E Ink says that although Samsung was a client, its decision to withdraw from the EPD business will not effect the company significantly - Samsung was a small client, apparently.
Samsung 10.1-inch color e-paper prototypeLG Display plans to begin mass production of color 9.7" e-paper panels, and 19" flexible monochrome ones (most likely both are based on E Ink). We don't know LG's plan for the displays, but we can assume they're targeting e-readers, and perhaps newspaper-sized ones, too (for the 19" flexible panels).
LG has unveiled their 19" flexible E Ink panels back in January (shown above). The panels are only 0.3mm thick, and weight just 130 grams. It uses metal foil, and so it can recover its original shape after being bent.
Samsung Electronics announced today that it has stopped production of e-paper displays. Last year Samsung have unveiled a 10.1" color prototype, but now we'll never see that mature into a real e-reader products....
Qualcomm plans to invest $2 billion in a 4.5 Gen Mirasol production plant. Volume production will being in 2012. The mainly aim to produce 5.7" color panels. There are reports that samples have been shipped to customers already, and at least one 'major client' has started the design-in process.
Mirasol displays claim a 6X power advantage of E Ink, offer a fast response time (enough for Video!) and color.
Geek.com has posted an interesting comparison: comparing the iPad's IPS-LCD (or Super-LCD) to the Kindle's E Ink up close. There are two photos. One at 26x magnification, in which you can already see the 'dots' in the LCD (the right image):
The second image is at 400x magnification:
As you can see, the E Ink display is way better up close - it's not just a series of dots. So obviously the LCD has a lot of advantages (color, fast response time, bright), but for reading, nothing beats an EPD...
E Ink says that Hanvon has adopted their color EPD, and will launch the first e-readers that use it in 4Q 2010. The display will use E Ink's latest Pearl EPD with a color filter. E Ink expects color e-readers to account for 10% of the global e-reader market in 2011.
Color E Ink prototype
E Ink has also posted their 2Q financial reports - revenues were $162 million, and their gross margin was 39.6%.
Engadget has posted a short review of the Kindle DX Graphite. They say that this is a good evolutionary step for the Kindle DX, and the new display has a great contrast ratio, and a better refresh rate when compared to the previous version.
The Graphite Kindle DX is now shipping for $379.
A while back we reviewed the Phosphor E Ink watch, and today we posted a review of a watch that uses an OLED display. It was interesting to compare the two displays outside. Not surprisingly, the OLED is almost useless outside, but the E Ink looks great in direct sunlight:
