There are two excellent videos in this Color eReader comparison – prepare to be blown away 
.
The contenders -
- Mirasol Displays from Qualcomm. Engadget think these might make their way to a Kindle - certainly hope so.
- Liquavista Color Displays based on Electrowetting technology. Liquavista is a spin-off from Philips Research Labs.
Liquavista’s fast refresh Color ePaper
First, a video from Liquavista’s YouTube page -
Liquavista’s ePaper technology hits the golden treble – fast screen refresh, support for video, full color.
Liquavista are taking out all the stops -
- The above video is also on their home page and shows a 6″ screen Liquavista color ePaper powered eReader.
- They drum up video support.
- They talk about high contrast and excellent viewing angle.
- They have a concept design for a Liquavista screen based eReader they’re calling the Pebble.
- Gizmodo first wrote about this and they say Liquavista claim a 2010/2011 release.
There’s also a Liquavista Press Release with this snippet -
Liquavista was founded in 2006 as a spin-out from the world famous Philips Research Labs in Eindhoven.
The company is backed by Amadeus Capital, GIMV, Applied Materials and Prime Technology Ventures.
Qualcomm’s Mirasol Color ePaper inspired by Butterfly Wings
Qualcomm’s Mirasol color display technology mimics butterfly wings to hit the same golden treble as Liquavista – fast screen refresh, video support, full color.
For an even more impressive video check out Engadget’s review (they make their video almost impossible to embed).
Engadget say -
- Mirasol’s display is a 5.7-inch XGA color screen.
- A Mirasol color screen powered eReader will be out Fall 2010.
- Engadget claim they’ve heard rumors it’ll be a new version of the Kindle.
- Mirasol displays can be scaled up for 9″ and 10″ devices.
- Mirasol powered devices will be priced competitively with LCD and eInk alternatives.
- Full video support provided the processor can handle it.
A Kindle with a display that looks like that – Wow!
Closing Thought – 2010 looks to be the Year
If either Mirasol powered or Liquavista powered eReaders arrive in 2010 we will see incredible improvements in eReader sales and perception.
We’re talking about eReaders with -
- Full Color Support.
- Fast Screen Refreshes.
- Full Video Support.
- All while keeping the couple weeks of battery life.
- We would still have other important eReader benefits like changeable font sizes, text to speech, and cheap ebooks.
eReaders would finally hit the 21st century. The video from Liquavista was stunning and the Mirasol video is simply unbelievable.
Here’s to hoping that the Kindle and other eReaders incorporate these technologies in 2010 itself.
Filed under: eBook Reader Devices Tagged: | color ereader, color kindle
The Mirasol is definitely the new Kindle. It”s obvious if you look at this photo: http://www.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Qualcomm_Mirasol_ebook_reader_prototype_11.jpg . The design is nearly identical, just tweaked. For instance, there’s similarly situated navigation buttons on the left and right, similarly situated “menu” buttons on the right side, and the joytick has been updated to a directional key (but kept in the same general area).
With that being said, I HATE it because they made the screen 0.3 inches smaller. I already thought the 6-inch screen was borderline too small. I don’t need a screen as large as a Kindle DX, but I would like the screen to be closer to the size of a mass market paperback. Of course I don’t want the overall device to be bigger (I like that it can fit into a coat pocket), but you could easily make the a 6.5 inch screen fill that frame (look how much empty space there is between the the screen and the edge of the device).
[...] Liquavista and Mirasol displays, on the other hand, are amazing – Check out the color eReader comparison post for videos of [...]
[...] 2010 by switch11 Just a day after we speculated about a color Kindle using Mirasol displays and contrasted Mirasol and Liquavista color displays we have HUGE news – a color eReader prototype from BeBook that uses Liquavista screen [...]
[...] development is heading towards full color displays for a greater magazine reading experience and e-Skin, which could see the whole surface of devices [...]
help us design a revolutionary new e-reader just take this brief survey
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dE12UnluV1BodnZfaDZMZ1I0NXdLdVE6MA
Such displays would make a small low powered PC possible tha is more attractive than an ereader. Maybe you give up some battery life (but not much). In return you gain all the applications you can run on a PC and still retain the ability to run reader software. So ultimately the reader hardware as a single device looks like its nearing the end of its market life.
Why Mirasol is making a 5.7″ display instead of the more popular 6.1″ and 7″ displays by Amazon, B&N and Sony? So they can inflate their battery life numbers? I want to know the battery life on a 7″ screen to compare it with a future Pixel Qi 7″ and Liquavista.