Mary Lou Jepson has posted on Pixel Qi’s blog about a number of new developments coming soon—most notably, the development of a new 7” Pixel Qi screen for tablets and e-readers.
In addition to posting some user comments about how easy to use the 10” Pixel Qi DIY netbook conversion kits are, Jepson reports that Pixel Qi has “now fully completed [its] first tranche of series B finance,” and says that 7” screens are being planned for mass production sometime in the first half of 2011 (but samples may be available as soon as Q4 2010).
In a postscript comment below the post, she adds that they aren’t really working on 7” DIY kits—they sell the kits through Make as a service to the community since they know it can take a while for devices with the screens to come into production. “Indeed in order to get the fab time for our designs with the big LCD manufacturers we need to demonstrate real and credible demand for millions of 7″ units in 2011 as we have done.”
Finally, Jepson notes that the iPad, in using up much factory capacity, served to delay most tablet makers from coming to market as soon as they might have hoped. However, the crunch has eased and more manufacturers will soon be able to bring their devices to market. She points to early partners Innoversal and Notion Ink (and promises more partner announcements to come through the blog), while plugging the power savings and all-light readability of Pixel Qi screens.
I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a device using the Pixel Qi screen. It sounds like it really will offer the “best of both worlds” and I’m looking forward to seeing just how it does it. Of course, there’s no telling when that will be.
