Polymer Vision to ship 100,000 units of Readius- a mobile phone with an electronic paper display to Telecom Italia

Polymer Vision Ltd of the Netherlands exhibited a mobile phone “Readius,” which is equipped with a foldable electronic-paper display, at Mobile World Congress 2008. Users can reduce the storage space of the handset by folding up the electronic-paper display. The display is extended when the handset is used, and folded when it is stored, for example, in a pocket. Designed around ease of use and mobility, Readius can last for 30 hours of continuous reading without battery (1,100mAh) charge. The 3G HSDPA tri-band phone allows worldwide calls and high speed instant updates from personally selected news sources, email and other services. Readius also features audio capabilities, including MP3, for podcasts, audio books and music.The first customer will be Telecom Italia, a telecommunications carrier in Italy, Polymer Vision said. The company plans to ship about 100,000 units by the end of 2008.

Standard POP3 and IMAP is supported for ISP e-mail and others such as Yahoo!Mail, Google Gmail and Microsoft Exchange. A manufacturer in Taiwan assembles the phone. Polymer Vision will release the phone in the middle of 2008.