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Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

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Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#41

Post by bebna »

officeplant wrote: post #23
tluyben2 wrote: post #2

I live in places where the sun always shines; it's almost impossible to work normally outside (which is my preferred office) without eInk. I wish there were more laptops because it works fine for coding (I have Boox devices which I use sometimes to write code). Phone same thing. Of course with the great extra of having very long battery life. My wife writes/reads books on eInk devices and I do reading, browsing and s…

Living the e-ink dream. I keep waiting for some sort of ARM powered e-ink laptop to materialize out of the ether, but it hasn't happened yet.

Check out the pinenote project. It is intended to be more than just a hackable eink reader slab.

Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#42

Post by culopatin »

hinkley wrote: post #38
tluyben2 wrote: post #2

I live in places where the sun always shines; it's almost impossible to work normally outside (which is my preferred office) without eInk. I wish there were more laptops because it works fine for coding (I have Boox devices which I use sometimes to write code). Phone same thing. Of course with the great extra of having very long battery life. My wife writes/reads books on eInk devices and I do reading, browsing and s…

One Laptop Per Child had a transflective display, and I wish they'd managed to license that tech to someone else to help fund the project. IIRC, with the backlight on you got full color. With the backlight off you got greyscale.

I always wondered why we couldn’t have either a lens at the top edge of a laptop display, or a translucent case to let the sun shine in behind the screen. Maybe the colors wouldn’t be perfect but you’d get more light behind the screen no?

Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#43

Post by bebna »

mdp2021 wrote: post #40
hinkley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One Laptop Per Child had a transflective display, and I wish they'd managed to license that tech to someone else to help fund the project. IIRC, with the backlight on you got full color. With the backlight off you got greyscale.

Together with the Pixel Qi you make reference to, there are a number of display technologies available or partially developed for outdoors use. And some are relatively old: has nobody here ever worked with, eg., a Palm Tungsten with transflective display?

N900 had a transreflective screen, officially as a selling point.

I think my Surface Go first gen also has it, even when not advertised as such, because I can switch to white themes and almost work with back-light off in the direct sun.

Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#45

Post by cweagans »

the_af wrote: post #29
netizen-936824 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you don't have to wait for each letter to appear before typing the next, I would expect some slowdown but I don't think it would be as bad as you seem to imagine

Depends on how sensitive you are. For Kindle/book reading the image is static for long periods of time. For "interactive" screens (like when coding) it would drive me mad. I was one of those people who could notice poor refresh rates in CRT (clicking teeth made it worse) and it drove me crazy. This tech is not for me then.

A whole-screen refresh is slow, but typing does not require refreshing the entire screen. You can update small regions of the screen very quickly (which is what devices like e.g. the Remarkable do for writing).

Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#47

Post by officeplant »

bebna wrote: post #41
officeplant wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living the e-ink dream. I keep waiting for some sort of ARM powered e-ink laptop to materialize out of the ether, but it hasn't happened yet.

Check out the pinenote project. It is intended to be more than just a hackable eink reader slab.

Pinephone and Pinebook Pro owner. Eventually it will be added to the collection.

Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#48

Post by officeplant »

rchaud wrote: post #33
officeplant wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living the e-ink dream. I keep waiting for some sort of ARM powered e-ink laptop to materialize out of the ether, but it hasn't happened yet.

I have a Boox Note Air that runs Android. I imagine the processor is ARM-based. I can hook up a BT keyboard + mouse and use it like I would a regular tablet. Plus, it has 3 screen refresh settings (low, med, high), and the middle one makes typing a very nice experience

I'll have to check that out. Especially if it can be tinkered with via a custom rom like lineage.

Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#49

Post by axiologist »

I use a Hisense A5 since about two years and the battery runtime of over a week is just excellent. Being able to use it in plain sunlight is simply priceless. The grayscale display is good enough and i don't miss color at all. The only thing that somewhat bothers me is that it can't be equipped with some non-chinese alternate ROM like LineageOS. Nonetheless, as it turned out to be much better than expected i actually bought a second unit as a spare.

Re: Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

#50

Post by dredmorbius »

scottndecker wrote: post #37
dredmorbius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, the Light Phone does have an e-ink display. You're not happy with that? https://www.gq.com/story/light-phone-2-review

Correct, it does have an e-ink display and I find it to be very limiting (beyond what's necessary to break bad smartphone habits).

Thanks.
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