E-book readers can soon all read in colour

• E-book readers to get colour screens
• But will it be enough to take on iPad

E-BOOK readers are about to get a new lease on life with the introduction of colour displays, but will it be enough to take on the iPad?

The Kindle, the Kobo, the Nook — they're the relatively cheap tablets designed for reading digital versions of books, newspapers and magazines.
Their biggest selling point, and biggest drawback, comes down to the display.
The pro is that they're easier on the eyes than a computer screen, thanks to a technology called E Ink.
The con is that E Ink only came in black-and-white — until now.
E Ink Corp this week announced a new version of its e-paper displays called Triton that can show thousands of colours.
The technology has already been adopted by Chinese manufacturer Hanvon, which intends to release the first colour e-reader next March.
But will a splash of colour bring e-readers onto a level playing field with the iPad? Unlike e-readers, media tablets can do much more than just read books.

"Reading books is the main feature of e-readers like Kindle but books are just an add-on to media tablets like iPad. It’s not the primary use for them," says Gartner analyst Amy Teng.
"An e-reader is more a single purpose device which is attractive to genuine book readers, people who are avid readers.
"Media tablets are a general purpose device that can fulfil most requirements of multimedia consumption, including e-book readings."
It's because of the wider applications of media tablets that Gartner predicts their sales will skyrocket above those of e-readers in the next four years, as shown in the graph above.
"The potential market of (media tablets) is bigger so shipments are expected to be higher too," said Ms Teng.
And even with colour displays, e-readers still have other hurdles to overcome.
"Slow refresh-rate is another big drawback that E Ink has to overcome. This stops them from implementing human interactive features, that is, the touch screen," said Ms Teng.
"People can’t stand it if they have to wait half a second for a finger touch to respond, they expect their touches on screen will react without a delay.
"If this doesn’t improve, it impacts the ability for E Ink to be used for internet surfing, note-taking (and) page-browsing."

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/tablets/colour-e-ink-breathes-new-life-into-e-book-readers/story-fn6vigfp-1225951815746#ixzz15LJL2QVo

Source: news.com.au