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LG flexible e-paper arriving in products, in Europe, next month

by Alistair Lowe on 29 March 2012, 12:14

Tags: LG Display

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Well here's one that seems to have slipped by us following its initial introduction back in 2010. From the start of next month, we'll be seeing products in Europe making full use of LG's latest flexible e-paper displays, as the firm successfully enters mass production.

The technology, termed EPD, Electronic Paper Display, utilises e-ink technology in combination with a plastic layer and, is capable of bending at an angle of up to 40 degrees from the centre of the screen, whilst, at the same time, being up to one third thinner and half the weight of competing glass displays, at a thickness of 0.7mm and a weight of 14g, in a six inch form-factor.

LG e-paper

Most impressively, the display will feature an XGA, 1,024 x 768 resolution, which works out at 213 pixels-per-inch, a marked improvement over e-readers such as Amazon's Kindle, which feature an 800 x 600 resolution and thus a density of 167 pixels-per-inch.

LG also noted that the screen comfortably passed drop tests of 1.5 metres and would tackle the issue of screen damage, which the firm claims to affect 10 per cent of all e-reader users.

As a final teaser, LG made sure to remind everyone to expect flexible OLED displays to follow in the not-so-distant future.



HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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All the claims for resolution, etc, are interesting, but for me, the acid test is actual readability in actual products. And from that photo, which may just be the fault of the photo, they look …. indistinct. Not blurry, exactly, but just lacking in clarity, and perhaps, lacking in contrast. I'd want to see real product before forming an opinion.

Flexibility etc. is clever and all, but what actually matters to me is real world products and how they're actually implemented. And for that, I guess we still have to wait a bit.
Saracen
All the claims for resolution, etc, are interesting, but for me, the acid test is actual readability in actual products. And from that photo, which may just be the fault of the photo, they look …. indistinct. Not blurry, exactly, but just lacking in clarity, and perhaps, lacking in contrast. I'd want to see real product before forming an opinion.

Flexibility etc. is clever and all, but what actually matters to me is real world products and how they're actually implemented. And for that, I guess we still have to wait a bit.

Ditto, I'm impressed that they managed to comfortably surpass the e-ink pearl PPI whilst on a less predictable, flexible layer, however I fully expect that something will be lost in exchange for the flexibility, at the very least you're more likely to get specular reflections off it when bent.

I'd quite like LG to provide an image of it not bent.
Great start to the technology's use in real world products, though, all reservations about clarity/visual quality aside for now. Is the future bendy? Maybe. In the short term, if a display with this technology can be made, it will certainly help with broken screens, but there are still all the other components in a portable device which will not bend with happy results. Perhaps this technology can be used in more imaginative ways in the future. I definitely welcome this news!
Surely the point of bendy screens is that they take up less space when rolled/folded ?

This one will bend only 40 degrees - that's not enough to roll it up or take up significantly less space when not in use. That photo is probably at the full extent of it's bend.

In short, come back when you have a rollable / foldable version ;)