You may remember, last week, we ran a story about the Readius, with its super bendy foldy screen.
Well, news has come through today from Pocket Lint, about a new mobile phone with an e-paper screen. Released in Japan, the Hitachi W61H features the same e-paper and e-ink screens seen in the Readius and similar to the Motorola F3 (but better), but with a crucial difference… on the Hitachi, the “Silhouette Screen” as it’s called, is on the outside of the flip, and isn’t the main screen.
Yep, it’s a triumph of design over pointfulness, then! The e-ink screen will be able to display a background of your choice (you have 95 to choose from), letting you customise the look of your phone. And because it’s e-ink, it will have a negligible effect on battery life.
In other words, it won’t eat your battery, because it’s not actually doing anything.
I can’t help thinking it’s a bit… well… daft. I mean, sure it’s a nice gimmick. But does it actually do anything useful, except let the Japanese equivalent of chavs put some extra personalised blinginess on their mobile phone?
Besides which, it’s never going to be available in the UK, and it doesn’t actually sound all that good. At least the Motorola F3 had some point to it, and worked, and was actually, if you want a cheap and cheerful phone, UTTERLY PERFECT for its place in the grand scheme of things. I mean, I even managed to get my nan using one…
Like the Hitachi phone? Think it’s pointless? Glad the UK’s not getting it, or disappointed? Leave us a comment and have your say!