After the news that Polymer Vision’s Readius e-paper-based foldable cellphone was going into production, Vincent knew he had to stop by their stand at the Mobile World Congress and shoot some video of the 3G device in action.  After all, foldable e-paper has been a staple of concept devices for years; it was hard to believe that – even in this relatively basic, monochrome form – it would be hitting the shelves.  To recap, the Readius has a 5-inch screen capable of 16 levels of grey, 3.6Mbps HSDPA and 30hrs battery life; check out Vincent’s hands-on video after the cut.

Perhaps what surprised me most was how complete the Readius is; I half-expected it to be a dumb mobile display, hooked up to a cellphone by Bluetooth, or just displaying ebooks stored on a memory card.  But no, aside from the 3G HSDPA, there’s Bluetooth, a microSD slot capable of taking the latest 8GB cards, and eight touch-sensitive buttons for navigation and control.  These can be used to pick out individual menu options or sections of a webpage, or for scrolling by stroking up or down the button array.  As you can see in the video demo, the Readius can be flipped round and held in either hand, making it equally suitable for left- or right-handed users.

Of course, every first-generation device has its issues, and the Readius is no different.  The non-user-replaceable battery could be a pain later down the line, and the absence of an onboard earpiece and microphone means that if you want to actually use Polymer Vision’s device as a cellphone, you’ll need to hook up a wired or Bluetooth headset.  Video is also impossible, since the screen refresh isn’t fast enough; you can see the slight lag when their rep switches menu screens.

Am I still excited, though?  You better believe it: maybe I won’t be picking up this first Readius, but I’m looking forward to the colour, video capable version Polymer Vision’s chief exec Karl McGoldrick has predicted will arrive within the next five years.

Still no price details or set availability date for the Readius; earlier estimates put it as “comparable to a high-end mobile phone”.