Polymer Vision originally demonstrated the Readius, with its roll-out 5-inch screen, at the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) consumer electronics exhibition in September 2005, saying that the device was a demonstrator of the display technology.

Polymer Vision has now taken on manufacturing facilities in Southampton for its displays and needs products to make use of them. It has added a tri-band mobile phone to the Readius hardware design and created an internet page that allows data to be customized and selected for the reader. However the display is not color offering black and white with 16 levels of grey.

The 3G HSDPA tri-band phone allows worldwide calls and updates from news sources, email and other services. Standard POP3 and IMAP is supported for ISP e-mail and others such as Yahoo mail Google Gmail and Microsoft Exchange, Polymer Vision said.

The Readius weighs 115 grams and offers 30 hours of operation per battery charge. At five-inch diagonal the display is twice the area of that of the largest mobile phone, according to Polymer Vision. The device, based around a 400-MHz ARM 11-based processor has USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 2.0 connections and can have up to 8-Gbytes of flash storage.

To judge from the Polymer Vision press release the company would like the Readius to be picked up and badged by a mobile phone service provider. The company said specific details on timing, volumes and pricing could be discussed by appointment.