PVI's color e-ink delayed until 2010, big-screen Sony Reader coming?

Color e-ink displays are starting to become less of a curiosity and more of a reality, but if the rumor from DigiTimes proves true it's going to be another year or so before we start seeing them en masse. PVI, makers of displays for the Kindle and Sony Reader, has apparently indicated that its attempts at creating a color display have been more or less unsatisfactory and it's going to take until 2010 at least to get its hues sorted out. That's the bad news. There is some good news, though, indicating that Sony's working on its own 8.5 x 11-inch reader utilizing the same screen as the Kindle DX. Since the last rumors about that display was pretty-much on the mark, we wouldn't be surprised if this one proved true as well -- and we can't wait to see what Sony charges for it.

[Via SlashGear]

[Templarian @ May 8th 2009 9:22AM]

Hopefully Sony is building what we all want. No buttons just a large touch screen e-paper device, that allows some sort of stylus input.

[Joseph @ May 8th 2009 10:06AM]

A device like that has been out. It just costs a whole lot.

http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000

[Templarian @ May 8th 2009 10:20AM]

@Joseph, wow didn't even realize there were really nice ones out. Agree, wish they were cheaper.

[darkstar @ May 8th 2009 10:32AM]

daymmmm
that iRex book is expensive!! $860
wow. just wow!
but thats exactly what i want for $300

[Boudu @ May 8th 2009 11:55AM]

Sony's E-book PRS-700 already has touch-screen and a built-in light to read when dark. It's also got a SD card slot.

I have both Kindle 2 and Sony reader. The differentiating factor is that Kindle has got a Sprint cell connection and an online store built-in. The system is amazingly transparent. But I never read PDF files from the Kindle primarily because of the draconian transfer fee. You get charged relative to your file size.

Most of the PDF's I read are have diagrams and are relatively large, worked-related technical documents, I have hundreds of them. There is no way I'm paying Amazon to transfer them. I don't understand how the Kindle DX can be successful with only 3.3GB of internal memory and NO SD card slot. If they make a large-screen Sony with touch-screen and built-in light I'll buy it.

[Lars @ May 8th 2009 1:15PM]

My purpose for an e-paper device is for reading novels and PDFs that I've either downloaded or scanned myself (I've got an auto-feed scanner that can a whole book to PDF). So the Sony Reader is more desirable to me, being a bit cheaper, more portable, and open. So I guess kudos to them for working on a large version, but it's not what I want.

[loosely_coupled @ May 8th 2009 3:11PM]

@Boudu

WAIT WAIT WAIT.. what? There is no removable storage on the kindle? And apparently you can transfer files over the whispernet but they charge you an assload? WOW That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

I wanted to buy the new kindle and use it mostly for technical documents and science papers... Guess I'll be looking in Sony's direction

[nick @ May 8th 2009 9:29AM]

why not just use an lcd. or OLED in these E-book readers? What are the benefits over an LCD if it can only produce in black and white? Now E-paper with E- Ink would have obvious advantages.

[nxp3 @ May 8th 2009 9:46AM]

Battery life...without that e-reader wouldn't be popular. Who wants to keep on charging to read a book. That's why no matter how popular the iphone is or nokia tablet pc or any other small device is, it's not going to be good for reading. I don't mind if these ereaders have some kind of input device for taking notes and things of that nature, but adding wifi is just plain dumb because it sucks the battery making reading less enjoyable. I'd like to have an 8.5x11...that's the perfect size for reading pdf without having to reflow it so no conversion crap have to be done. Let's hope sony doesn't charge an arm and a leg for it.

[cayton @ May 8th 2009 10:01AM]

Continuing the above. E-ink displays are much easier to read in the daylight. It is much more akin to reading on paper, rather than trying to avoid the sun with an lcd. i think a lot of that comes with the sharp contrast the the black and white provides, so who knows what the color versions will do.

[Neil @ May 8th 2009 10:02AM]

Eye strain. A normal screen will cause it, these screens don't.

