Yesterday we had the pleasure to welcome, Thomas van der Zijden, Marketing and Sales responsible for Polymer Vision, over at our office, for a demonstration of the Readius. Polymer Vision and iRex are virtually neighbours; both companies are located on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. So we used this opportunity to have a closer look at the device and to fire off some questions at Thomas.

The first thing I noticed about the Readius is that it is smaller than I imagined from the pictures and video’s which I had seen so far. The Readius is about the size of an iPhone, and it gives an overall compact and light impression when holding it.

Clicking open the wrap to roll out the display works nicely, and it is quite impressive to see an electronic paper display roll out off this compact device. The display is about 5 inch, with a resolution of 320 x 240 and 85 dpi.

The reading quality is as good as you can expect from an electronic paper display, although the resolution is a bit lower compared to other electronic paper displays and there were also some slight bends in the display around the axis points where the display bends, but this could be due to the fact that this was just a production sample.

Navigation through the user interface and content is possible via the 5 capacitive buttons and two tactile buttons for options and back. There is no touch screen or on-screen keyboard, so adding a contact and writing an e-mail or text message is not (yet) possible.

The Readius runs on Windows CE and is currently supporting the PDF, HTML and TXT file formats. Polymer Vision is working with third party developers to add applications, and format support (DRM?).

Via a USB connection it possible to place your own documents onto the device, Additional content like newspapers, magazines, RSS feeds and ebooks will become available via network operators and content partners. Polymer Vision is also planning to make content available on the Readius.com portal.

In regard to connectivity, the Readius supports the latest technologies like UMTS and HDSPA, allowing the user to use the Readius as a phone and network operators to push content to the device. In order to make or receive a call you need to connect an earplug or Bluetooth headset to the Readius.

Battery life depends mainly on the usage pattern, so if you use the device mostly as a phone you can expect 30-50% longer battery life than your regular phone, and if used as a reading device you can expect a battery life similar to that of other e-Readers.

The Readius will be commercially available in Q3 this year and the price will be in the range of other high-end phones. On the question if this means we should expect a price in the range of €,.600 to 700,- , we receive an affirmative although not confirming response.

As with the iPhone, Polymer Vision strives to make deals with network operators like Telecom Italia, who will offer the phone in combination with a subscription and content service at a subsidized price. This will probably mean that the Readius will only be available in the countries were Polymer Vision has a partnership with a network operator, although Thomas did mentioned that the Readius will also be available for sale online.

Here at iRex we are definitely excited about the development of this highly mobile reading solution from Polymer Vision and wish them the best of luck with the market introduction of the Readius later this year.