Qualcomm Mirasol-equipped color e-book reader said to be on track for late 2010
By Donald Melanson 
posted November 18th 2009 12:19PM
posted November 18th 2009 12:19PM
Qualcomm's Mirasol displays have already found their way into quite a few products, but the company looks to really be branching out into some new territory with its latest prototype: an e-book reader with a full-color, 5.7-inch display. Of course, Qualcomm isn't planning to sell this one itself, and it isn't revealing any OEM partners just yet, but it has set the somewhat ambitious target of getting it on the market in the "latter part of 2010." From the looks of it, however, it doesn't seem like it'll have too much trouble attracting interest, considering that the XGA (220ppi) Mirasol display is not only full-color, but allows for video playback, is supposedly readable in direct sunlight, and reportedly has a "minimal impact" on battery life. Other details on the e-reader itself are expectedly light (and subject to change), but you can get a closer look at it courtesy of SlashGear at the link below.
the screen looks great but the prototype itself looks ugly
renewing - destroying not much difference.
Why can we not have tablets like this instead of the whole screen fold down etc. Something like e readers with a stylus and handwriting recognition would be lovely and much less bulky than what is out there.
That, by the way, is not a real display. It is a static demo for show and tell purposes. It is a reflective display, so it only gets better in bright sunlight, but there are trade-offs between color saturation, reflectivity, manufacturability, etc... The colors will never be as good as the new led-lcds or oleds.
Why, exactly? I thought the whole point of this display is that you can get pure spectral colors like the ones you'd see on a butterfly's wing or a CD....
It's definitely cool .. but I have a couple gripes..
1. Why not lengthen the display and have a touchscreen virtual keyboard instead ?
2. Why is the bezel so wide? The display surface should take up more of teh front face and bezels should always be minimized as much as possible .. I'd rather a slightly thicker device than a wide bezel.
it is just a mock up. If you read the article, there will be both touchscreen and devices with keyboard. This is just a proof of concept.
I hope the technology comes out soon and is reasonably priced(< $300). I would definitely pick up one. While color is not required for books, we need color for magazines. Plus if it has wireless and supports video, e-readers would go mainstream.
They're likely to keep a bit of bezel for quite a while...unless you're planning on cutting off your thumbs.
You've got to hold the darn thing and still be able to read it. If your thumb is covering the text, you can't read it. Unless you have see-through thumbs.
Phones get away without much margin, since you're able to hold them in one hand, and you don't need to put a thumb on the front to hold them...but when you go to a two-handed device, or one too wide to wrap your fingers around, you need a place to put your thumb.
I'm guessing an e-paper display is not quite as easy to clean as a glass display (though hopefully better than real paper).
Whoa! It does video? Amazing stuff for e-ink. The Kindle is about to get blown out the water.
This is NOT eInk. The Mirasol technology is radically different; it has nothing to do with electrophoretics.
So, does late 2010 mean sometime in 2011, or is that only certain companies that underestimate schedules?
The screen looks horrible. It looks like it would cause more eye strain! I never caught on why ebook readers should be in color. I get that this would be good for magazines and books with pictures, but I think a reader catering mostly to books, should focus on that. Instead, this makes the traditional book reading experience awful. There are so many other gadgets one cuold use for videos. This is a bad attempt to create yet another all-in-one device that does nothing satisfactorily.
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i so want one for xmas
Crap not that hope in change again apologies tour guy
Interesting concept... If they can get refresh rates upto speed (which they will have to if they plan to implement video) this could be a success.
I want an ebook reader to read magazines along with ebooks and the B&W Kindle just doesnt cut it for me...
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