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Taking apart the “e-ink” Esquire cover. (video by soxiam).

Brendan calls them out on labeling this “e-ink”:

I just want to point out that what you’re looking at is not e-ink. It’s a film transparency that’s backlit with a segmented electroluminescent backlight. C’mon, Esquire, what the hell? This would have been pretty cool if you didn’t make a big fuss over it. But no, you told us to expect e-ink. And now we’re calling you on your bullshit.

This contradicts what Wired says in their review:

Both the cover and an advertisement in the magazine use the same E Ink technology as the Amazon Kindle, but the similarity pretty much ends there. The cover implementation reveals/conceals text, reverses the foreground and background shades of black, white and gray, and backlights pictures and illustrations drawn on the plastic overlay.

Who’s right? It looks like it can truly be e-ink, but they tremendously wasted its potential.

Also, they made a big deal of this having a special, custom-designed battery to power the thing for long enough to matter. Looks like a bunch of CR-2032s (or similarly sized button cells) to me.