Readius said to go on sale in mid-2008—the one with the roll-out screen
Watch out, Kindle. The Readius, the phone gizmo with the five-inch foldable screen, is in production and scheduled to hit the stores in the middle of the year. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t offer e-book-related capabilities. It can handle news, blogs and email and certainly should be a little easier to tote than the Kindle. On the other hand, I suspect that the Kindle will have access to more e-books, and in fact some online specs in the Google cache mention them without supplying details. Why’s the PDF of the spec file missing?
“”You get the large display of e-reading, the super battery life of e-reading, and the high-end connectivity … and the form factor and weight of a mobile phone,” Polymer Vision CEO Karl McGoldrick told Reuters.
In-use battery life is said to be 30 hours (10 days from charge to charge). Among the features, reportedly, are an MP3 payer, an SD slot, and Bluetooth. Screen is 16-grayscale e-paper with a claimed 10-to-one contrast ratio and QVGA res and an update time of between .5 and 1 second. Minimum storage is 4G. Connectivity is via USB and wireless broadband.
Any guesses as to what the final price will be? And why or why not would you buy one? I also wonder if it has a Web browser, which the Kindle does. Some are saying it doesn’t. If nothing else, let’s hope the subscription fees are reasonable. Oh, and I wouldn’t mind knowing what kind of e-book software, if any, will come bundled with the Readius.
Related: Polymar Vision’s site with Redius info, The Red Ferret Journal, Gizmodo, MobileRead, Wired, Digital Trends, Tech Gadgets.
Below I’ll repro the spec sheet from Google HTML. No guarantee it’ll be current.
Contact us:
Polymer Vision
+31 (0)40 2746637
info@polymervision.com
About Polymer Vision
Polymer Vision is the world leader in rollable displays, a unique solution allowing mobile displays
larger than the device itself. The company, which is dedicated to putting a rollable display in every
mobile device, was founded in 2006 as a spin out of Royal Philips Electronics.
For more information about Polymer Vision please visit our website at
http://www.polymervision.com/
Specifications are subject to change without notice
Readius
®
The Readius is the world’s first rollable display enabled mobile device. It takes advantage of the unique Polymer
Vision rollable display technology enabling mobile devices to incorporate a display that is larger than the device
itself. This unique product launches a new era of digital content distribution for the mobile and broadband industry
and opens up a whole new space of form factors for mobile terminals.
Key Features
Smaller than a typical mobile phone, the new device features:
- A large 5-inch display that can simply be stored away after use
- High contrast high reflectivity for paper like reading experience even in bright sunlight
- One-handed navigation and control via a touch sensitive LED user interface
- Intuitively simple software
- Low power consumption delivering an exceptional 10 days of usage time between battery charges
- Extensive connectivity providing updates anytime, anywhere
- Download and playback of music, audiobooks and audio Podcasts
Specifications Readius
®
- Dimensions device: 100 mm x 55.6 mm x 21 mm (l x w x h)
- Weight: 150 gram
- Display:
- Type: monochrome reflective
- Size: 5” (128 mm) diagonal; 4:3 aspect
- Resolution: QVGA
- Grey levels: 16
- Contrast: 10:1
- Reflectivity: 35%
- Update speed: 0.5 - 1 s
- Supports: RSS feeds, PDF’s, e-books, e-mail and other text files
- Audio: internal speaker and headphones (with remote control)
- Connectivity: USB and wireless broadband
- Storage: minimum of 4GB
The rollable display companyPage 2
®
Information Companion with Rollable Display
Pocket size companion
Personalised Information
Instant access
;
Anytime,
Anywhere
Pocket size companion
Personalised Information
Instant access;
Anytime,
Anywhere
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