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Plastic Logic shipping tomorrow…or not?
June 23, 2010 | 7:31 pm
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By Chris Meadows
Nate the Great at The Digital Reader reminds us that tomorrow is the ostensible ship date for the Plastic Logic Que. At one time the Great White Hope for saving the newspaper industry and/or bringing e-ink readers to business uses, it seems to have fallen out of the limelight in the wake of the launch of the iPad.
Nate wonders whether the device will actually ship at all, and after a quick scan of Google News results mentioning “Plastic Logic” I have to agree. I don’t see anything suggesting that the device actually is shipping soon. You would think that if it were, they would want people to know about it. And when I go to the Que website, both models of Que are listed as “currently unavailable.”
Not that it would likely sell very well anyway. E-ink pricing is in a race to the bottom. Que’s $799 3G, $649 wifi-only price might have been competitive when the Kindle was still $300 and up, but compared to the $189 Kindle and the $499-to-$829 iPad, it only looks ridiculous now.
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Comments:
The last I heard, about a couple of months ago, they were having problems with the software, slow. Didn’t sound promising at the time. The pricing decided on before that was also rather high, considering, something like $600+ w/o 3G and $800+ with.
I think that this is why “planned obsolescence” is such a everlasting myth. This company represents the risk involved in delaying release of a product. It tried to plan the perfect device and was bitten by the market for all its effort. They had a niche in advance of the Ipad. I just don’t see a place on the market for this white elephant. If I were in their boardroom I wouldn’t necessarily scratch the concept, but would look to use Mirasol technology in the next iteration.
“If I were in their boardroom I wouldn’t necessarily scratch the concept, but would look to use Mirasol technology in the next iteration.”
They are probably up to something in this direction and had a press release out in april about teaming up with German Merck KGaA (“EMD” in the US, not to be confused with “Merck & Co.Inc.”, check wikipedia for this). German Merck KGaA apparently is worldmarket leader in producing liquid cristalls for use in LCDs.:
http://www.plasticlogic.com/news/pr_merck_apr132010.php
It seems to me that we’ve been on the verge of the perfect Plastic Logic device for about four years now. I’ve certainly taken them off my radar scope. If/when they ship, we’ll have to see if they have any relevance at all.
When electronic paper was introduced, it was hailed as the economical solution. What happened to that idea, by the way?
Rob Preece
Publisher
Indeed,
I checked the news again today and no mention of anything. It’s a shame because despite the ridiculous price, would have loved to played around with it a bit.
Oh well, I guess the Que and the Skiff can be beer buddies together in eReader heaven : )
-Ben