It’ll likely be a while before this tech makes its way to market. If it does, it seems you’ll get much more screen real estate than a standard e-reader, which could come in particularly handy for digital newspapers.

However, as The Verge points out, the design here is pretty clunky as things stand. The prototype has massive bezels, and having to switch on lightbars and fold them down for better nighttime reading seems cumbersome.

The e-reader is still a work in progress, though. It has evolved quite a bit from the last version E Ink revealed in June. If E Ink can make the bezels smaller and figure out an elegant way to build backlit foldable screens, it could be onto a winning idea. If it can somehow add color screens to the device too, so much the better.