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M29 2. 8″ Touchscreen LCD MP3/MP4/MP5 player. Plays AVI/DivX/RMVB/RM without converstion. Plays all audio files.

I found this display at one of my usual electronics dealers – the one who specialized in selling industry surplus stuff. This display is available for 6,95 EUR, while neither the touch panel nor th. . .

Executive Summary This white paper discusses the evolution of portable consumer electronics from the Electronic Organizer to Apple’s iPhone. Introduction In 1997, the Motorola Startac and PalmPilot were state of the art consumer electronics for the mobile professional. They were superb tools for staying in touch with customers, managing your calendar, and organizing contacts. Portable consumer electronics have improved tremendously over the years. This document describes the various developments in the field of touchscreen enabled consumer electronics. Many Portable Information Managers or Electronic Organizers were developed in the 1980s, but did not achieve mass market acceptance. Problematic user interfaces were the main issue. Apple CEO John Sculley introduced the Newton “Personal Digital Assistant” at CES in 1992, but its high price, somewhat large size, and troublesome handwriting recognition limited sales. Finally, in 1996 US Robotics released the first PalmPilot PDA. It combined a touchscreen, handwriting recognition, and intuitive user interface in a small form factor with excellent battery life. This first successful implementation of a PDA demonstrated the true utility of touchscreens in portable consumer electronics. Resistive touchscreens used on the PalmPilot still had their issues. The screen would sometimes lose alignment and not recognize touch positions correctly, requiring a recalibration. Display brightness was dimmed by the touchscreen transparency. Also, the screen could suffer failures over time due to mechanical flexing of the top layer. Some companies approached the user interface problem from other angles, and succeeded. Research In Motion released their BlackBerry 850 in 1998. It was a unique combination of wireless connected email with built-in PDA functionality. The keyboard was small, but very ergonomic and ideal for quickly typing email. The operating system and applications were well designed, with excellent integration and usability. In fact, RIMs email application was licensed for by Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Siemens, HTC, and QTeck for their own cell phone designs. RIM went on to enter the handset market with a portfolio of increasingly sophisticated smart phones, and eventually claim the #1 market share. Further evolution in semiconductors, LCDs, batteries, and material technology brought remarkable products to the market. Motorola’s 2004 Razr is a prime example. The impossibly slim, stylish design was an instant success, selling over 50 million units in just two years, and is still popular. Still, the Razr was a poor substitute for calendar or address book applications. Anyone trying to type a significant amount of text with a phone keypad has experienced this issue. Again, user interface was the limiting factor for portable device functionality. Meanwhile, cell phone manufacturers were still testing the market with various user interfaces. Palm continued to incorporate resistive touchscreens with their Tungsten, Zire, and Treo models. The Sony Ericsson P800 (2002), Motorola A780 (2003), BENQ P30 (2004), and AT&T 8525 (2006) also tried resistive touchscreens. Swedish manufacturer Neonode launched the N1 phone in 2004 with an IR optical touchscreen. Each phone had its high points, but neither significantly changed the industry. In late 2006, LG released their first touchscreen phone, the Prada. Originally available in tri-band GSM for the European market, the Prada had a unique industrial design enabled by capacitive touchscreen technology. Known as “Projected Capacitive”, this type of touchscreen uses indium-tin-oxide (ITO) transparent metallic sensing elements deposited on a glass or film substrate. The result is a very rigid, scratch resistant, highly transparent touchscreen with excellent accuracy and no need for calibration. In addition, projected capacitive technology also enables multi-touch, an important feature for portable electronics user interfaces. Consumer demand for this new “look and feel” was clear, with LG selling over 800,000 Prada phones in 2007. In June 2007, Apple entered the smart phone market with their much anticipated iPhone. The instantly recognizable sleek and minimalist industrial design was realized with capacitive touchscreen technology. Apple showcased the true possibilities for touchscreen enabled consumer electronics with their highly integrated suite of applications. The entire front surface of the device became a reconfigurable, context sensitive, multi-touch user interface.