Print
There’s good news and bad news for eBook fans. First up: new eBook readers using Marvell’s ARMADA 166E chip could see triple the frame rate of first generation devices. The bad news: the faster frame rate of 3 fps won’t exactly have you playing Doom just yet but low frame rate animation will possible.
An eInk screen playing a 3 fps animation, using Marvell's new Armada chip
Marvell doesn’t mind though. The company’s new chip isn’t meant to just increase performance, it’ll also offer a cost reduction and power reduction by shrinking what is now a multi-chip board controller board down to a single chip. Marvell showed off several OEM designs including Spring Design’s upcoming dual-screen Alex.
Based on Android, Alex features a color lower touch screen with a 6-inch electronic paper display. Using its built-in 3G modem or Wi-Fi, the Alex will let you visit a web site, select a story, and the device will reflow it to the EPD screen. The color screen can then be switched off to save power. This makes browsing blogs and news sites much more feasible, since you don't have to wait for the ebook to render individual pages before you get to your target content.
Comments are closed on this article
viaromania
November 29, 2011 at 7:56am
Wow! This is amazing and I see the post is from 2009. What happened with this product? I didn't see anything similar on sale so far...
Bogdan
September 05, 2011 at 1:32am
This look awsome. I will search it on the shops to test it. Maybe I will buy one.
Best regards,
jrocknyc
November 03, 2009 at 5:53pm
why aren't they making a device that opens like a book, but with a 4x6 e-ink page on the left and a 4x6 color page on the right?! is this not a painfully obvious way to do a "book", with it opening like one? DAMN.
Caboose
November 03, 2009 at 11:29am
I would be quite excited to see the PADD come to life. However, for it to become practical and useful during all times of the day regardless of where you are, a world wide wireless network would have to be implimented, and I don't see that happening any time soon...
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
