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The latest news on Audiobooks, eBooks and eReaders

What is Next for the e-Reader Industry in 2017?

November 14, 2016 By Michael Kozlowski 26 Comments

color-e-ink-1

Over the course of 2016 there has not been any major shifts in technology to take e-readers to a new level, but there have been a few notable changes. Kobo and Tolino have incorporated yellow LED lights to inhibit the amount of blue light that emits from the front-lit display. Amazon released the Kindle Oasis which is the thinnest e-reader in the world and comes with a case with a battery built into it. Bookeen also released a solar paneled case, so you literally never have to charge it via a USB cable. What is next for the e-reader industry in 2016?

One of the biggest changes to the e-reader industry will likely come in 2017 and this is a new processor called IMX.7. This dual core processor has been optimized for E-Ink and the E-Ink Regal Waveform Controller. It was initially supposed to hit mass production in the first quarter of 2016 but there have been many delays. First of all Freescale was sold to NXP and then NXP was sold to Qualcomm. Freescale told me that the processors have hit massive production in late 2016 but it is very likely we won’t see it in an e-reader until late 2017. This is because companies need to totally revise their operating system so the software can take advantage of the new hardware.

From what I understand IMX.7 will allow companies to do some fairly exciting stuff. You will be able to play animations and video because the e-ink refresh rates have been dialed up. So for example, a future Kindle device may have animated page turns or it might allow you to download an e-book sample directly from a carousel image. Android enabled e-readers will also be more relevant because you will be able to render everything faster and with less ghosting.

In early 2016 at SID Display Week E-Ink unveiled color e-paper. It can produce full color at every pixel without the use of a color filter array. It can display over 32,000 different colors and has a resolution of 1600 x 2500 pixels and 150 PPI.

The new e-paper achieves a full color gamut, including all eight primary colors, using only colored pigments. The display utilizes a single layer of electrophoretic fluid, which is controlled using voltages compatible with commercial TFT backplanes. The fluid can be incorporated into either microcapsule or Microcup structures. The richness of the colors is achieved by having all the colored pigments in every picture element (pixel) rather than the side-by-side pixel colors achieved with a CFA. This eliminates the light attenuation, which can be quite significant.

When E-Ink developed this technology it was designed with digital signage in mind and the refresh rate was really poor. This was because it wasn’t built with e-readers in mind and did not have any support for EPD and waveform controllers. E-Ink has told me that in late 2017 and 2018 they will have added e-reader support and we will finally have color e-readers.

E-Ink is not the only company that has developed color e-paper. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed new electronic paper that contains gold, silver and PET plastic. The layer that produces the colors is less than a micrometer thin and their prototype currently displays red, green and blue (RGB) colors that together can create all the colors in standard LED displays.

Will 2017 be the year Amazon finally issues a Kindle e-reader or Fire Tablet that has incorporates Liquavista? They have been slowly building a management team in Eindhoven and a production team in Beijing Century Joyo Information Technology Co., Ltd Shenzhen Branch. I have heard that all of the senior level positions have been filled, so all of the pieces are in place to design and prototype.

Wrap Up

If you were to ask me what is next for the e-reader industry in 2017 I would likely say more of the same. More companies will issue waterproof e-readers and others will use the same lighting system that Kobo and Tolino developed. I have serious reservations that we will see the color e-paper that E-Ink has developed until 2018. Do not discount Amazon, I think they might release a colored Kindle next year. Also, look for more e-readers to have bigger screens. This year Good e-Reader, Onyx, Kobo and other companies bucked the six inch trend.

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.

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Filed Under: E-Ink, Clearink and E-paper News, e-Reader News, Kindle News



  • grindathotte .

    The question many are still asking is when are we going to see a larger Kindle?

  • jabaal miau

    “I have serious reservations that we will see color e-paper in 2017 and this is more of a 2018 type of thing.”

    Then this http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/amazon-is-developing-an-8-inch-color-kindle it was a lie.

    Ok.

  • Pat

    Yes, I want to know the same thing. Kobo now has me hooked with the Aura One and I have stopped buying Kindle books. I hope Amazon comes out with the larger reader so I will read my past Amazon purchases.

  • Bob

    From the link in your post “People close to the upstream supply chain say the company should be releasing it in October or November.” I think this makes it very clear that a source gave the information. It’s what is known as an industry rumor. Not to be confused with a product announcement. I for one appreciate GoodEreader keeping us up to date with industry movements even if the timescale or details change before production. The link you shared the says “Amazon is Developing an 8 inch Color Kindle” and I don’t think that is a “lie”. Details about tech development change all the time. Timeframes, processors, size and any other variable could change during the development process. Or they could have a working prototype and production plan and still get put on the back burner due to corporate strategy.
    I too am tired of waiting. But hey, I have been waiting for over a decade…

  • James Seger

    Look into Calibre and Apprentice Alf and you can read your Kindle books on a Kobo or Kobo books on a Kindle…

  • Hugh Johnson

    Very good article. Wow, a bigger screen with color eink is exactly what I’d like to see for the near future. Also, being Canadian, access to library seamlessly incorporated into the device. Right now the Kobo Aura One does this but $300 CDN is way too much. Even at half that price, I think it’s over priced….anyway…. a very good article.

  • RK

    Excellent article, thanks. Hopefully color e-ink will arrive in the near future.

  • TheJeebus

    Remember this?

    http://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/kobo-will-never-make-a-color-e-reader

    Never. Never? NEVER???

  • Good E-Reader

    Thanks for the support. Some of the info we get are from suppliers that work on a single aspect of the device, say the back casing. In the Kindle rumors, sometimes it is from former employees at LAB 126 that mention something they should not.

