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Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

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Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#141

Post by samatman »

achow wrote: post #104
avar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm as much of a fan of the potentials of this technology as anyone, but it really look like it's terrible to use as a main display even for non-multimedia applications. I.e. try setting your mouse or keyboard to have even 50-100ms of lag, a lot of people would find that very distracting to use even for just using a terminal Emacs/Vim & for writing plain-text. There's a reason these things are being marketed as "seco…

> ..try setting your mouse or keyboard to have even 50-100ms of lag, a lot of people would find that very distracting to use Except that Remarkable 2 has 20ms latency, same as iPad's. [1] That makes pencil behave like a real one; that is a user cannot perceive the difference between writing on eink tablet vs writing on paper. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/remarkables-redesigned-e-p...

Apple pushed an update in iOS 13 which brings the latency on the Pencil down to 9ms.

Which I remember vividly because it's when latency on the Pencil subjectively "went away" for me. Especially for tight loops in cursive, on iOS 12 the line would 'catch up' with the stylus, but at 9ms I don't perceive that.

Edit: crosshatching is an even better example of a technique which feels completely different at 9ms rather than 20ms.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#143

Post by willcipriano »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #61
breakfastduck wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is going to sell a device that costs significantly more than any other for the same power to provide what 99% of users would consider a sub par/ unusable display. Like seriously can you imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to watch any media, play any games and has the refresh rate / perceived performance of a 15 year old tablet. This stuff isn't ready to be a 'main' display yet.

> imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to - watch any kind of media - looks 'laggy' Imagine thinking that the consumer market is only for media consumers. There is a whole market of enterprise products out there, and there is certainly a use case for a _work_ laptop which needs no multimedia support. I wouldn't argue that someone buying this machine would only use only this machine. But I know I am not alon…

"IT gave me a crappy black and white laptop. They are so behind."

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#144

Post by ranit »

breakfastduck wrote: post #57
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand how there isn't a market for a work _laptop_ with a display like this? - Longer battery life - easy on the eyes for long sessions reading/writing - Allows me to actually work outside!!! There is a huge market of people out there (Thinking about the typical ThinkPad users) that don't give 2 craps about color accuracy. We literally just want to read and write. Anyone envolved in Product Managem…

No one is going to sell a device that costs significantly more than any other for the same power to provide what 99% of users would consider a sub par/ unusable display. Like seriously can you imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to watch any media, play any games and has the refresh rate / perceived performance of a 15 year old tablet. This stuff isn't ready to be a 'main' display yet.

And these days: if it cannot make video calls it is not a computer for work.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#145

Post by burkaman »

randomor wrote: post #142

Why hasn’t anyone built a short throw projector for office work(coding) yet? - reflective light just like eink so less eye strain - better refresh rate and latency - better color range Is it the resolution?

I think the market for people who want to (and are able to) work exclusively in a very dark room is probably pretty small. I'm also not sure what features a work-focused projector would have that a normal projector wouldn't.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#146

Post by pcurve »

zwirbl wrote: post #13

I couldn't find a video of the display in use, so here it goes (for the 13.3" version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBfWkxOfUfQ seems a little slow and the screen refreshes sometimes excessive, but much better than I expected

There's "fast" mode. https://youtu.be/oBfWkxOfUfQ?t=994

Image quality goes down, but I was very very very impressed...

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#147

Post by mdp2021 »

tw04 wrote: post #133
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to - watch any kind of media - looks 'laggy' Imagine thinking that the consumer market is only for media consumers. There is a whole market of enterprise products out there, and there is certainly a use case for a _work_ laptop which needs no multimedia support. I wouldn't argue that someone buying this machine would only use only this machine. But I know I am not alon…

> There is a whole market of enterprise products out there, and there is certainly a use case for a _work_ laptop which needs no multimedia support. You think in 2021, when I'd argue the majority of folks that own a laptop are working remote, there's huge demand for a laptop that can't display a video feed from a zoom or WebEx meeting? That sounds extremely unlikely to me. I'd wager the demand for such a device would…

> a laptop that can't display a video feed

Actually, those displays do. They may work fairly well for the purpose. When I tested those capabilities years ago, the chief issue was with ghosting; the second with choosing either high definition with strong artefacts or fast, cleaner low definition; the third was with having algorithms that minimize dot switching (which is energy costly). But there is a possibility that newer refresh algorithms fixed most of that.

