000 bucks so much but when I heard it was $1010 I thought "ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR DAMN MINDS?!"
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the obvious advantage this device offers to the Romance Novel. ;)
... wait, what? Romance novel =/= porn.
To everyone going on about cheaper latops - how much were laptops when they first came out - I'm guessing more than $1000.
I can't wait for these to fall in price - I really want a digital photoframe, but LCD and even oled displays are a waste of money to power them - with a colour e-ink display it's just like a proper photo - set the image and it stays forever, using no power. Scaling up, think of billboard ads - could be changed at the flick of a switch.
Thank You a Colour E-paper.
We have been waiting a couple of years for a colour e-ink display finally it is here, people are saying who want a colour e-ink display & how expensed, that’s not the point, the point is once the first of any new technology is released to buy then others will release at a lower price & the colours will brighter quicker than if they where just in a lab.
The main use for Colour e-ink is Digital Photo Frames, you don’t have to have them plugged in the mains 24/7. Let’s hope the technology improves quickly so they E-ink photo frames can be released with in a year??
IMHO, this is an overpriced toy. It'd be nice for reading comic books. But no one who's reading htem is going to pay 1100 for this reader.
Again, a case of overpriced, epic FAIL.
Or you would be reading technical manuals with graphs and pictures.
Obviously with a pricetag of a grand this otherways attractive gadget would be of very limited appeal; but let's not forget this is just a first model.
Remember how the first laptops were priced? (Ok, I dont but I have read about it); mobile phones? Plasma TVs? Etc, etc?.
Hopefully when this technology will reach the necessary economies of scale and the tech know how will trickle down to average nerd levels, the price for this kind of device will match its actual usefulness and worth, which in my humble opinion is around the 100 USD.
My hope however is that all these specific gadgets will be made obsolete by the advances in convergence technology.
I would surely pay much more than 100 USD if this thing would also sport, wifi and HSDPA connectivity, a full media player, a D-TV tuner, a good browser, GPS, VOIP & videoconference apps, some games, etc, etc, etc.
A geek's pipe dream?
Maybe, but Archos and Texas Instruments seem to be headed in the right direction with their recently announced PMP/smartphone/GPS/videocam/ nose hair trimmer.
I look forward to check it out and , if it works decently, to buy one.
Not interested unless it reads .cbr files, and is about $500 less.
It runs windows CE.
There are any number of apps that read .cbr and .cbz files for WinCE.
768 dots x 1024 dots = crap
e-book is all about quality and high resolution of the screen.
No, it's not. E-books (in their E-ink and e-ink-ish variety) are about direct sunlight readability and no-powerconsumption once the page is displayed. Resolution, not so much (although higher is of course better).
Anyway, this is a beautifull prototype they're selling (going to sell?). I just hope my dream gets realised one day: e-ink (or comparable tech) display with the ability to read many file formats (pdf, chm, txt and html are bare minimum). AND THAT'S IT! No mp3, gsm utms rss whatever. Just barebones screen, and cardreader. and maybe a touchscreen aand barebones OS so people can hack their own applications on it.
But to be honest, I suspect that I'd have to go build it myself if I ever want to see that.
Over 80% of e-books sales in Japan are manga, mostly read on mobile phones. Obviously this would drive demand for a color e-book reader. The first e-book reader, the Sony Librie (released 2004), failed here at least partly because publishers are worried about losing traditional book sales (source: Nikkei). At present there is NOTHING like the Kindle here, and e-books are considered a failure here. The current Sony Reader is not sold here, and the e-book shops selling books for the Sony Librie are shutting down. Remember, this Fujitsu device is ONLY available in Japan. There are no plans to release it currently anywhere else, so unless you're a Japanese consumer, comments about pricing and features don't matter, because it's likely any device sold outside Japan will be significantly different, because the Japanese market is so unique.
I might actually consider this device, but I definitely want to see it in person (I am in Japan). I've been waiting for a color version for years, and particularly one with a higher resolution screen (this one's XGA rather than SVGA like almost every other screen out there). Fujitsu's products are top quality, but I'm worried about software and understanding exactly what this thing is capable of.
Wow! Nobody commented on how the device is so thin it looks to be transparent if you look at the picture with the hands.
That would actually be the person's hands that are transparent
yawn
Thanks for the new picture! look better.
