back to article Colour Kindle incoming says mole

Colour Kindle, anyone? Yes, we thought that would mean the arrival of the Kindle Fire over here, but the inevitable Taiwanese contract-manufacturer moles say, no, it's a colour e-ink device with a multi-touch sensor overlaying the display. And it'll be out during the second half of the year, they add, by way of Digitimes. The …

COMMENTS

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  1. DPWDC

    Looooads of uses!

    Might not be as vibrant as an LCD / oLED, but comics / magazines are generally colour.

    Or going away from e-books, mobile phone screens - you'd miss out on video, but much longer battery life and the ability to read text messages on the beach.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      defeats

      the idea of an ebook.

      Ebook for books

      Tablet for colour

      Computer for work

    2. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

      I am absolutely gagging for this

      Color e-Ink photo frame: several months battery life and not backlit so doesn't glow all night...

  2. hitmouse

    Comics, magazines, reference works, guide books, maps, ...

    Plus it's easier to pick out thumbnails from your library when there are colour cues.

    1. karakalWitchOfTheWest
      FAIL

      Just give me folders already...

      I don't understand why it is not possible to include a simple folder navigation. I have too many books and PDFs on my Kindle for this stupid Collections idea and sorting the books and stuff with the Kindle (I have a Kindle DX) is a pain in the ass...

  3. DoesAnyoneSpeakSense?

    COMICS!!!

    This is the news I've been waiting for. Not a fan of reading on my Tablet (due to battery life), so a colour e-ink Kindle would be ideal.

  4. joeW

    Battery life?

    Would adding a colour screen and a multi-touch overlay affect the Kindle's battery life at all? That's the main reason I don't mind having no touch and a B&W screen.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Battery life?

      multi touch may do but the colour shouldn't

    2. Chris Parsons

      Re: Battery life?

      One has to ask what sort of knob-end would choose to downvote your post.

  5. jai

    awesome

    I've no need for a Fire, but a colour Kindle would be perfect. Can't wait!!

  6. Cave Dweller

    Imagine...

    A 60Hz flawless refreshing, 24", vibrant colour e-ink display for PCs. Play videogames on a book!

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Imagine...

      I'm afraid you will be imagining that for some time to come.

  7. AndrewH
    Thumb Up

    Colour!

    "Of course, it'll hard for e-ink to match the colour reproduction of LCD or OLED panels"

    Why should it? If it can do a reasonable job of matching the colour reproduction of your average book or comic, that should be more than enough.

    Although initially skeptical of the whole "ebook reader" thing, having used a Kindle for a few months now (Kindle 4, then Kindle Touch), I'm definitely a convert. It's not a tablet PC, but I don't need it to be - it does an excellent job of allowing me to read the books I want to read without weighting any more than the lightest of paperbacks.

    I'd definitely get a colour e-ink reader as long as weight and battery life were broadly comparable with what I've got now.

    1. DrXym

      Re: Colour!

      Colour e-ink won't match the reproduction of a book or comic either. A few devices have come out which use the tech already and the effect is extremely muted, almost like tinting a black and white picture.

  8. Steve Crook

    Picture Frame?

    I wouldn't mind one around a2/a3 size to use as a picture frame. I know I could use an LCD panel, but they're heavy, and consume too much power for that size of display. Obviously I'd need the resolution to go with it, but something around the average pixel density from an inkjet printer would be sufficient.

  9. Spiracle
    Thumb Up

    Graphic novels

    After all they're just movies with a very low frame-rate. And subtitles.

    Pity they're not going Mirasol though.

    1. Steve Crook
      Coat

      Re: Graphic novels

      I know, just like radio is only TV without pictures...

      1. Mark 78

        Re: Graphic novels

        I always though the quote was that Radio was just TV with better pictures.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    At Last!

    I've been waiting for the day when a colour kindle was available.

    Now I can stop wasting my £5.99 on magazines and spend £200+ to read them.

    This is progress!

  11. DrXym

    Colour e-ink is crap

    Colour e-ink (Triton) is regular e-ink sitting behind a transparent layer of rgb filters which are either on or off. The gray scale e-ink plus the filters plus dithering give a muted, palette of 4096 colours. It looks horrible, like a colour picture printed on recycled cardboard.

    I hope Amazon choose some other tech such as Mirasol. Mirasol has far better colour reproduction and is faster than e-ink too.

    1. Euchrid

      Re: Colour e-ink is crap

      “I hope Amazon choose some other tech such as Mirasol. Mirasol has far better colour reproduction and is faster than e-ink too.”

