Hey, Kindle 2 owners, remember when Amazon
made the device official and you thought: "Well, it took them a year and a half to replace the old one, so I can buy this one without fears of immediate obsolescence." And then remember how three months later they
announced the Kindle DX and you thought: "Oh." Well, if you're now fearing a color Kindle will come sauntering along in a few months to make
everyone jealous, fear not, as Jeff Bezos is saying the tech is still "multiple years" away, adding "I've seen the color displays in the laboratory and I can assure you they're not ready for prime time." From the few
prototypes we've seen we'd tend to agree. So, anyone
still on the fence about a Kindle, go ahead and buy now with confidence, as your devices won't be made to look quaint any time soon -- at least until that pizza box-sized reader Amazon's been working on in secret is announced in July. Did we mention it actually cooks pizza?
posted May 29th 2009 7:17AM
...unless they use Pixel Qi's new display...
It's still not e-Ink, it's just a reflective lcd, just like they've been putting on pda's for years.
Indeed it's not Electrophoretic (Like E Ink). However Pixel Qi isn't quite the same as standard reflective or transflective LCD (as I understand it) since the colour filter array (CFA) is under the LCD and not on top. This is the reason why the Pixel Qi display is colour in 'back lit' mode and almost greyscale in reflective...
not electrophoretic though so I guess that doesn't count!
just take it apart and spray it, if you're that desperate.
He means colour screen.
palm-face :)
Could pretend I was being sarcastic...but...
Must learn to read the article fully before talking shite!
You mean facepalm, right?
:p
Giggle Giggle
I knew that! ;o)
lol i feel so bad for people who bought this.
*opens packaging*
"wait... all it does it display books? WTF?!"
If they're dumb enough to buy it without knowing what the hell it is, too freaking bad.
I love mine. I feel sorry for you because what you seem to be saying is that you don't like to read books, or that you don't read enough to justify having a lightweight, dedicated device for it.
same here, I love mine. I knew what the hell it was when I bought it, and it's been exactly what I wanted.
Make a color e-ink screen fast, everybody need one!!
that really looks like the Zune color scheme
Kindle is just a fad...
Yeah just like the iPod.
For a lot of people the display is far easier on the eyes enabling the user to read vastly more content in one sitting.
I'd be happy enough if the Kindle 3 had a freaking backlight.
Buy a freaking laptop already if you want a portable LCD screen.
I got flamed he a little while back from some Kindle fanboy, yeah I know it sounds weird, about how smart people don't read books with color and/or pictures **cough cough ZeroCorpse cough**. I will state it again and again, color plus the ability to read .cbr files is when and only when I will consider buying one of these things.
Yeah. Well, we all can't wish to have our "Archie & Jughead" collection on the go, now can we?
You're not the target audience. Move on. Get a palmtop or tablet PC. This isn't your gadget.
And I didn't flame you specifically-- It was everybody who bags on the Kindle because it can't display color or play videos or any of a dozen other things it's not made to do. This is to replace books; Not to replace a computer.
They make other devices that do what you want; It makes no sense to attack this one for being designed with another function in mind.
Oh, and I *do* like comics, magazines, and other books with color & pictures-- I just don't need them on my Kindle, and the vast majority of books sold are simple black & white text-only novels and nonfiction titles.
Like I said-- This is for replacing a stack of books, and it does that wonderfully.
@ ZeroCorpse
God, you're a dick. You're probably just glad that their is finally a solution to keep the pages of your non-visual high class "erotica" from sticking together. A little "Justine" on the go , hmmm?
Years away?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/18/fujitsu-melts-faces-and-wallets-with-flepia-the-first-color-e-b/
Touche
now make it OLED OR AMOLED and poof we have Kindle 3
"Years away" unless you want faded color that takes 8 seconds to change the screen and costs $1000+
it needs to have no light coming from the surface to make it easiest to read.
danny i thot the point of e-ink displays was that it uses no electricity to power a display, instead it draws current only to refresh/change the pixels. wouldn't an OLED kind of defeat the whole purpose?
As I've probably said a thousand times, the Flepia technology is NOT eInk. It isn't even an electrophoretic display. Rather it's a bistable LCD.
Use the Kindle ap on the iPhone. It's in color.
It's also on a screen that's much harder to read in daylight, with a device that gets much worse battery life.
What font is that on the picture?
Jeez, people. relax out there. If you want a color reader that plays video and reads comic files, get a $400 laptop. If you want something that lasts 2-3 weeks on a charge, holds 1500 books worth of text, and fits in the leg pocket of your cargo pants, get a Kindle. It's simple. Quit arguing over NOTHING!
Go outside and play. I'm taking my dog and my Kindle to the park.
C'mon guys, there are lots of things they could do to make a Kindle 3 without making it color.
They might decrease the price.
They might make it with a touchscreen.
They might redesign it to reduce the size, or increase the percentage that is the screen.
They might make it with a 3G radio that would work world-wide.
They might update the Wifi to 802.11n
They might increase the amount of storage
They might improve the text to speech
They might improve the web browsing
They might improve its compatibility with PDFs or non-Amazon eBooks, even CBR format comics (in greyscale)
They might increase the number of shades of grey
They might improve the speaker, so you can use it as a music player
They might add a backlight
They might make it in colors
They might build the cover into it
They might make it foldable, or let you see two pages at once
They might give it a slide-out keyboard
They might add an accelerometer
They might ...
Etc. for a long long time
"They might increase the number of shades of grey"
I've heard that there is already a new controller that supports 5-bit (32 shades) grayscale. So that's definitely a possibility.
Oh, but a backlight is never going to happen. It's physically impossible with the technology. Sure they could implement a sidelight like the PRS700, but that has noticeable limitations.
I haven't looked this up but can the Kindle do Manga? Might be a sell point for the Japanese market.
Honestly, I just don't read enough books to justify this thing, though the wife does.
It does newspapers, but of course they have to be reformatted for it. I wish the magazines I want to read were available for it (even just the tech ones). Sure there are pictures and such, but honestly, grey-scale would be fine.
The alternative is that a lot of these magazines are going to go out of business, replaced by the web. If I could get PC Magazine on my kindle, I might actually continue to subscribe. When I'm at my PC I don't stay in Zimbio long enough, always another web site to check or email or chat. I can read a magazine in bed or on the couch, and could see using a Kindle for that too.
Have to see how this develops. Not sure how much work it is to adapt magazines to the Kindle screen limitations. Possible that the DX could avoid this issue, but there's simply no way I'm going to spend *that* much money...
@Charles M
Absolutely.. And you can carry around a few extra batteries for your iphone to swap out after a couple of hours reading...
I dont understand- why is the screen not color? What makes it different from other screens?
Awhile? A while?
"Since awhile means "for a while", it is never used with a preceding preposition. When preceded by a preposition, the correct form is "a while", as two words" - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/awhile
The more you know...