E INK is very bullish about the digital note taking segment and so far, all we have seen is single screen devices. In order to change this paradigm, the E INK Tokyo RND lab has been labourhously refining their dual screen system. The early prototypes from early June 2020, did not have any working buttons, the foldable hinge did not work properly and there was no lightning system. This has all changed with the V2 model.
The new iteration of the foldable e-note now features a dedicated housing unit, to protect the display, when it is completely folded shut. When you open it, it now has 3-4 new gears that work in conjunction with the hinge system, to make sure there is enough torque when opening and closing it. The Wacom later has been refined, which is making it easier to make notes, highlights and annotations in a PDF file or the dedicated note taking app.
There are now five dedicated buttons on the right hand side of the device. You can turn pages of an ebook forward or back. You can access the home menu, more and settings. On the top of the device are two new lighting bars that are built into the chassis and can be folded down, to project light evenly across the screen. Current front-lit technology found on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or the Kobo Forma, do not have flexible screens, so E INK had to find a new solution.
E INk continues to refine the design of their foldable display in the hopes that a company will license the technology and bring a product to the market. I believe foldable displays are the future of reading, it will come as close as we can get to a hardcover or paperback novel.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.