Chinese e-reader maker Hanvon will sell the thinnest and lightest e-reader yet to utilize Qualcomm's energy-efficient mirasol displays, the Hanvon C18.
Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul Jacobs made the announcement during his Jan. 10 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keynote presentation. Besides the device's relative slimness, San Diego-based Qualcomm is touting the Hanvon C18 because it sees it as evidence of momentum for mirasol, a technology the company has been refining for several years. Hanvon is the third company in two months to incorporate mirasol displays into an e-reader device.
Other than its thinner, lighter profile -- it is 10 mm thin and 300 grams in weight -- the Hanvon C18's hardware closely mirrors that of the two previously announced mirasol e-readers, the Kyobo eReader from South Korea's Kyobo Book Centre and the Bambook Sunflower from China's Shanda Networking Co. The C18 too sports a 5.7-inch “XGA” format, touchscreen mirasol display and runs on a 1.0 GHz Snapdragon (S2, single-core) processor from Qualcomm. Its operating system, like that of Kyobo's eReader and Bambook's Sunflower, is a custom interface on top of a Google Android (version 2.3) core.
Hanvon and Qualcomm have not yet disclosed pricing for the C18 but say it will be available in mid-February.
Since the Hanvon C18 utilizes mirasol, it promises the same kinds of benefits the technology does, namely bright colors even in the sun, weeks-long battery life and a refresh rate fast enough to support video. Mirasol enables this by reflecting light between two conductive plates. The setup allows mirasol displays to be built without backlights, which Qualcomm says improves outdoor readability and conserves power.
Regarding content, Beijing-based Hanvon says the e-reader will come with access to tens of thousands of e-books, more than 100 newspapers and more than 300 magazines. One unique feature is that the C18 will also have a handwriting recognition feature known as Hanvon Input.
The Hanvon C18 news comes just six weeks after Kyobo's eReader was unveiled and one day after the Bambook Sunflower announcement. But while mirasol adoption is accelerating, the technology has yet to reach the U.S. or Europe. Like the Kyobo eReader and Bambook Sunflower, the Hanvon C18 is only designed for a specific Asian market.
Qualcomm, of course, would like e-reader makers in other regions to use mirasol, too. It doesn't look likely in the U.S. Amazon has so far declined to produce a color version of its Kindle besides its Kindle Fire tablet, which is much more than an e-reader. Barnes & Noble, meanwhile, employs a different technology for its Nook Color e-reader.
Qualcomm is still hopeful. “Mirasol could come to the U.S.; nothing would prevent it from doing so,” said Bill Davidson, Qualcomm's Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Investor Relations, in an interview with Forbes in December.
At the same time, Qualcomm acknowledges it can't yet produce mirasol displays in large quantities, a fact that limits the kind of partnerships it can enter. Qualcomm has been tinkering with the mirasol technology since 2004 but since it took years to catch on with gadget makers, the current mirasol foundry is not designed for high volumes. Qualcomm is building a dedicated mirasol display “fab” in Taiwan but it won't be ready until later this year.
Once its production issues are resolved, Qualcomm plans to bring mirasol to its core markets. Davidson said the technology can be applied to phone and tablet displays. Digital watches, billboards and car dashboards are also possible mirasol markets – "anywhere you have displays in the sun," Davidson pointed out.
