You'll be forgiven for just glazing over during
CES and ignoring all those ebook readers that were
raining down, but
Liquavista's attempt at marrying the endurance of e-paper with the desirability of color is well worth
another look. The company has now furnished its LiquavistaColor dev kit with a QWERTY keyboard and also recruited Texas Instruments into the fold, whose OMAP system-on-a-chip is doing the grunt work under the hood. The video after the break indicates that touchscreen interaction is also planned, but the most impressive thing has to be the total lack of any redrawing pauses, which may be the considered the
biggest drawback to the many
E Ink devices out there. For the more conventional monochromatic crowd, we've also grabbed video of the LiquavistaBright, which replicates the rapid refresh skills, but omits the keyboard and OMAP in favor of a more compact form factor and
Freescale iMX5x hardware. Slide past the break to see it all.
posted February 22nd 2010 4:03AM
Oi ... that display is ridiculous small ... don't care about the color or refresh rate if it stays at that size ...
Holy giant boarder, obviously a temp unit.
@dds1043 Really, did you even read the title? Let's say the part that says "dev kit".
With several of these new technologies being displayed, one thing is clear.
If production costs and scaling, as well as contrast are not adversely effected (hopefully they are all improved actually)... then the e-reader 2.0 experience is going to be a big improvement.
I'm really anxious to see some of these technologies deployed in actual products though and to see some testing.
Very interested to see how ipad screen holds up in comparison.
@savagemike Well, calling the iPad an e-reader is a bit of a stretch that's saying that the phone in your pocket is an e-reader, the way i see it an e-reader should have an e-ink screen or at least some other technology that doesn't strain your eyes. I can see someone trying to read a book on the iPad (on a plane or a bus somewhere) and after maybe a good 30 minutes having to stop and rest they're eyes. I don't know about everybody else but if I'm reading I do it for about a 45-120 minutes at a time.
What is it with the giant bezels today?
First the Devour, now this
e-paper + kinetic scrolling = win.
Liquavista shows a lot of promise, but it's still just promise, unfortunately. LVColor seems to be running kinda slow as well, which doesn't seem to be the best way to show off TI's new processor.
I just hope they can get these in actual products before I lose interest. If they can't get to market somewhat soon, I'm not sure how easy it will be to play catch up with PVI/E-Ink's EPDs and Qualcomm's Mirasol.
It'd also be nice if they had more of their current numbers. They said they upgraded the LVBright panels very recently...so what kind of reflectance and contrast numbers are we looking at now? How will it compare with upcoming improvements in EPD?
I really want an e-reader (and I've been looking at the nook for sometime now), but with these new color e-ink displays with better refresh rates just around the corner, I just can't do it yet. Here's to hoping one of the major players (and by "major players", I mean Amazon or B&N) get a color e-reader before the end of the year.
It just occurred to me... maybe Microsoft is holding Courier back cause they are planning to make it color e-ink instead of LCD, so they need more development time?
@Verythrax You know that Courier video was a render right? And that its just a technology demo from Microsoft's labs that isn't necessarily going to see the light of day? I wouldn't hold off on buying products that are actually on the market based on this fantasy platform...
Wow.. bezel
@eddie817 Wow, dev unit...
my next laptop/tablet will have a pixel qi screen. until then I can wait for the dust to settle. no need to go jumping on the bandwagon of these half-baked technologies just to have the latest and for-now-greatest.
@chanjunsung
Pixel Qi is NOT e-Ink. The Engadget editors may talk like it is a real competitor, but they also call the iPad an e-reader. The Pixel Qi is an LCD screen that can go into a power saving black and white mode. Unfortunately, it is still an LCD screen, meaning that the same glare will be there that makes LCDs uncomfortable to read in the first place.
@Fritz not from what I have seen, I am pretty sure that in the black and white mode it is a reflective screen which though it doesn't have the power savings looks very similar to e-paper
@Fritz
Isn't that his point? He says he'll use the LCD 'fake' stuff until they developed e-ink better.
Sounds like a plan.
I don't know if I want a display that sounds like an industrial grinder.
Wow,
Some sort of Ambient industrial scene going on there.
Refresh rate is amazing.
I really see myself in the future buying a color e-ink large screen reader.
Okay, once again this looks very washed out in the video, but since you never changed camera angles its hard to tell what is bad lighting and what is a screen contrast problem. How about some words Engadget? What did you THINK about this screen when you saw it?
Screw the Liquavista demos— I wanna know where I can get one of those musical chainsaws I hear in the background of the videos.
That looks like a Texas Instrument.
Yet another e-reader without color e-ink and no touch screen. Move along nothing to waitwut?