    I have lots of industry connections at all of the companies that make e-readers, but most of them are from the upstream supply chain. Sometimes products get redesigned after internal testing or scrapped altogether. In other cases a future product will have some of the tech.

    For example, I wrote a few things about the Voyage 2 last year, but Amazon took some of the advances they made and released the Oasis.

  • Good E-Reader

    It would be nice. I think Amazon Kindle DX was ahead of it’s time. I think a modern DX with a Mobius screen, touchscreen, front-lit and thin as hell, would sell like hotcakes.

  • Good E-Reader

    I think it is a very small minority of people that strip DRM, but I suppose there is always a market for people who want to do shady things.

  • Good E-Reader

    The Kobo CEO has stated on a few occasions that they will never make a tablet again and have given up on color e-readers. Although, the e-reader statement might be revised in a few years if the new e-ink tech can work with EPD screens. Currently, the new color e-ink has a 10 second delay when swapping new images.

  • Good E-Reader

    Thanks for reading and your support.

  • Good E-Reader

    We will not see color e-paper from E-INK in 2017, unless a company like Sony does the RND in conjunction with E-ink. Remember e-Ink mobius? This technology only exists because Sony did the majority of the RND costs and prototyping in exchange for six month exclusivity

  • James Seger

    Why is it shady? If I paid for the book and I want to read it on my Kobo, what’s wrong with that?

    Pat above mentioned buying a Kobo and now being locked out of their Kindle library. Why should that be so?

    If you take that file and go share it Willy nilly, yeah. That’s shady.

  • otnte

    There has been major shift in 2016: 13.3 inch ereader finally being available!
    I’m not sure if I would call i.MX 7 a new processor. It’s already 2 years old. i.MX 8 is already available.

  • waiting

    The one thing that SHOULD be next for the e-Reader industry: become nothing more than a stupid e-ink screen industry.

    Most users already have smartphones that can act as book store, text library and everything else. Yet all e-ink devices are trying to be more than they should.

    The only needed features are: phone send pixel data to the e-ink screen. The e-ink device sends touch data back. That is all. Standardize that input/output. Think chromecast but for text on e-ink.

    User can now get multiple screens and use them with the same phone.

    This would liberate users from hassles like separate accounts for the e-ink devices, dealing with device updates and lock in to vender apps and stores. The less complex e-ink device/screen can be made cheaper.

  • daryl3d

    I purchased the Kobo aura one due to your review on this site and it is now one of my cherished ereaders, I can’t say how much I love it. It’s a good size, I can read while in the tub or in bed at night (great auto adjusted lighting for the eyes) and I was able to convert my other eBooks to allow it to work on this perfectly. I even converted some PDF eBooks to mobi and it works great on the Aura One.

    I also have the Sony Digital Paper System (DPT-S1) which is great for note taking and reading but of course lacks the front reflective lighting for the screen. Now if they could just combine the 2… Kobo Aura Two with a bigger screen (why not at least 9.7″ like the iPad or better yet 12″ so it resembles a full sized piece of paper, but with a smaller bezel like the Aura One) , more memory (min 32 GB or expandable), IMX.7 or 8 chip (whatever) and allow us to do make notes on writable PDFs like the Sony …

    I often wonder why ereader companies shy away from the larger screens (the iPad sized ones)… it has to be cost rather than demand … who wouldn’t want a iPad sized ereader?

  • Mustafa79

    I’m still using my Kindle 3 (Keyboard 3G) from 2011 with a flexible external LED light. It’s very chunky-looking compared to the 2016 Paperwhite and Oasis, however after a few minutes your eyes don’t care that it’s such old technology or has less PPI (I have physical buttons, an audio jack, and a speaker too). Unlike phones, I’m not too hung up on getting a new eReader often.

    Similarly, I’m using a 50″ TV from 2006 which was very high-end back then. Although the latest 4k sets with HDR are sweet, at the distance I sit from the screen a 1080P display that’s a decade old still looks great.

    I plan to only buy and upgrade my Kindle if the new one is night and day different. A color E-ink display or i.MX7/8 chip or 50% weight reduction would count. I think by 2018 or 2019 these features might be common.

  • TheJeebus

    So you should probably have written “in the foreseeable future” instead of “never”. There’s a difference you know.

  • Heidi Steindel

    Is an ereader even necessary now we have tablets and we can get nook and kindle and kobo apps on it.

  • JensK

    If you ever tried to read for a longer period on an e-reader, you will never again want to go back to the reading experience of tablets and phones. The eyes love e-readers (and real books), and don’t care all that much for the others.

  • Fly Wright

    I think I’m going to wait on getting a new ereader. I think Kobo’s latest has made a splash and I’m curious to see if Amazon comes out with a larger ereader for next holiday season.

  • Carol Black Randall

    The little 6 inch Kindle E readers are great for tossing in a purse or pocket but when at home I would MUCH prefer a larger screen. I’m still using the old DX with a larger screen. Recently the little toggle button cracked so I’m going to have to give in sooner or later and I keep hoping before I give in that they will come out with a larger screen again. Wouldn’t mind having a small one for when out and about or traveling but at home larger is better and easier on the eyes.

  • DSpaceNine

    An 8 inch Kindle would be great, and is something they can do right now. Call it the Voyage 2 Plus or Oasis Grand, something like that.

  • laughterjones

    Been 5 months since the production of this article. Any updates to add, or rumors to linger on? That IMX.7 processor in a 10 in ereader with android would seal the deal to me.

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