Even at the state of a few years ago, to just see talking heads and presentations the video capabilities of EPD were already more than adequate. It makes little sense energy wise (wrong instrument), but it is doable. Those who want the EPD properties for production may see little loss in the lower video quality - provided the issues I listed above have been mitigated, foremostly the ghosting.

--

Edit:

I checked on YT and, look, it seems to me that video quality on EPD has boosted to incredible levels. See my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29430696

or directly the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqASRsIWVw

Surely such laptop would be able to «display a video feed». Suboptimally. (Yet, in a way, amazingly.)

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#148

Post by rbanffy »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #80
rbanffy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It getting good yields in the fabs for the e-ink films that's the problem There is a decent market for rigid (heavy) 20-30" ~100 dpi panels as desktop monitors. Lowering the pixel density would certainly increase the yield, as would the rigid back. There is a high premium for light panels for e-readers and portables, but for use as a desktop monitor, we can deal with a lot more weight and, since we see them from fu…

>There is a decent market for rigid (heavy) 20-30" ~100 dpi panels as desktop monitors. Do you have a source for these claims? Looking at what seels well today, and what most average consumers go for, it's bigger screens with high pixel density. Low pixel density displays are mostly found in bottom of the barrel, discount bin products whith poor margins for their manufacturers, so the market has already spoken with t…

> Do you have a source for these claims?

No. There are no products in this space that can compete with the midrange LCD displays.

> So I think, that market you think of, exists only for you.

I'm sure Boox would be happy to be able to sell a 24" 1920x1200 display for $200, if they had an adequate supply of panels.

> That's not how yealds work here.

If you increase feature size, you, usually, have fewer defects. A 20" 200 dpi panel has 4 times more places where something could go wrong than a 100 dpi one, and its features would be more prone to fail for defects the same size. Lower resolution should decrease the areal density of detectable defects because the defects would be less likely to disable the pixel. Unless I'm completely wrong and the kind of defect on e-ink panels is completely different than defects on ICs and PCBs.

Yield for smaller displays works differently - areal density of defects being the same, a smaller panel has a smaller chance of having a defect.

> That's why large e-ink displays, like the remarkable tablet, are so expensive.

The Remarkable is a high density display and they sell it for the price people are willing to pay.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#149

Post by w-m »

mdp2021 wrote: post #121
smusamashah wrote: post #9

What is the lifespan of high refresh e-ink devices such as this monitor? Is it measured in a billion refreshes for example? E-ink displays have been slow to update but like this monitor there are a bunch of e-ink tablets which even allow you to watch videos and play games. In my head it feels like it detoriate the device faster.

> lifespan The declared generic (update frequency agnostic) lifespan for E-Ink displays a few years ago was: 10 million switches per dot

At 30 switches per second for video playback (which this device supports), a lifetime of 10m switches would be gone in around 93 hours.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#150

Post by daneel_w »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #53
zwirbl wrote: post #13

I couldn't find a video of the display in use, so here it goes (for the 13.3" version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBfWkxOfUfQ seems a little slow and the screen refreshes sometimes excessive, but much better than I expected

I still don't understand how there isn't a market for a work _laptop_ with a display like this? - Longer battery life - easy on the eyes for long sessions reading/writing - Allows me to actually work outside!!! There is a huge market of people out there (Thinking about the typical ThinkPad users) that don't give 2 craps about color accuracy. We literally just want to read and write. Anyone envolved in Product Managem…

I don't understand your post. First you state that you don't understand how there isn't a market for a laptop using this screen, then you underline that there is a huge market out there (somehow "typical ThinkPad users", who apparently don't care about color or anything else, and just want to read and write), and then you ask why these things don't sell much and if the problem is that the device is lackluster compared to a normal cheap LCD display.

Have you looked at these displays in use? They're slow, flickery, have low contrast, and cost absurd money. They're still desperately trying to crawl out of the "enthusiast / early adopter" stage. I really want one. Everyone really wants one. But nobody wants the overpriced rubbish the current generation is.

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