There is no doubt about it that 2010 was the year E-Readers entered a very competitive zenith and matured from earlier iterations. If CES was any indication, it seems many companies are seriously betting on 2011 being the year of the Tablet PC. Do not discount the possibility of electronic readers losing popularity anytime soon. E-Ink Holdings – the company responsible for electronic e-paper, posted a profit of $134 million dollars. This profit margin is profound, up from being 147% in January 2010.
January is traditionally the slow month for electronics and retail sales. The ever growing demand from companies employing this technology in their electronic readers is reporting that, even during slow times, e-readers are being purchased. It is expected by many industry sources that e-ink will be prevalent in more then 13 million shipped units in 2011, up from previous estimates of 11 million units.
E-Ink has evolved during the course of last year and many companies are employing “Pearl.” This technology is found in the new Sony e-Readers, such as the PRS-350 and PRS-650, but also in the new Amazon Kindle 3 DX. Pearl display screens build upon E Ink’s previous Vizplex displays. This provides enhanced readability, as the text on the screen has a higher contrast then ever before. The text really pops out of screen. Another huge benefit of the Pearl variant of e-ink is that it has a very low power consumption.
So Pearl technology is found in many of the newest e-readers, but what is E-ink Holdings offer for 2011? They have a new technology that they have developed named E-Ink Triton. This new e-paper provides a new form of color e-Ink. Recently we found the new Hanvon Color E-Reader at CES and were told it would be released in June. You can be sure other companies are developing color variants of their e-readers to debut later on this year.
Not only does Triton provide color, but also even lower power consumption then traditional e-ink. Compared to Pearl, Triton also can perform up to 20% faster, which means pages can turn faster, and the refresh rate of on-screen activity is dramatically enhanced.
via Digitimes
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.