[Lars @ May 8th 2009 1:18PM]

Aside from battery life, e-paper displays look like a physically printed object instead of something beaming photons into your eyes. This is very important to someone like me who stares at displays all day. I read books in physical form currently because I don't want to stare at screens 18 hours a day.

[syko21 @ May 8th 2009 9:35AM]

I hope they don't bundle some ridiculous e-reader converter software to force you to make your ebooks and pdfs into their special secret format and completely screw up a good product.

[sweet greggo @ May 8th 2009 9:39AM]

Sony, plz plz plz make a 14" touchscreen color display with a decent form factor and make it open to load most common types of media and not have some awful subscription based service where you try to rape newspaper and magazine companies and please make the price fit the device and please make the kindle disappear forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

[Jonathan @ May 8th 2009 9:39AM]

Make it just like the Kindle DX with the full PDF support. Drop the 3G access stuff (it doesn't do anybody outside of the US any damn good) and make it $200. Oh, and don't take 70% from the newspapers.

I know... wishful thinking.

[Ian @ May 8th 2009 10:42AM]

This is good news. If it is anything like the prs 505/700 it will be great for those that don't care/want the wireless buying of books. Both of those already had pdf support so this one most likely will too. Hopefully there won't be touchscreen support, since the 700 version of that was not so fantastic. As goofy as the keypad is for the kindle it does the job well for this type of display when you want to look something up in a dictionary.

Also, those complaining about price, check out the prs 505. You can get one for $250 fairly easily if you just look around. It also has pdf support and you can get rss feeds through pc software from 3rd parties.

[GM @ May 8th 2009 9:53AM]

Honestly, I think a stripped-down version of the Kindle would do well. Make it for book readers, with no keyboard, email, internet, etc. Have it come with an easy to use iTunes-like software where you buy a book and connect it via USB to update. Keep it about $159 and I think you have a winner, and something people of all ages would use! Call it a Kindle-lite or something. There's a lot to be said about simpler, less-expensive gadgets.

[Gorilla800lbs @ May 8th 2009 10:24AM]

Note that the current Sony eReader models ALREADY have PDF supports. It's just not very practical to use if you are reading A4/Letter-paginated documents. You either get a tiny whole-page view, or you have to use fit-to-width landscape mode and scroll the pages height-wise, and that is not very efficient, given eInk slow refresh rate.

[John Doe @ May 8th 2009 10:34AM]

I think a cheaper Kindle 2 (or DX) with a monthly 3G internet plan ($30/mo.) would do better. Amazon: Learn something from Apple.

[Will @ May 8th 2009 10:59AM]

Colour E paper displays are too dim, and will be for a long while until someone can come up with a reliable tech that does not use subtractive colour (RGB)...

Currently as a rule of thumb:

light out = (light in multiplied by reflectance of the media) divided by about 2

- to account for the colour filters. Result: low lightness!!!

eg. take a reflectivity of white = 40% (typical for E Ink displays), max light out put is therefore about 20%...

Bright, reflective, colour displays with good colour saturation / large gamut = a long long way off!

I wish it wasn't...

[Saitir @ May 8th 2009 11:01AM]

Screw 8.5 x 11, I want A4!

Only USA, Mexico and Canada use 'Letter' size, the rest of the world use the ISO paper sizes. Sure its a big market, but geez, what about the rest of us?

[doritotez @ May 8th 2009 2:02PM]

We don't care.

[tim @ May 8th 2009 4:49PM]

Are you kidding me? Here in the US, we use Letter, Legal, Ledger, and more. Pffff... A4 is way too simple.

[stromm @ May 8th 2009 11:50AM]

Some of us want a pocket sized backlit multi-format reader. Not something it'll take a bag to carry around.

[Dave Chappelle @ May 8th 2009 12:40PM]

I think the A4 comment was justified because it will fit in any bag/suitcase and still be kind of reasonable enough for reading a newspaper. but a folding OLED on the other hand would be worth what the KINDLE DX costs.

