Color E-ink Displays in Progress But It May be a Long Wait

Image courtesy of E Ink Corp.

The big roadblock for me personally buying a Kindle or any other dedicated ebook reader is the high price. However, there’s another factor that is always on my mind though I rarely mention it: The lack of color e-ink displays on these readers. This is not a problem for most fiction books. But, it is a problem for books that have color charts, diagrams, illustrations or photographs. I’ve been wondering about the current state of color e-ink display technology and was happy to see this article over on ars technica…

Color e-paper displays look to pigmented past

…which reviews the current state of the technology.

Image courtesy of E Ink Corp.

It prompted me to re-visit E Ink’s website (E Ink produced the technology behind the Kindle’s display)…

E-ink Corp. Press Ready Images

…and was surprised to see their color e-ink technology photos dating back to 2005. They’ve obviously been working on color e-ink technology for a long time. And, it is obviously a tough item to produce economically. Looking at the price of the current generation grayscale components means that color e-ink displays are probably prohibitively priced for consumer products. So, when the grayscale display prices comes down to the point where devices like the Kindle are available for under $200, we’ll probably see the first color e-ink consumer devices coming in at the $350 to $500 price point.

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