Technology is here! In 12 month it will be half the price. Cant wait to read a Corto Maltese on one of these. Oh wait, Corto is black and white!
E-Paper Photo Frame, they would sell like hot cakes.
How is this still breaking news when the original posting was at least 10 Hours ago?
I think its an LCD screen. Why else would it be black when its turned off and why turn it off in the first case, when e-paper has no power consumption except when you change the picture?
FLEPia? I sure hope there's an ointment out to cure that.
Seriously, this many posts and nobody rags on the name?
@ Kwikit: you can wipe the mess off after you're done and it won't stain the page?
(quote: I'm surprised no one has mentioned the obvious advantage this device offers to the Romance Novel. ;) )
But seriously, how many books would I have to buy to pay for this thing? And no, I'm not carrying around all of them at once, but seriously is your attention span so fragmented that you have to have eighty unfinished books on hand just in case you get the urge to look at one?
And don't say, "reference books." I, like many others, have a subnotebook computer.
Luckily the economy is booming and most everybody can throw a grand at a cute gadget, else this product would be a bit inopportune.
Just FYI, the 1.8 seconds isn't entirely accurate at full color:
Number of Displayable Colors: 260,000 colors (3 Scans); 4,096 (2 Scans); 64 colors (1 Scan)
Re-Draw Speed: 1.8 seconds (1 Scan), 5 seconds (2 Scans), 8 seconds (3 Scans)
1000 isn't bad for a first-of-its-kind product. Soon all ebooks will have color.
so you kno it was only gonna be time, but its like no different then a tablet pc, and one day thats all it will be, buy a tablet pc and get ebooks on it, but if you convert it to pdf your set
I can't wait for the Grand Open!
Great, this will be a really convenient way to read childrens' picture books!
E-ink battery life is measured in page turns, not hours, since it doesn't require energy to maintain an image on the screen, only to change it.
This is what the Kindle should've had: color and touchscreen capabilities. This would be a perfect platform for college (even high school) text books... and what a huge market that would/will be.
Fujitsu was also smart to make a version that is dark in color, and not just white. If given the choice, most people don't prefer the look of electronic items that are white in color (for example, this was proven when black iPods were finally released - black outsold white at least 2-to-1). Give me black or at least dark charcoal of some sort, any day.
Now if the industry can just speed up the refresh times of E-ink which are terribly slow..
And hopefully, Amazon will get it together and get this type of screen by the time Kindle v.3 rolls around next year.
I know I am coming in late, but can anyone tell me what makes this e-ink/e-paper stuff so different from an ordinary LCD display apart from the thickness of the screen?
Looks good.
http://www.radecalsigns.co.uk/
WTF, 4GB is pathetic, SD is a joke because its capacity is tiny now e.g. 16GB USB sticks are real cheap now, even 64GB sticks are affordable now.
eBooks really need seriously large storage, and at least SDHC support; this isn't just for novels, it could be seriously useful, for a large library of reference books, public domain books, magazines. Colour eBooks could be useful for maps (especially with GPS), diagrams, colour comics, even for photo viewing etc.
I think the people who make the current grayscale better be looking over their shoulders. The progression for any kind of image display has always started with grayscale(black & white) to color. A couple of good examples would be photography and television.
Why bother with these grayscale devices when we can see that the progression is toward higher resolution, video, and faster refresh rates.
Now all we have to wait for is a major tweak in battery technology so we can go two weeks between charging:)
First color e-ink based ebook reader, probably.
First color ebook reader ever? Not even close.
The REB1200 was out a good 8 years ago, though shorter batter life, heavier format and locked pricey proprietary format for content didn't help much.
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/REB_1200
make these flexible and half the price and i'll jump on the e-reader bandwagon with gusto
This is not an e-ink device. It uses what fujitsu calls "e-paper" but basically comes down to to thin film color display, not the same kind of technology that current ereader products use in any way.
Also, fujitsu won't be doing anything to the product until after 2010, when it evaluates whether or not its target of 50,000 units sold in Japan has been failed, met, trumped, and with which margins.
And for those pointing out you can buy a notebook for that: why buy a new notebook when you already have one, when you can buy a star trek pad without the star trek part. Arguing sensible spending on any early adopting technology misses the point of being an early adopter.