Polymer Vision's dream of an all-in-one e-book reader and portable media device has reportedly faded.
The Readius in action: the flexible E-Ink screen folds out.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)The Netherlands-based maker of the Readius folded recently, according to a report in England's Hampshire Chronicle. The company was a spinoff of Philips and had offices in Southampton in the U.K. The local paper says 50 jobs at the Southampton location were lost when the company went bankrupt on July 7.
The Readius was a strange-looking, if ambitious device. Part portable media device, part e-reader, the Readius was innovative in that it used a flexible E-Ink display so it could be folded up to be made smaller. It initially caught the attention of gadget hounds at the Mobile World Congress in early 2008, and was supposed to launch in fall of 2008.
In that time, the e-reader landscape has since totally changed. While the Sony Reader has remained mostly stagnant, Amazon's Kindle has bested most initial cautious expectations for the original device. The larger model meant for textbooks, the Kindle DX, was also warmly received when introduced earlier this year. While these three models run between $300 and $500, the Readius and its flexible display was bound to be much more expensive to produce and would likely have been a tough sell to readers.
Updated at 2:45 p.m. PDT: Polymer Vision President Karl McGoldrick confirmed Monday that the company has gone into bankruptcy, but said he is not ditching the product. "We're working hard to find new investors to take over and re-start and get our technology and product into the market, where it should be," he said in an e-mail to CNET News.
(Credit:
Crave Asia)
Polymer Vision is a company spun off from Philips. Its claim to fame is the Readius, an e-book reader which is also a mobile phone. Though it has been around for more than a year, there's renewed interest in it because it will finally be shipping in 2008. We tracked down the company's booth at the GSMA Mobile World Congress to learn more about this device.
The primary purpose of the Readius is to act as an e-book reader. Even though the display resolution is pedestrian at 320x240 pixels, the fact that it can be rolled up allows it to be much larger than regular mobile phone displays. The 5-inch gray scale display uses power only when it is drawing an image, which means once your page is loaded, your battery won't be sapped as you are reading what's on the screen. We found the display to be very sharp and easy on the eyes, just like real paper with no uncomfortable glare that LCDs can sometimes give.
The main menu is divided into six rows on the screen, each one selectable using the touch-sensitive buttons found on the unit's body. The main categories are RSS feeds, e-books, messages and emails--all text-heavy items. The row of touch-sensitive buttons also acts as navigation control. Depending on whether you slide your finger upward or downward, you can move between pages. From what we observed, there is no smooth scrolling, so you can't read a page like you do on a computer text window where you can pull a navigation bar on the right. We also found that the pages take a while to refresh, which could explain why it's more efficient for whole pages to load at one time instead of allowing smooth scrolling.
As a mobile phone, the Readius may not be able to meet everyone's expectations. While it does have the latest connectivity features like HSDPA and Bluetooth, the form factor of this handset makes it a little hard to use. For example, you can't really have a decent voice conversation with the Readius without using a headset. You can synch your contacts into the device, but if you want to punch in numbers, you'll need to use a virtual keypad.
Another thing: What could potentially be a deal-breaker is that you can't conveniently reply to emails and text messages because there is no easy way to enter text. This could, we reckon, be solved by using a separate Bluetooth QWERTY thumbpad. But that's one more thing to carry, a proposition that won't go down well for many. A representative from Polymer Vision also told us the company is developing speech-to-text software for text input, but this was not available for a test run at MWC.
The Readius has a battery that is not user-replaceable. A microSD slot is onboard for memory expansion. As of now, Telecom Italia is the only operator that has a publicly announced deal to carry this handset later in the year. We understand that Polymer Vision is in talks with some companies in Asia. These are in countries with established 3G networks, although the representative could not be more specific as discussions are still ongoing.
As an e-book/newspaper/RSS reader, the Readius is an excellent proposition, thanks to its compact form factor and ability to sync with feed providers over the air using its cellular capabilities. As a mobile phone, we think it still needs a bit of work. The unit we saw was far from final, and Polymer Vision still has half a year to make changes before shipping. Hopefully, we will see a much improved version when it gets into the hands of consumers later this year.
(Source: Crave Asia)
(Credit:
Polymer Vision)
If we were editors for a thesaurus, "brag" would become a synonym for "concept." Companies tease consumers all the time with digital renderings of products that never see the light of day. This is why it came as quite a surprise that Polymer Vision, a spinoff from Dutch company Philips, has committed to selling its Readius mobile phone with a rollout display.
This mobile phone is not much bigger than your average candy-bar handset but still manages to include a 5-inch display that can be folded out to one side. The screen is a monochrome one (black and white), but its size makes it great for reading e-books and other text documents.
An earlier press release on the Polymer Vision site said the device should have shipped by the end of 2007, but news reports say it's now expected to launch this year. For now, check out some images of this not-just-a-concept-anymore handset.
(Source: Crave Asia)
Telecom Italia and Philips Electronics spinoff Polymer Vision have announced plans to develop what they say is the first mobile device with a rollable display. Yes, the gadget clearly rolls, but we'll have to wait 'til launch later this year to see if it rocks.
(Credit:
Polymer Vision)
While smaller than a typical mobile phone, the new device, dubbed the Cellular-book, has a display that extends up to 5 inches and can be folded and stored away when not in use. It features 16 gray levels combined with a high-contrast and high-reflectivity display to enable comfortable paperlike reading of newspapers and books, even in bright sunlight. Early models will start at 4GB. Future additions, Polymer Vision says, will include the ability to view color and moving images.
The product, which also downloads and plays music, audio books and podcasts, will make its official debut at the 3GSM World Congress, which kicks off February 12 in Barcelona.
The Cellular-book follows Polymer Vision's Readius, a prototype of a functional electronic-document reader shown off at the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) 2005 consumer electronics show. E-paper has gained increasing attention for its flexibility, light weight and low power consumption.
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