PocketBook has updated their popular 5″ e-ink e-reader with a new faster Vizplex e-ink screen, a faster Freescale i.MX35 533Mhz arm11 processor and WiFi support.
Category: E-readers
PocketBook 603, 903 and IQ at CES 2011
Posted by – January 14, 2011
PocketBook are releasing the 603 Pro, 903 Pro and PocketBook IQ Android Tablet/E-reader globally.
Related articles
- PocketBook USA’s lineup announced (teleread.com)
Hanvon E920, 9.7″ color e-ink e-reader prototype
Posted by – January 10, 2011
Supports both capacitive touch and Hanvon’s pen input.
Related articles
- Hanvon E920 Color E-Ink Reader Shown Off at CES (devicemag.com)
- Hanvon brings E920, world’s first color E Ink reader, to CES, we go hands-on (video) (engadget.com)
- Hanvon WISEreader E920 claims better readability (slashgear.com)
- Hanvon outs Wisereader E920 9.7in hi-res E Ink Reader (electronista.com)
- We go hands-on with Hanvon’s E920 color e-reader, tablets (electronista.com)
- Color E Ink To Be Sold In Hanvon E-Reader (huffingtonpost.com)
- Hanvon aims to be first to sell e-Reader with color e-Ink (gizmag.com)
- Hanvon to be first with color E Ink reader, sizes it at 10 inches, makes it a touchscreen (engadget.com)
Onyx Boox M90
Posted by – January 9, 2011
This is a 9.7″ e-ink e-reader from Onyx International with a Wacom-like stylus touch screen embedded Linux based user interface.
Related articles
- BOOX eReader Hands On (slashgear.com)
Jetbook mini LCD based $99 e-reader
Posted by – January 9, 2011
Jetbook mini is a 5″ LCD e-reader, works 50 hours on normal triple a batteries and 90 hours on rechargeable lithium ion batteries.
Sharp Galapagos Tablets/LCD e-readers
Posted by – January 9, 2011
Sharp is launching these tablets with their new high quality LCD touch screens.
Freescale i.MX508 next generation e-ink platform
Posted by – January 7, 2011
Freescale dominates the e-ink e-reader market. Their next generation i.MX508 e-ink e-reader processor allows for more performance, faster refresh rates (limited by e-ink technology), lower cost (e-ink readers could be sold at half the price, $99 e-ink e-readers are now possible), most cool is Freescale works to provide Android support on these next generation e-ink e-readers. This is cool because Android support can provide cool useful apps such as news readers, rss readers, chrome to phone functionality and more.
Color e-ink powered by Freescale i.MX508
Posted by – January 7, 2011
The new Freescale i.MX508 can power color e-ink screen devices.
netbooknews.com: Asus Eee Note EA800 Unboxing
Also see my interview with the product manager at Computex here. Asus has chosen to release this reflective based grayscale 8″ wacom touch LCD based e-reader. It has a user interface based on Qt and embedded Linux on a Marvell processor.
This video was released at: netbooknews.com
7″ Pixel Qi may be shown at CES
According to the new Pixel Qi products page at http://pixelqi.com/products, the 7″ version of the Pixel Qi screen, thus suitable for more portable tablet form factors and e-readers, may be on display and perhaps available as samples starting this January at the CES trade show.
7″ samples for CES 2011 possible
And according to their September 17th blog post:
New Screen Development: 7″
We are developing a 7” screen for tablets and ereaders that is planned for mass production in H1 2011. Samples will be available earlier, perhaps by late Q4 2010.
As I am typing this post on my awesome 7″ Archos 70 Internet Tablet, I can imagine how it would be to have the device be even lighter (than its current 300 grams, vs 380 grams Galaxy Tab and 680 grams iPad) with a smaller battery or to have it last upwards 50 hours with a reflective screen suitable for e-reading. Kindle 4 should definitely use this, and this is I think the reason for Amazon to be secretly preparing their alternative Android application store.
Source: pcworld.com
Video about my E-Ink watch
I am being video interviewed by Sasha Pallenberg of netbooknews.com about my awesome E-ink watch:
It doesn’t exactly have the Bluetooth features, those features will come with the also cool looking touch screen Sony Ericsson Liveview and similar Android Bluetooth remote control watches that are coming.
