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LG’s New Flexible Electronic Newspaper Looks Great – But Do We Need It?

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January 21st, 2010 by Aaron Saenz
  Filed under Gadgets.
LG electronic e-paper prototype

LG Display is touting its newest innovation: a 19 inch prototype e-newspaper. Would you buy it?

I have mixed feelings about LG Display’s new prototype e-paper. The Korean company recently unveiled a 19-inch flexible screen that is only 0.3mm thick – close enough to standard newspaper. According to the press release, the e-paper takes advantage of “gap-in-panel” (GIP) technology to move integrated circuits into the screen itself, increasing it’s flexibility. No doubt about it, this news-e-paper prototype is meant to shock and awe us here in the blogosphere, and I am duly impressed. However, the press release is short on some important details: resolution, charge-time, run-time, cost, etc. In fact, LG Display is really hoping to hype its release of 11.5 inch e-papers (typically notebook size) due out the first half of this year. So I’m definitely in awe about this cool new LG device, but I’m not sure if it’s going to make a big impact on the future. Check out a close-up of the e-paper after the break.

Certainly e-books are taking off, and e-periodicals are likely to follow suit in the next few years. But e-media does not an e-newspaper make. Electronic readers have been thought of as hardware, like the Kindle from Amazon, but may be shifting towards software like Blio, Barnes and Noble reader, Microsoft reader or just .PDF files. Why buy a really cool LG e-paper when you already have a smart phone that can display all the media you want? Maybe the size is an issue, but Tablet computers are looking to make a big surge this year, are likely to be in the neighborhood of 11.5 inches, and you can bet they will have color, too. I’m just not convinced that e-paper is going to be the technology where consumers want to invest their money. As LG fills in that missing information (cost and run-time are especially important) I may change my mind. The more important development may be the GIP advancement to provide flexible durable TFT displays. LG Display may make a killing off of selling that to other developers. For now, I think that e-paper is an amazing technology that is going to fail. Awe mixed with pessimism – is there an emoticon for that?

LG Display's e-paper

The TFT and GIP technology allow for some impressive bending. Not sure if that distorts the image. I think that LG may have more success selling the screen than the e-newspaper concept.

[photo credits: LG Display]

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  • robot_makes_music
    If they were cheap enough, they'd make a great display for, say, Specials of the Day displays at restaurants or similar small business signage applications. You'd no longer have to pay for printing of temporary posters, you could just pay the graphic designer to make you a nicer looking one. Of course, with the black and white you'll have to be extra creative to look nice, but it's basically a return to ink-block printing or etching so we know it can be done well.

    Also, I'd love to have one of these in a picture frame for B&W photo prints or art I've made for it myself. LCD monitors are okay for display but they still look like monitors and consume power while they work. However, the resolution is likely too low for this to really look good for photos as opposed to graphic design aimed within its limitations.

    I agree with emmv about the wallpaper. That would be really fun, even in black and white. I imagine OCD people might use it to label the spots all their kitchen items reside in to help keep order.
  • davidrimshnick
    Spelled "flexible" wrong in the headline, although "flexibible" sounds like a catchy idea for when this thing gets into religious texts.
  • I like the wallpaper idea, but color is a must for that (and it's already available on small scales).

    But this form factor doesn't seem too appealing for portable use. I'd prefer a "paper" that folds from iphone to tablet and then to big screen size, like taking an A3 paper and folding it down into smaller formats (only reverse).

    Then you can turn your phone into an ebook reader, and if you want to disturb your metro-driving neighbors, into this big newspaper format.

    On a sidenote, it's funny to see that most of the trends from Microsoft's Vision 2019 video are already coming in 2010 or 2011. Samsung's see-through displays, this e-newspaper, remote gesture interfaces like in Project Natal.
  • emmv
    I agree that e-paper for screens and newspaper may fail. But consider the applications as the prices will drop (as they will inevitably): all your walls will be displays. The killer application for e-paper is wallpaper.
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