[odeames @ May 8th 2009 12:10PM]

note that at present (as far as i am aware) *none* of the sony devices are either searchable device-wide (when you get yours loaded up with documents, believe me you will care) -- and none of them provide any possibility of annotating or highlighting/underlining one's text.

and, yep. as much as people complain about the price of the kindle, it is the *economical* choice right now, given its functionality and the fact that it also comes with a very good pre-loaded, integrated dictionary -- and one can change the default dictionary if one were to load a different one. no more need to blow by words whose meaning one 'sort of' knows -- lookup is effortless, and does not break the flow of reading.

the first dvd player was $600. i can't remember how much dvd's cost at that time -- but there were only about 20 titles even available on the consumer market. so cool it! e-ink readers have only been out for a few years; and it's not like it's an industry that hates profit.

right now, i'm just counting those among us who still actually read the kinds of books that have 'no pictures or conversations in them' fortunate. a couple of companies in this world still care that we have a pulse.

[dyt1983 @ May 8th 2009 2:09PM]

The Sony Reader with the touchscreen supports annotation and highlighting of text. It also has a search feature but I do not know if it works across all stored documents.

I got the regular reader because I didn't need these features (I never used a highlighter in seven years of college either) and the touchscreen's legibility is inferior to the regular Sony Reader (plus the regular one is smaller).

I look forward to a large screen version of the same... no touchscreen, small margin around the page, and only a few buttons. Even the existing Sony software would be fine, since it's a version of Linux and natively supports PDFs. If I need to glance at a PDF, it can be viewed in the Reader. If it is something I will look at a lot (or read, like a book), you can set up Adobe Acrobat (or any PDF creator/editor) with a Reader preset and it takes 30 seconds to load and resize your PDF so that it displays perfectly on the Reader.

[Bill @ May 8th 2009 2:20PM]

I look forward to the day when my entire wall can be an e-ink display...a seaside view via webcam one moment, a 172" TV the next, wow! And why can't you attach this all over a car, and then clear coat it? "I thought you had a red car..." "I did, until 20 minutes ago..."

[glenskey @ May 8th 2009 6:09PM]

i still cant figure out hoe colour e-ink works

[glenskey @ May 8th 2009 6:31PM]

er, that was probably meant to be a 'w'

[Plothole @ May 10th 2009 5:50AM]

It's similar to other types of color display. Filters of alternating colors are placed above the pixels. A pixel with a red filter only reflects red light. A pixel with blue only reflects blue. Currently they're using an RGBW pattern, which means 1/4 of the filters are red, 1/4 are blue, 1/4 are green, and 1/4 are "white" (clear).

[Bobsley @ May 8th 2009 9:41PM]

No touch, no wireless, open system, black, low price = WIN.

[Overquoted @ May 11th 2009 7:44AM]

The Kindle's wireless can be turned off to conserve battery life and the Sony Reader 505 doesn't have a horrible format (nowhere near Kindle's). With a free software download of calibre, you can convert just about all of your ebooks (I only had trouble with .doc - just made them RTF before trying to turn it into LRF - and maybe 2-3 PDF files). The Kindle's proprietary format was the biggest reason I ended up with Sony's offering. I find the idea of sending ebooks I own to a company's software converter (rather than being able to convert them on my desktop) both invasive (I don't necessarily want a single company knowing what I bought over a six-year period) and archaic. Not to mention the fact that it can't really be THAT hard to allow HTML or RTF formats on the Kindle. IMO, it's just a money-making scheme to try and force you to buy Kindle books (especially when your favorites aren't readable even after conversion).

I used to have a Dell Axim X3 for ebook reading before too many prongs broke off, making it impossible to charge. I much prefer the 505, even with the occasional glitches and the steep likelihood that the 505 will be outdated compared to new e-ink devices within a year or two. The battery isn't constantly going dead when I really get into a book, and there is ZERO eye-strain. Until I started reading on the 505, I didn't even realize what that eye-strain feeling was.

For a backlit, cheap e-reader, I once found JetBook being sold at Fry's for less than $200.