LG, that South Korean conglomerate that has mostly spent the last few years fading into Samsung’s shadow, has just announced that it has begun mass production of the world’s first flexible, plastic e-ink display. This is opposed to the hard, heavy, prone-to-cracking glass-laminate e-ink displays found in devices such as the Kindle and Nook.

The new plastic display has a resolution of 1024×768 and is six inches across the diagonal, which is comparable to the Kindle and Nook. Because it’s made of plastic and not glass, though, the LG display is half the weight (14g) and 30% thinner (0.7mm) than a comparable, glass e-ink panel. Existing e-book readers need to be thick (and heavy) to protect the glass display, but LG is promising that its display is a lot more rugged. The press release says that the plastic display survives repeated 1.5-meter drop tests and break/scratch tests with a small hammer, and that it’s flexible up to 40 degrees from the mid point.

Technology-wise, it’s not very clear how LG’s e-paper actually works. The press release suggests that LG is using a conventional TFT process, which hints that they’ve cracked Electronics on Plastic by Laser Release (EPLaR). EPLaR is basically a technique of embedding electrophoretic ink capsules in a plastic substrate, but using existing manufacturing processes, rather than building a whole new factory (unlike E Ink, which makes displays for the Kindle and other e-book readers). The press release constantly refers to EPD as an “E-Paper Display,” but that acronym is usually reserved for ElectroPhoretic Display.

In short, though, LG is promising plastic e-ink displays that are thinner and more power efficient, and because anyone with a TFT process can make displays in this way (Samsung, Sharp), they will also be cheaper. Everyone wins! (Well, except E Ink).

Now, suffice it to say, flexible e-ink displays have some rather exciting applications. Unlike flexible OLED displays, which have been around for a while, e-ink displays are cheap to produce and can run for months on a small battery. I’ll be the first to admit that I adore my Kindle, but I’d love a device that’s slightly less rigid. With plastic e-ink displays, you could actually create an e-book reader that’s the size, shape, and flexibility of a book; it could even be made predominantly of paper! Let’s not forget that batteries are getting thinner and more flexible, too, and even transparent in some cases.

In January last year, the head of LG R&D said that it had produced a plastic, e-ink 19-inch color display — the same size as a tabloid newspaper. The amount of energy (and money) that we would save if we used e-paper instead of paper would be astronomical. And then there’s product packaging, credit cards, and so on. Our sister site Geek.com has a feature on the future of e-ink that’s well worth reading. Just thinking out loud, I wonder if larger e-ink displays will be able to put a dent in the popularity of tablets like the iPad. It’s unlikely that e-ink will ever compete with LCDs when it comes to watching videos or playing games, but e-ink definitely has the edge on reading.

According to LG, the first plastic display-toting e-readers are expected to emerge in Europe “at the beginning of next month,” with the US presumably following swiftly after.

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