Fujitsu launches colour ebook reader

Fujitsu is selling the first ever ebook reader to use a colour screen. The 385g device, called a Flepia, has an 8in screen capable of showing up to 260,000 colours at 768x1,014 resolution.

The company actually announced the technology three years ago and the specs have a slightly dated look. It uses a Japanese version of Windows CE 5.0, which was superseded in 2006, and a XScale processor – Intel’s implementation of the ARM architecture, which was sold to the Marvell Technology group in 2006.

But with a screen redraw time of between 1.8 seconds and 5 seconds, depending on the number of colours displayed, this device does not need the speed of the latest processors.

The screen is touch-sensitive and additional control derives from six buttons. As with all ebook readers, the screen only draws power when changing state, with the result that the battery life is a claimed 40 hours.

The Flepia also packs 11g Wifi, Bluetooth and an SD card slot capable of reading up to 4GB.

It will be sold on the company’s online store, Frontechdirect, from 20 April for around $1,000. See here for a video of the device.

Rival ebook screens all use Eink display layer, which is currently available only in black and white. But they tend to be rather quicker on the redraw.