Hasta La Gadget!

Seiko’s been doing the whole E-Ink wristwatch thing for years now, but the vast majority of ’em could really only be viewed when looking directly down onto the so-called dial. The appropriately named “Future Now” EPD watch aims to change all that, with an “active matrix” E-Ink display that allows for the same 180 degrees of visibility that you’ve come to expect in the average LCD panel. The all-black watch made its debut at Basel World 2010, boasting a grand total of 80,000 pixels, each of which are capable of displaying four shades of grey. Seiko’s also trumpeting the achievements in power reduction, though we aren’t informed of exactly how long this thing can shuffle minutes away before needing a recharge. Either way, we couldn’t be more anxious to see this gem hit store shelves — hop on past the break for a quick look at exactly what we mean.

Continue reading Seiko’s ‘active matrix’ E-Ink watch exemplifies awesome, might just be the future (video)

Seiko’s ‘active matrix’ E-Ink watch exemplifies awesome, might just be the future (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink E-Ink-Info  |  Seiko Watches  | Email this | Comments

We almost hate to throw the KIRF moniker on a product we wouldn’t mind owning, but this e-reader that popped up at the EREXPO in Shenzhen certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to the Spring Design Alex e-reader — and the button layout on the right is a dead ringer for the Kindle. It’s called the K9, the latest reader from Teclast, and it follows a growing trend of Android-powered devices with a color LCD on the bottom and an E-Ink screen on top. The screens measure 3.6- and 6-inches respectively and, while we don’t know anything else about it at this point, we wouldn’t be surprised it inherits its father’s tardiness.

Keepin’ it real fake: Teclast’s dual-screened K9 e-reader looks like Alex and Kindle made a baby originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Cloned In China  |  Shanzhaiben.com  | Email this | Comments

Is it an Android tablet? An e-reader? Just a sweet gadget with two screens? Truth is the Entourage Edge is a little bit of everything, and that’s exactly why we’ve been so intrigued with the “dualbook” since we fondled it at CES. Finally ready to make its shipping debut, the $499 dual screen device is aimed at students, but really it’s for anyone interested in a combination 9.7-inch E Ink reading / note-taking experience and a 10.1-inch Android web tablet. It’s sounded very cool to us for quite a while, but there’s always a difference between hype and reality. Does the Edge live up to its promise or attempt to do too much? The only place to find out is after the break in our full review.

Continue reading Entourage Edge review

Entourage Edge review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Pixel Qi is on the cusp of shipping its triple-mode LCD screens as straight, swap-in replacements for your existing laptop screen.

The Pixel Qi display works three ways, saving power and making it readable in any light. Transmissive mode is the one you are likely looking at now, a backlit LED panel which uses power for both the light and the pixels blocking and coloring that light. Next up is the reflective mode, which switches off the backlight and flips the colored pixels to grayscale. This looks a lot like hi-res e-ink displays, but it still uses some power to refresh the screen. It does drain the battery slower than the transmissive mode, though.

Lastly is the hybrid transflective mode, which keeps the full color display, but let the mirror at the back of the screen use sunlight as the backlight. This means you can work outdoors but still see a pretty good image.

Which is fine, but you probably wouldn’t buy a Pixel Qi notebook except for niche cases. With the DIY kits, though, you’ll be able to fit one of these magical screens to your own laptop. Better, it’s easy. Mary-Lou Jepson of Pixel Qi:

It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting [sic] the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation.

This is the kind of mod that could make netbooks useful at last. Or maybe I’m being too optimistic. The kits will be out in the second quarter of this year, just in time for some fun when you get bored of your iPad.

DIY Pixel Qi Kits [Pixel Qi blog]

See Also:

• Up Close and Personal With the Pixel Qi Display
• Pixel Qi Promises Cheap, Readable, Low-Power Displays
• Pixel Qi Offers Peek at New Display
• Pixel Qi
• Why E-Books Are Stuck in a Black-and-White World

For all the fuss made at its launch back in August, Sony’s Reader Daily Edition has all but dropped off the map in terms of interest. Remember, Sony’s response to the Kindle gave us a 7-inch touchscreen device with free AT&T 3G data for a street price of $399. Now we’ve got a proper in-depth review of the thing. On the plus side, the interface is simple and easy to understand right out of the box with nice, oversized icons suitable for your meat digit manipulation. Unfortunately, the Daily Reader was also sluggish. According to Laptop, it was common to suffer a delay of a few seconds after tapping an icon or other interface item. Worse yet, about a third of the time the Daily Reader’s touchscreen display wouldn’t respond to taps or swipes at all. Conversely, page turns responded with a relatively snappy (for E-Ink) one second delay — faster than both the Nook or the Kindle. The EPD display was also a bit “dull” compared to non-touchscreen e-readers like the Kindle and Nook thanks to the additional screen layer that enables touch — a common issue that affects all touch-enabled e-readers, we might add. This resulted in some eye strain in medium to low light. Connectivity also proved a sore spot. AT&T’s network would inexplicably drop out during testing. It was plenty fast, however, when available, capable of delivering new books to the device in just seconds. Performance still lagged both the Kindle and Nook during comparison testing though. Laptop‘s verdict isn’t surprising then, finding the $140 premium you’ll pay for the Daily Reader difficult to justify compared to the EPUB supporting Nook or Kindle 2 with its better design and superior content selection.

It’s worth noting that Laptop did not test the Daily Reader’s library finder services that lets you check out e-books from the local branch for free for a period of up to a month. A shame; as library nerds we think that’s one of the killer features compared to the competition.

Sony Reader Daily Edition reviewed: unworthy of cost premium or love originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Laptop  | Email this | Comments