This video was released at: netbooknews.com
Barnes and Noble NOOKcolor runs on TI’s OMAP3621 45nm 600Mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor
Posted by – October 29, 2010
- Image via CrunchBase
Barnes and Noble just announced the NOOKcolor Android based LCD e-reader. I was wondering what ARM processor platform it may be based on and I just received the confirmation that it is TI’s OMAP3621 600Mhz ARM Cortex A8 at 45nm, it comes with POWERVR 3D graphics acceleration, and TMS320C64x+™ DSP technology for multimedia acceleration. Unlike the ARM11 based Pandigital Novel, this LCD e-reader should have enough power to provide some advanced hardware accelerated smooth user interfaces. The point at which Barnes and Noble and TI can develop smooth user interfaces that take full advantage of hardware acceleration will be interesting to see, as the customized e-reader application layers on top of Android that they have been showing on the NOOKcolor surely are interesting. Things like navigating through color magazines could be very interesting. Of course, I am also looking forward to this type of devices using the Pixel Qi reflective LCD screen technology. Also, it sounds interesting that TI provides OMAP3621 fir e-ink e-readers as well, with boasting of double as much battery runtime for e-ink page turns and with advertising of the fact that they want to support customized Android features for e-ink e-readers.
NOOKcolor runs on TI’s OMAP3621 (ARM Cortex™-A8 processor-based) applications processor—a member of the OMAP™ 3 processor family that was optimized for the consumer market. OMAP3621 delivers a robust, multitasking environment required to simultaneously run the eReader’s new feature-rich applications, which exercise the CPU, multimedia and graphics engines.
NOOKcolor represents the very first commercial launch of a reading-centric product using TI’s OMAP hardware and Android software architecture that we announced at CES 2010. And, today’s announcement is a prime example of how the OMAP 3 technology’s power and performance capabilities are leveraged in new consumer markets.
Source: ti.com
Related articles
- Nook Color processor revealed: ARM Cortex A8-based TI OMAP3621 (engadget.com)
- Nook Color Runs On TI’s Cortex A8-Based E-Book Platform (crunchgear.com)
- Barnes & Noble Takes the Wraps Off of Nookcolor and Android Developers Program (technologizer.com)
- Barnes & Noble Unveils Full-Color, Android-Based Nook (mashable.com)
- Barnes & Noble Announces NOOKcolor: 7″ IPS Goodness In A $250 Package (androidpolice.com)
- Barnes & Noble Livens Up E-Reading With NOOKcolor (forbes.com)
Review: Sony Reader PRS-650 Touch Edition
Posted by – October 18, 2010
It has a nice screen, I show it, and I give you my opinions on this e-reader. Sony is bringing a really nice E-ink Pearl based e-reader with a fantastic very sensitive infrared based touch screen. Though I wish it had WiFi and Android software for Chrome-to-Ereader functionality and Sharing and Synchronizing of Annotations and Reading to make Annotations and Reading more useful. It’s cool that Sony promote the “get unlimited ebooks for free from your digital library” concept. With WiFi, though, the integration with unlimited amounts of ebook repositories would be more seamless and probably more user friendly. If all you are looking for is an offline e-reader, with the latest e-ink screen technology, with touch-screen for page turns, dictionary/translator and for annotations and UIs, then this could be a great choice for you.
Also see my Grandmother reviewing this device in my video released last week and my 11-minute video interview with a Sony specialist unveiling it and discussing technical details about it at IFA.
Related articles
- Exclusive: Sony PRS-650 Grandmother Review (armdevices.net)
- Review: Sony Reader Pocket Edition PRS-350SC (macworld.com)
- Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-350SC) review (engadget.com)
Archos 70 eReader, sub-95€ 7″ LCD e-reader
5 million e-readers were sold in 2009, 15 million are expected to be sold this year. Most are e-ink based e-readers, but LCD based ones are coming as well (soon enough with Pixel Qi based LCDs as well). This one runs Android with a custom UI optimized for e-readers, may come with a touch-screen, WiFi and video codecs support as well even though it’s to be sold below 95€, to be confirmed.
Thanks BenMars for your reports from the Hong Kong Sourcing fair!
Source: http://www.jbmm.fr/2010/10/17/hong-kong-6-archos-7o-ereader/
Exclusive: Sony PRS-650 Grandmother Review
Posted by – October 8, 2010
Watch my grandmother use this new touch screen Sony e-reader. It’s a product that is suitable for people like her, who like to read lots, who may enjoy having access to all the worlds books electronically on this thin and light device. In this review, after having barely used the device before, she tries to navigate through the menus, open some PDF files, make fonts larger (to not need glasses) and she even does a drawing.
Also see my 11-minute video interview with a Sony specialist unveiling it and discussing technical details about it at IFA.
Sony’s new infrared based touch screen technology is quite awesome, great for UI navigations and for making annotations, provides touch on e-ink without taking away any of the Pearl e-ink’s screens visibility. Too bad though that this PRS-650 doesn’t come with at least WiFi nor with a 3G option, would have made the touch screen more useful if it could interact with web apps and web contents. I want Chrome-to-phone like Chrome-to-eink functionality where a one click in the web browser on my Laptop or Android device, should beam that article over to my Connected e-reader’s reading queue. And then I want annotations to become more useful and collaborative. 10 people working on the same text should be able to wirelessly share annotations in real-time. When I annotate a text, it should automatically be attached as comments to any site using Sidewiki or some other such web annotation standards to interoperate with websites existing commenting systems (post scribbled annotations as comments!). A bluetooth or USB keyboard and a built-in kickstand should provide a setup for full speed text entry.
