I'm sure many of you have seen or heard about Esquire's super-cool "revolutionary" cover for their 75th anniversary issue. If you haven't, they have partnered with E-Ink to develop the world's first electronic ink magazine cover. Limited to 100,000 newstand/bookstore copies, it shows how print might look in just a few years.
As soon as I saw the cover displayed on the Today Show, I absolutely had to own a copy. I found out that they had hit newstands and went out as soon as I could and found a plethora on the shelves at my local Barnes & Noble. They lady at the checkout said that they only got a few the day before and they sold out quickly.
So I took my new prize home and examined it more closely. It is definitely not paper thin yet, but it is close: maybe more like a couple of cardstock weight sheets slapped together. The batteries and guts of the "power supply" are wrapped up. I'm considering buying a second copy to open up all the way to examine it more closely.
As for the display itself. It's not bright like and LCD, it really does have a more "paper" look to it. The letters have good contrast, even in low lighting conditions. I didn't notice any angle that prevented you from seeing the e-ink on the page. While the blinking is nothing fancy, I still am fascinated by the cover. Everytime I walk by it sitting on my coffee table, I stop to check it out.
I for one, am excited about "e-ink" and I'm looking forward to the amazing things that will follow today's leap forward. Check out more of my Esquire cover pics on Flickr.
If you'd like to see a 6.5MB Quicktime movie I made of the cover in action (just in case you don't buy the slick one done by Esquire...), click below.
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