[Idea] Foldable / Double screen ebook reader
Hey everyone - I'm studying IT / Programming and in about a year will have to work on my engineering project and similarly to all of you - I love using my ebook eink reader (kindle paperwhite) for reading. So I got this (maybe crazy) idea of what if I could build a fully open source eink reader (like many) but the unique part would be having 2 screens with as little bezels as possible so hopefully it could kind of work like foldable phones.
I have idea to create ebook reader that when closed is small (and lightweight) enough to fit comfortably in your pocket but after opening it should offer roughly 10-11'' screen.
There's already many amazing projects created by other people like: https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1u0w8vd/building_a_foldable_eink_notebook/, however all of them seems to go for classic book design where each screen is rather far apart when opened. It works really well if we use one screen for reading and second for example for taking notes but it won't work (or be kind of pointless) for reading. I have idea to kind of make what InkLeaf tries to be but make it smaller and bring screens much closer so it gives feeling of using one larger screen when reading.
So far I've considered using either eink displays or Transflective Memory-in-Pixel (MIP) displays. My biggest problem so far is to find reliable offer for them... Eink displays seems to mostly be split into tiny dev boads (0.5-5'' bulky screens) or almost ready projects you can buy - some custom display frames (7-20'') but those are also incredibly bulky, thick and commonly with closed software. I did found few 5-7'' seemingly just eink displays but they always have thick frame/bezel - it seems to be common for lower quality or older hardware, I also seen newer eink displays with very thin frames (at least at 3 out of 4 sides) but those are sold as those ready boards to show current weather, spotify, etc. are not meant for in depth tinkering.
MIP displays seems to always be tiny, made for watches or similar small devices.
What do you think about the idea and do you know of any good places from where I could purchase those screens? For compute I would ideally use something like ESP32-S3, I can design and produce my own custom circuit boards as needed (as long as screen has proper documentation to work with) and get CNC custom chasis.