Nicholas Negroponte keynote at the Mobilize conference: Give Every Child a Tablet
OLPC‘s founder Nicholas Negroponte discusses educational use of the tablet form factor followed by a discussion with Marvell’s co-founder Weili Dai. They are building the $75 XO-3 Tablet for education, to be showcased as prototype within 3 months by next CES. Possibly that the first prototypes may even get to be using the latest wide-view capacitive Pixel Qi LCD screens and the Marvell Armada 628 processor.
To be productive using a tablet, I think plugging a $2 USB keyboard and mouse could still be the best solution. As text entry can hardly be as fast on a tablet, even using haptic feedback or web based voice recognition technology. If the USB keyboard/mouse can be developed to cost $2-3 maximum, then I think it would make sense to provide each child with the $75 tablet and the $2-3 keyboard/mouse combo as well as some kind of cheap bag that holds them together or perhaps even better, the keyboard/touchpad could double as a thin, cheap and light screen protector for the tablet when carrying it around and could as well be clipped onto the back of the tablet when only using the tablet mode.
Filmed at the Mobilize conference organized by gigaom: http://gigaom.com/2010/09/30/mobilize-2010-negroponte-sees-tablets-as-creative-tool/
Pixel Qi 7″ screens coming too
Pixel Qi is the single most revolutionary LCD screen technology, adding the benefits of low power, reflectivity, long form and outdoor readability all the while providing a switch on the side of the device to provide full color backlight mode to the screen as well. Thus combining Tablets with E-readers, making 50-hour tablet battery runtime without increasing battery size a possibility and bringing full color video, web browsing and full Android UIs to E-readers. The 10.1″ screen will be announced soon for more products than just Notion Ink and Innoversal:
We will be announcing other products carrying Pixel Qi screens here in this blog; stay tuned.
Pixel Qi provides some insights into the reason why several tablet projects including the ones to use Pixel Qi have been delayed because of the success of the disruptive iPad:
Tight supply chain and 100% factory usage this spring and summer coupled with Apple’s disruptive iPad effectively had a 1-2 punch impact: delaying most tablet makers from coming to market as early as they wished. The situation has eased: the supply chain is more robust and factory capacity is widely available. Many of our device makers used this downtime to refine their designs with the result being even more exciting offerings that are highly differentiated from the iPad with options well beyond ATT for carriers. These device maker partners will be making more announcements coming this fall.
And so, a screen that I think would be perfect for the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Foxconn ARM11 Powered 7″ Tablet reference design, Pixel Qi is announcing the development of the 7″ Pixel Qi screen size. Here’s also who needs to absolutely use the 7″ Pixel Qi screen, the $35 Indian HRD Tablet Project!!!
We are developing a 7” screen for tablets and ereaders that is planned for mass production in H1 2011. Samples will be available earlier, perhaps by late Q4 2010.
In my opinion, everyone in the industry with 7″ and 10.1″ LCD tablet projects, all need to be a part of this revolution and need to use this amazing screen. Hopefully with mass manufacturing and large serious orders, the screen will be cheap enough to be close to the price of a normal LCD, hopefully the yield and the long term performance in use will be just as good as normal LCD.
PocketBook 360 review (part 1)
Posted by – September 18, 2010
Here is an overview of the design and the size of the PocketBook 360 e-ink e-reader. This e-reader device has a nice compact 5″ e-ink screen with a nice screen cover design making it pocketable unlike the Kindle. This device is widely available on the worldwide markets such as for $193 on Amazon.com and remains one of PocketBook’s best selling products thus far, making PocketBook the third most popular e-ink e-reader manufacturer. In my next part of this review that I will post in the next few days, I will show you the user interfaces of the latest firmware update. Wouldn’t it be cool if such pocketable e-ink e-reader device was to get 3G/WiFi/Bluetooth as well as a Wacom-style digitizer screen or Sony’s new infrared/laser touch screen technology?
PocketBook 903 Pro with firmware that supports the faster digitizer
Posted by – September 6, 2010
In my previous video of the PocketBook 903 Pro at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQwWTR0kZ44 they didn’t load the latest firmware yet. Yesterday night the software engineers emailed a new firmware with fixed full speed digitizer pen input.
Acer LumiRead at IFA 2010
Posted by – September 6, 2010
Acer is releasing this new 6″ e-ink e-reader, without a touch screen, it’s not Pearl type e-ink display, comes with 3G and WiFi options and supports online book stores like the German libri.de book store.
