Qualcomm and Kyobo Book Centre, Korea’s largest seller of books, has started selling the first e-reader that uses Mirasol display technology.
Mirasol uses ambient light instead of back lighting. This has a two-fold benefit: first it saves energy and thereby increases battery life, and second it is more visible in low light.
However, the bad news is that this device is only available in Korea and other markets including India will have to wait for atleast three months.
The e-reader will offer weeks of battery life thanks to the new technology. It features a 5.7 inch XGA format (1024 x 768 pixels) display (with screen Resolution of 223 ppi) and Qualcomm’s 1.0 GHz Snapdragon S2 class processor. Kyobo’s custom application interface sits atop an Android 2.3 base.
The tablet will also offer diverse content spanning books, magazines and video. It will have access to Kyobo’s 90,000 e-books, video lectures, and the facility to share content through Korean social networking services. Besides, it comes with English language text-to-speech capabilities and can search content through the popular Diotek dictionary application.
In Indian Rupees, the price of the tablet stands at about Rs 16,300. The reason that Qualcomm chose not to launch it in other markets is because the dedicated manufacturing facility for this display is not yet ready and therefore the company might not be able to fulfill demand in the world market.
However, it is likely that Qualcomm will showcase several devices using this technology during the Consumer Electronics show to be held in early January in Las Vegas.