Hanvon is no stranger to making e-readers, they have made plenty, including the Wisereader NF18. Drawing on their experience they are set to release one of the first pure e-ink electronic readers, sometime in March 2011.
Plenty of color e-readers are out already including the Pandigital Novel or the Sharper Image Literati, but they are LCD based instead of true e-ink. E Ink screens have two advantages over LCD — they use far less battery power and they are readable in the glare of direct sunlight.
“Color is absolutely critical for E Ink,” said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. “Without it, they’ll either be replaced by LCD displays or other competitors.”
One of the reasons people stick with true e-Ink ebook readers, such as the Amazon Kindle or Sony e-readers is because of the better contrast ratio, and how crisp e-ink looks. Although current generation color e-ink is inexpensive at large bulk orders, many companies such as Amazon and Sony are holding off on it.
The main factor in current generation color e-ink is that it can not display animations or video that well at all. Another reason is that it is expensive unless enough screens are ordered, in that case it is actually more affordable then gray-scale e-ink.
Although plenty of information on the upcoming Hanvon Color e-reader is not disclosed. We do know some key facts, this unit will feature a full color 9.7 inch color touchscreen. We also know it has a price tag of around $440 dollars, and will feature 3G and WIFI. More then likely we will get extensive CES coverage of this in January.
Hanvon has admitted they are not competing against the Apple iPad with this new offering, they are cattering to more of the electronic reader crowd that prefers e-ink over LCD.
via The New York Times
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.
