Convergence Gone Wild

Take a standard candy bar cell phone, not too big, not too small. Add a fold-out display and voila – an e-book reader!

The Readius was just announced by Polymer Vision, a long time leader in rollable displays. While the Readius is an interesting product, I want that display married to a more fully featured MID or UMPC. Then I’d get more interested.

Key Features:

• Weight: One third the average weight of e-readers (115g)
• Display size: Twice the surface area of current largest phone display (5” diagonal, 16 greyscales)
• Device size: Equal to an average mobile phone when closed (115 x 57 x 21mm)
• Battery life (reading): Up to six times longer than on mobile phones (30 hours continues reading)
• Connectivity: Greatest coverage of any e-reader (Tri Band/3G HSDPA)
  Supporting ActiveSync and USB mass storage (USB 2.0) 
  Communication with accessories and other devices (Bluetooth 2.0)                        
• Processor: Powerful processing engine (ARM11 400MHz)                             
• Storage: Flexible, today commercially available up to 8GB (High Capacity Micro SD)
• User Interface: Just 8 buttons (SimpleTouch Buttons)
• Operating System: Microsoft WinCE

One side effect of the 8 button interface is that you can only dial users in your address book.

via jkOnTheRun