If you think e-ink displays are no good, check out this new case for iPhone 5, Pop Slate

By | December 4th, 2012



E-Ink displays are criticised around the world. People suggest that they don’t have a place in this ever advancing field of technology and they are too ‘Simple’ to stand out in the crowd. But quite frankly, i believe they are superb; if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be getting out a months battery life out of almost all e-book readers. Another thing that matters is how you use a technology, you could be creative or you could be useful, but we hardly see these two things combined together. Well, if you own an iPhone 5, check out popSlate iPhone 5 case; it will add a secondary 4” e-ink display to your phone while protecting it like a regular case.

popSLATE

The e-ink screen in the popSlate used the next generation screens that are the core of modern e-readers. Like most, the screen uses un noticeable amount of battery while it’s turned on. Now, you must be thinking; where does it gets the juice from, well, it connects to the lightning port of iphone 5 and covers it like a cocoon. Once connected, you wont be able to use the lightning port, but, popSlate has provided a microUSB connectivity port which you could use to charge your iPhone. Don’t think of it has a decoration piece though, it can do a lot of stuff. In order to get it running, all you have to do is tap tice on the back and you can personalise the second display with wallpapers, that is the most basic option or customization you could do. From there, the uses are limitless; you could get notifications, read books, view pictures get Maps and countless things.

The popSlate could turn out to be pretty useful, consider the following example. You get a new message on your iPhone, the phone chimes and stays on for a few seconds and disappears, typically to save the battery, but the popSlate stays up until the user ask it otherwise because it hardly uses any battery. The case will be particularly useful for reading purposes. On iPhone, you have to continuously touch the screen to keep the light on, but if you want to keep glancing at instructions without having to touch the screen then this is perfect.

It is creative ideas like these which keeps me tied to the screen all day long. The project is yet to start off and they are expecting to reach a support of $150,000 before they could start selling it – they will get there soon though, as the company has already managed to achieve 70,000 dollars in three days. The case will come in two colors, black and white. Initially the case will sell for $79, for first 500 supporters and then on it will sell for $99 a piece.