Mirasol

Kyobo (a leading Korean book retailer) launched its first e-reader today - and it uses a color Mirasol display - a capacitive touch 5.7" 1024x768 panel with Qualcomm's front-light LED technology that can illuminate the display. Other features include a 1Ghz processor, Android v2.3 and Wi-Fi. The e-reader is now shipping in Korea for around $300.

Qualcomm's CEO Jacobs promises that Mirasol displays will be in "full production" soon, and e-reader devices that use these displays will ship by the middle of 2012. The company is currently focusing on 5.7" displays for e-readers, but Mirasol displays will also be suitable for Tablets.

There's a very interesting post over at Engadget about Mirasol displays. The company is showing a concept 4.1" phone which looks nice, but these kind of displays are 3-4 years away. The company says that they were actually expecting several e-reader products with Mirasol displays, but Apple iPad changed all that and all the device makers scrapped their plans. They do expect at least one converged e-reader with a 5.7" Mirasol display by the end of the year.

Read more over at Engadget.

Here's a nice video from CES showing the new color E Ink display as used in the Hanvon reader, and also a color Mirasol display. It's nice to compare them:

Qualcomm's new Mirasol plant was rumored for a long time, and now it's official: Qualcomm will build a new Mirasol plant in Taiwan in a $1 billion investment. The new plant will make small and medium sized Mirasol displays.

via Engadget

There are reports that PocketBook will release an e-reader at CES 2011 (January) - the first one with a Mirasol display. This will be a color display featuring 12fps refresh rate. PocketBook says that this is a mistake, but the information was included in an official PR...

Two days ago we reported that Mirasol displays are delayed till early 2011. But that was not true: today we hear that Qualcomm is already producing panels and will start shipping them to OEMs this fall. But the release of devices that uses these displays is not expected before early 2011.

The 5.7" XGA displays will be used in devices that look more like a tablet than an e-reader. In the future they also plan to produce smaller displays for smartphones. They did not comment about the $2 billion Mirasol plant.