Colour Kindle in development, says Amazon
Launch a long way off, though
Amazon has designed a colour version of its Kindle e-book reader, but this week warned that customers shouldn’t hold their breath while they wait for a launch.
The online retailer’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, said that a colour version of the Kindle isn’t imminent.
“I known it’s multiple years [away],” he told news agency AFP. “I don’t know how many years but it’s years.”
He admitted that he’s seen colour e-ink displays in the lab, but he claimed they’re “not ready for prime time”.
Blacklit colour LCDs are widely available in Kindle-friendly sizes, but presumably Amazon doesn't believe any of them are sufficiently power-efficient or readable outdoors to offer instead of the e-ink screen the current Kindle uses.
Colour e-book reader screens have been talked about for some time. Fujitsu, for example, began selling its colour Flepia reader back in April. It’s being sold in Japan through... er... Amazon. ®
COMMENTS
How about...
instead of making a color one, make a CHEAPER one, $300 plus the priviledge of buying all my books again. Tell me again how this is supposed to be revolutionary?
An interesting halfway house...
...is the screen being demonstrated by Pixel Qi - makers of the OLPC screen. In full power mode it is a conventional backlit colour LCD; but flip a switch and it turns into monochrome energy frugal electronic paper.
A picture of one of their 10.1" displays in an Aspire One here: http://www.pixelqi.com/blog1/
