Color E Ink Devices To Ship Q1 2011

Ereader display heavyweight E Ink reckon they'll have a color e-paper panel ready in time for devices to ship in the first quarter of 2011, according to their VP of marketing.  Speaking to PCMag this week, Sriram Peruvemba revealed that E Ink plan to show off newer color e-paper displays at SID in a few weeks time, and that the company is working on significantly improved refresh rates.

However, while the color E Ink displays will be showing up this time next year – with, Peruvemba claims, the sort of color you'd see in a newspaper rather than what we're used to from LCDs – the shorter refresh rates will take a little more work.  The prototypes are apparently already working in E Ink's labs, but will take up to three years to actually reach the market.

Still, the color E Ink panels apparently preserve the battery longevity of their monochrome counterparts.  They'll fact competition from Qualcomm's mirasol technology, however, which will begin to appear in devices this coming holiday season complete with touchscreens.

Qualcomm mirasol color display demo:

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[via E-Reader-info]