EReader is an electronic device meant for reading. EReaders are more or less some kind of computers, either full-fledged ones or highly specialized and developed for reading only. There's a wide variety out there and someone has counted that including this year's product announcements there would be at least 50 different kinds of eReaders to choose from.
Amazon Kindle DXEReaders can have paper-like screens called ePaper- or eInk-screens, or basic computer-like LCD screens or both. What is also important is the content. Most of the eReader manufacturers try to provide their customers with both paid and free content. Good example here is Amazon's Kindle eReader (picture above).
You can download to your Kindle classic books that have already lost their respective copyrights and are in the public domain. These ones you can read for free. You can also buy electronic books or eBooks from Amazon's service on the net as well as electronic newspapers and periodicals. For example, you can subcscribe to newspapers like Washington Post or New York Times and have them delivered wirelessly to your Kindle every morning. With Kindle you can also browse the web and read what you like in paper-like format and of course you can read your personal PDF files on Kindle. So, in a thin and light Kindle device you can carry your whole library and your personal files with you where ever you go. Fairly neat, wouldn't you say?
In Kindle there's an ePaper screen. It is not suitable for watching videos or any moving pictures and most ePaper screens are still black-and-white screens. So right there LCD screens have an upper hand. In plain reading, however, ePaper has the upper hand. It is easier on the eyes, it doesn't flicker and it doesn't have any background light to drain the batteries, and neither does it fade in the sunlight like LCD screen does.
How does ePaper work and how does it imitate real paper, then? There are several technologies, but let's examine one called eInk and let's simplify it for easier understanding. Like normal computer screens, these ePaper screens are divided into very tiny points or pixels that can produce a certain colour at a certain intensity. These very small points all put together constitute a picture that the whole screen presents to the viewer.
In eInk technology there are transparent microcapsules each of which represents a pixel. Each of these microcapsules contains positively charged white pigments as well as negatively charged black pigments. These pigments float in transparent oil and can via electric charge be caused to move to the front side of the screen and therefore become visible for the viewer or they can be forced to the back side. After the electric charge the picture is formed and stays as such until a new charge is applied. Therefore the created picture doesn't require any more electricity once formed.
As the ePaper picture forms, it brings forth the black particles where required and therefore it mimics normal paper very closely. The black particles, the electronic equivalent of real ink, really physically are positioned on the surface of the screen much as real ink is positioned on the surface of the real paper. The only differences are that the ePaper Ink can be newly positioned and that there is a thin foil between the "ink particles" and the ePaper outer surface. Otherwise the arrangement closely imitates the physical representation of normal paper and is therefore called ePaper.
Things develop very fast in this arena. Fujitsu has already announced it will start the consumer sales of its new eReader FLEPia (pictured above) which is equipped with a COLOUR ePaper screen! Here you can read more about FLEPia:
Fujitsu Begins On-Line Consumer Sales of World’s First Color E-Paper Mobile Terminal FLEPia
