Alcatel’s new phone is designed to blur the lines between a phone, a tablet, and a piece of paper. The Alcatel One Touch Hero features  6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display and support for digital pen input — so it’s a lot like the Samsung Galaxy Note.
But one of the things that makes the One Touch Hero really stand out is an optional accessory: a cover with an E Ink display that lets you read eBooks, newspapers, or other content without draining the battery by using the LCD display.
That actually makes a lot of sense. The smartphone has a screen that’s just about as big as those found on most eReaders, but you might not want to spend a few hours reading books on your phone if it means the battery will drain and you’ll lose the ability to make or receive calls.
But the display is usually the most power-hungry component on a phone, while E Ink screens are low-power displays that only draw power when the screen is refreshed. So you can probably get hours, or even days of battery life while using this type of accessory.
The phone’s hefty 3400mAh probably won’t hurt either.
Alcatel will also offer an optional MagicFlip cover which provides LED notifications even when the screen is covered. And if you don’t feel like pulling a 6 inch phone out of your pocket or bag every time you get a text message, a Bluetooth accessory will let you receive SMS, view calendar entries, and even make calls without touching the actual phone.
Other features for the Alcatel One Touch Hero include a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB to 16GB of storage, and a 13MP camera. There’s also a microSD card slot.
Engadget reports the phone should be available in October.
Update: Engadget has posted a photos and a video of the E Ink cover in action.
I hope that the price on this will be acceptable and not too high!
Its about time to add e-ink to mobile devices other than e-book readers!
About time! Go Alcatel!
I just hope that it has a wacom like digitizer. Not just a capacitive stylus.
The stylus in the photo doesn’t look capacitive… fingers crossed.
Would be a good idea for battery savings.
That is actually a pretty darned good idea, now to see what software support is like
Not only clever, but seemingly well thought out and useful!
The e-ink display add-on is a good idea, I already expected something like
this (a prototype e-ink backcover for iPhone was already created), I
hope for other ones for the existing phones and tablets (as the
available 4 point pogo plug version is for recharging only maybe using
the microUSB?)
Sounds interesting…