      Still something of a work in progress, though. The date for the first gadget kept slipping and Qualcomm kept having to show essentially the same tech demo (for about 1.5-2 years, IIRC). When the Kyobo Mirasol reader launched a few months back, most of the more in-depth write-ups suggested that it was bit of a dog’s dinner along the lines of ‘good idea, which shows promise but needs a lot of work’.

      That said, the Kyobo launch was obviously a soft launch in South Korea and US availability has been recently announced. Qualcomm is also massively investing in facilities for Mirasol mass production, which hopefully bodes well…

      1. DrXym

        Re: Colour e-ink is crap

        Biggest issue mirasol has is matching the price of e-ink. I think when you put them side by side it's self evident that mirasol is the better tech. It has better colour reproduction and a refresh rate of about 10fps - not quite enough for video but still enough to have a responsive screen for reading and maybe some browsing or email.

        The Kyobo device does look a bit chunky and expensive though.

  12. Lamont Cranston

    Comic,

    sorry, Graphic Novels, and kids' books, I guess. I like the idea, but I think that the current crop of e-readers are too small for reading such things, anyway.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Comic,

      and newspapers and magazines and textbooks and an assortment of other document types...

  13. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    PDFs..

    The Kindle is fantastic, but limited for viewing PDFs. The greyscale rendering is suboptimal on many PDFs and below the quality of print for books like The Book Thief

  14. Andy Farley
    Thumb Up

    As long as...

    They come in under £100 they will fly off the shelves. What I really want is the ability to leave it on the train/beach/roof of the car and not have to commit sepuka.

    Of course if it was waterproof too I'd go and get one even though I have a Kindle.

  15. Andy E
    Stop

    Needs a bigger screen

    I have a Kindle and it is excellent for reading novels. It is the right size and the screen is the right technology. For reading comics or graphic novels you would need a bigger screen. I know as I have tried to read a graphic novel on the Kindle and it does not work.

    It will be interesting to see what the target market will be for a colour book reader.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does that mean Amazon will have to change it's complete Kindle library, or do you think that they already have colour versions ready for when colour e-ink readers become available?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      you know all those "I won't buy an eBook from Amazon, because I don't like the fact they might go bust" people ... well here's the upside to Amazons strategy ... *if* Amazon wanted, they could roll out the colour versions of the eBooks people have bought from them, fairly easily.

      Whether they do is another matter.

      Whereas those who bought other eReaders, to "own" the books, are slightly stuffed.

    2. Brendan Sullivan
      Thumb Up

      Amazon already has colour versions of at least some of it's catalogue since cover images and magazine content is provided in colour on tablet Kindle apps.

    3. Fuzz

      already in colour

      kindle books are already in colour, if you read them on a tablet or PC you get colour images

    4. Jolyon Smith
      Facepalm

      Kindle _content_ is already colour

      For the most part at least.

      You only have to install the Kindle Reader app on your full colour device (smartphone, tablet or desktop computer) to appreciate in full colour what the Kindle device delivers in gray-scale.

  17. ZeroSum
    Meh

    Just don't make it a USA only release

    Whatever about the content issues with the fire there was no excuse for the delayed launch of the touch outside the US.

  18. RobE

    The news we've been waiting for!

    Can.Not.Wait!

  19. RobE
    Go

    The news we've been waiting for!

    Can.Not.Wait!

  20. James 51

    If Sony add descent colour and overdrive support to their ereaders, what else would you really need?

  21. RonWheeler

    mirasol 10fps is enough for GPS / general tablet browsing stuff

    and I want it.

  22. Dropper

    Outside Reading

    Reading on things like the Kindle Fire or using a cell phone Kindle app at home works well and of course the screen is better, but outside these devices are crap. You spend your time looking for shade just to barely make out the text.

    I know that outside of Bournemouth, not many people back home in Blighty might choose to read a book on the beach, but I've heard that one or two do make the perilous cross-channel journey during the summer. So after you've finished eating (or shouting at the waiting staff in English in the vain hope they will understand the universal words "LAGER", "TOMATO SAUCE" or PROPER CHIPS) there is nothing better than sitting on the beach, squinting at a 4" screen.

    Naturally over here in the colonies, we prefer to squint at an 7" or 10" screen depending on your wallet size and whether you prefer your books in iTunes or Amazon Cloud format, having just spent an hour shouting at waiting staff who claim to speak English but don't understand the words "bottle", "water" and then bring you crisps instead of chips.

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