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E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

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Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#11

Post by drivebyacct2 »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #6
r00fus wrote: post #3

Isn't e-ink one of the main reasons the Pebble [1] got $10M in funding? There's a lot of conjecture in this article - it mentions it "may" be able to make a shatterless e-ink device, or e-ink "could be" made more responsive. Not promising. In addition what does this gain? Apple pretty much set the standard with glass multitouch displays years ago, and I have yet to see a popular plastic touchscreen phone display rece…

Technically the Pebble doesn't use e-ink, which is why they call it "e-paper". It's actually a type of passive LCD which uses 1-bit of memory located along-side each and every pixel in order to keep track of state, which vastly reduces the power requirements. Unlike e-ink memory lcds still require power to maintain an image, but the amount is very small (similar to an ordinary lcd watch, for example) so battery life…

Was this cheaper than real e-ink or what?

Do you know if this is what is done for the displays on jump drives as well or are those true e-ink?

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#12

Post by pja »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #8

I would really like an e-ink monitor for reading articles and programming.

The WIMP UI really doesn't mesh with an e-Ink display, which is why you'll never see this on consumer desktops. Touch displays have changed everything though & people are more willing to experiment these days, so perhaps something could be done.

I'd love to try one out for programming. Text interfaces (emacs / vim) and a large e-ink display could be a perfect match.

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#13

Post by alexchamberlain »

pja wrote: post #12
alexchamberlain wrote: post #8

I would really like an e-ink monitor for reading articles and programming.

The WIMP UI really doesn't mesh with an e-Ink display, which is why you'll never see this on consumer desktops. Touch displays have changed everything though & people are more willing to experiment these days, so perhaps something could be done. I'd love to try one out for programming. Text interfaces (emacs / vim) and a large e-ink display could be a perfect match.

I still want an LCD monitor too, but I have a 17 inch monitor for general stuff and a 22" (I think) widescreen monitor vertical for programming. It's the vertical one I'd like to replace.

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#14

Post by wladimir »

6ren wrote: post #5

What is vim like on an e-ink display? Especially the "animation" of cursor movement, text entry, text editing and scrolling

I think that if you have a good grasp of the commands in an editor such as vim, having "real-time" feedback isn't as important as with other UI paradigms (as long as it's not too slow, you do need a few fps). Though I'm not sure. It will take some getting used to. The nice thing about E-ink is that looking a the screen is very relaxed, as it doesn't emit light. I'd love to buy an E-ink monitor to try out, when they are available and affordable enough.

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#15

Post by pseingatl »

Wingman4l7 wrote: post #2

The first cellphone with a primary e-ink display AFAIK was, as the article mentions briefly, the Motorola F3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone Unfortunately, it was a segmented display, which IMO limited its appeal & practicality. It was also 2006 e-ink tech, which had poorer contrast, slower refresh rate, and lower grayscale level counts than that of today. Additionally, it wasn't "available through Motoro…

I purchased the Motorola F3 and still have it. Battery life is terrific. If you're used to smartphones it's a downer, but for a cheap functional mobile it's great. It is hard to find replacement batteries though, and the phone does not have US or Canadian network settings. For Europe and Asia it's great. Is color that big a deal? I'd rather have an E-Ink smartphone with great battery life than color. Or at least offer E-Ink on some models.

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#16

Post by kunil »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #13
pja wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WIMP UI really doesn't mesh with an e-Ink display, which is why you'll never see this on consumer desktops. Touch displays have changed everything though & people are more willing to experiment these days, so perhaps something could be done. I'd love to try one out for programming. Text interfaces (emacs / vim) and a large e-ink display could be a perfect match.

I still want an LCD monitor too, but I have a 17 inch monitor for general stuff and a 22" (I think) widescreen monitor vertical for programming. It's the vertical one I'd like to replace.

You won't be able to scroll properly in an e-ink display. Either you will code page by page or it will refresh every time you try to scroll

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#17

Post by netcan »

I would love to see what apps would be produced if e-ink devices became an important platform. I really think about 80% or the apps I use could be remade for e-ink without losing much functionality.

Forced simplicity is always interesting. Kind of a "didn't have the time to write a short letter" principle.

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#18

Post by nfg »

pja wrote: post #12
alexchamberlain wrote: post #8

I would really like an e-ink monitor for reading articles and programming.

The WIMP UI really doesn't mesh with an e-Ink display, which is why you'll never see this on consumer desktops. Touch displays have changed everything though & people are more willing to experiment these days, so perhaps something could be done. I'd love to try one out for programming. Text interfaces (emacs / vim) and a large e-ink display could be a perfect match.

Vim running on an e-ink display: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdmX52SCpG0

Re: E-Ink, Largely Limited to E-Readers, Appears in a Chinese Smartphone

#20

Post by netcan »

mistercheese wrote: post #4

On a similar note, I've been waiting to see an Android tablet, without an anemic cpu, use a high contrast, fast refresh e-ink screen. The Kindle is great, but I find myself mostly emailing articles to it from services like Instapaper/Readability/Pocket and RSS/Google Reader and Flipboard/Google Currents. It would be great if there were a powerful enough e-ink tablet to access dynamic web content directly. I find I us…

I think the problem would be that e-ink would require special UIs that have no moving part, don't rely on scrolling, don't rely on colour, etc.

I think "mobile web" has taught us that. Increasingly we are finding that our toaster can run firefox and our heating system can run word but Firefox and the websites it displays weren't meant to run on a toaster.

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