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 March 18th 2009 10:58AM
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.