CES 2010 was a huge splash this year, with the a ton of new e-paper devices being announced. The only devices to gain more hype than those powered by e-paper were tablet computers, which also seemed to be just about as abundant. We’re going to take a moment here, and talk about some of the bigger e-paper products shown off. A lot of the stuff we were expecting, but a few manufacturers had some really cool surprises up their sleeve.
Cool-ER, Amazon DX, and Alex Reader Get Enhancements
The Cool-ER series of e-readers announced that they will be getting 3G wireless access and some limited touchscreen capability. It’ll even have something the Nook has and the Kindle doesn’t–WiFi connectivity for transferring books and browsing the web in free wireless hotspots. They also announced a Cool-ER slim model that’s wafer thin and has a 6″ viewing screen.
Spring Design, who recently sued the Nook for stealing their look and feel, just struck a huge deal with Google Books, allowing users to download millions of free books directly to their e-reader, The Alex. The Alex runs on Google’s Android operating system, and has an LCD screen embedded in the bottom half of the device, allowing you to browse the web and then print e-books into the e-paper screen above it. Since Google is working on a settlement that allows them to sell e-books as well as give away public domain books, the Alex could end up being a big competitor to the Kindle and the Nook.
Amazon announced world-wide 3G support for their large screen Kindle DX, and will be selling these devices to well over 100 new countries. Right now they are only taking pre-orders through Amazon US, and is shipping out January 19th.
Entourage Edge, eSlick, iRex 800, Plastic Logic’s Que on Display
The much waited Entourage Edge was on display, allowing users to come and try out the dual screen for themselves. iRex’s new 800 showed off it’s light pen support and world wide 3G capability, including the ability to support subscriptions for newspapers and download books ala the Kindle or the Nook. Foxit’s PDF based e-reader, eSlick was also on display, showing that it could do one thing but do it exceptionally well: display PDF’s on an e-paper screen. The long awaited Plastic Logic Que Pro-Reader was also on display, with a large viewing area (8.5×11inches) and 3G wireless system that could connect to many different bookstores (including Barnes and Nobles ebook store). It’s price was the heftiest of the bunch, retailing at about $649-$799.
The Skiff E-Reader
One of the biggest surprises was Hearst’s new announcement for the Skiff e-reader. We’ve known for quite some time that the Skiff Platform would be getting it’s own dedicated e-readers, we just didn’t know how cutting edge it was going to be. This is the first e-reader coming to market that uses LG’s metal foil technology, that gives you a rollable, bendable, flexible e-paper service.
The screen is the largest e-reader screen we’ve seen yet (11.5 inch, touchscreen display without added glare), and since it you can roll it up and take it with you, it acts just like an old fashioned print magazine or newspaper. Since Hearst owns a majority of the Magazines and Newspapers in the country, this could be the ideal Magazine/Newspaper based e-reader.
New E-Readers Announced from Samsung, iRiver, RCA and Copia
To round off all the news and announcements, we’ve heard that there are a few new players in the e-reader market, bringing in their own unique take on the device and hoping to cash in on the latest in publishing trends. Samsung announced it’s own e-reader, telling us it will be between 6-11 inches in size and use a touchscreen interface with an electrostatic pen (similar to how Irex’s devices work).
iRiver announced its own e-reader, called The Story. It looks a lot like the Kindle, with a 6″ display and a full QWERTY keyboard attached to the bottom. It’s aimed more toward office work, with a built in voice recorder and the ability to take memo’s during a meeting. RCA also plans on getting into the e-reader gig just as fast as they got on the MP3 Player bandwagon, with their newly released Lexi-Reader.
And finally, Copia announced an e-reader that plans to merge reading electronically and social networking.
Lots of E-Readers…
The one disappointment in this year’s CES was the lack of e-paper technology in any other market. E-paper is applicable to so many other devices, yet all the announcements involved an e-reader of some sort. The only non-e-reader technology on display that used a form of e-paper were netbooks powered by Pixel Qi’s hybrid screens (like Notion Ink, which we covered earlier) and Mirasol showing off it’s fast full color e-paper display (which might power the Kindle 3 later this year).
Maybe next year, after this year’s e-reader explosion, we can see some new and interesting announcements at CES involving e-paper. We can certainly hope so, a lot of people are starting get sick of hearing about e-readers, allowing one commentator to say that there are officially too many e-readers at CES.
ces, e-paper, e-readers