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Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

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Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#101

Post by jseliger »

myself248 wrote: post #79
chaosprint wrote: post #70

I owned lots of E-ink devices. I got a Boox Mira 13 inch screen and it works well on both Mac/Windows. On Windows I can even have some touchscreen interaction. But I have to warn you!!!! that your mouse is not going to work as it feels very different. So I use it only to read news, reply emails and messages. Coding, video, and gaming would be impossible! The same thing would 100% go to this new display. I have also g…

RM2 ex-pat club member here too! Beautiful design, bizarrely crippled user experience. They put a wifi+bt chip on the board, but didn't connect the bluetooth signals, so you couldn't use a bluetooth keyboard with it like any other tablet. And a zillion other frustrations. I sold it to a friend after making super sure he was okay with the limitations and wouldn't blame me for selling him a lemon.

I've written about this on HN before, but the RM2 people don't make the device show up as a standard USB device, which makes file manipulations hard. I think this is an effort to sell their "cloud" server stuff for a few dollars a month. That's not been the effect on me; instead, I barely use mine, and complain about it on the Internet.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#102

Post by alanbernstein »

hoosieree wrote: post #91
ChrisRR wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do anecdotally find that the better ambient light causes less eye strain.

When your pupils are smaller, the image that hits your retina is sharper, just like with a pinhole camera. Sharper images lead to less eyestrain because you don't need to keep your eye still for as long. I use light color themes for this reason. Although I always add the caveat to "do what works for you", because everyone's body is different.

As a dark mode user, this makes me want to reconsider. It seems to make sense, but is it supported by evidence or by personal experience? I have not noticed such a difference in eye strain myself.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#103

Post by chrisco255 »

mdp2021 wrote: post #62
chrisco255 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a significant reduction in color depth and refresh rate, plus a need to provide external lighting to make up for the lack of built-in lighting, which, depending on the office environment may cancel out any power savings.

> lack of built-in lighting That depends on the environment. Natural light fights against the functioning of light-emitting displays. Reflective displays cooperate with natural light. You in the dark? Use OLED. Under the sun? Use EPD.

I don't know too many people operating desktop computers under the sun. They are usually situated indoors, often distant from any window access. Anyways the point stands that additional lighting discounts any power savings from using e-ink in a desktop environment. I get the use case for e-ink in the field. This product is not for in-field use.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#104

Post by mdp2021 »

siva7 wrote: post #66

This product would make sense as a portable secondary monitor for your laptop rig. The demo video is weird. Watching youtube isn't a good use case for a color e-ink.

> Watching youtube isn't a good use case for a color e-ink

You may have not thought that part of the idea is using displays for education (video is an important format for educational material nowadays) in times where Countries are noting epidemics of eye difficulties (e.g. myopia) among students.

This said, use of video (frequent refresh) on EPD is strongly inefficient - EPD is energy-optimal as bistable, and consumes a lot upon state updates. And, those EPD cells are not eternal, they have a lifespan of state switches.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#105

Post by sublinear »

mdp2021 wrote: post #96
sublinear wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Input latency is really bad even at 24hz. My typing speed slows down dramatically and typos feel so painful to correct compared to 60hz and above.

Some of us suspended the habit to look at the text while typing (on systems with latency), and look at the typed only periodically (off, on, off, on).

I get that you're talking about situations like typing into a remote terminal, but this technique still causes eye strain which brings us back to square one with slow eink displays which are like this all day long.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#106

Post by orbital-decay »

mdp2021 wrote: post #100
orbital-decay wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> E-Ink can achieve “real color” better than LED / LCD for design that is used in non electronic mediums. Can it, though? What makes it able to, and what is the real color? When I hold a physical Pantone patch against my calibrated IPS display in proper viewing conditions, I fail to see any difference. > Also glare. My experience is that E-Ink readers have the same issues with glare as any other display, compared to…

> the same issues with glare True, but that is a property of the products, not of the technology. (It seems that they are not using external layers of the highest quality.) So it may be possible to find an EPD display with a decent anti-glare finish. (It may also depend on the production batch.)

It absolutely is the property of technology. You fundamentally need the see-through layer, and there's not a lot of materials that meet all requirements (optical transparency, durability, finish, coatings, etc); essentially it's plastics and glasses. In that sense, EPD isn't any different from other display tech.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#107

Post by mdp2021 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #103
mdp2021 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lack of built-in lighting That depends on the environment. Natural light fights against the functioning of light-emitting displays. Reflective displays cooperate with natural light. You in the dark? Use OLED. Under the sun? Use EPD.

I don't know too many people operating desktop computers under the sun. They are usually situated indoors, often distant from any window access. Anyways the point stands that additional lighting discounts any power savings from using e-ink in a desktop environment. I get the use case for e-ink in the field. This product is not for in-field use.

> usually

HN is nth standard deviation sensitive. There is always market for some.

> additional lighting discounts any power savings

Not necessarily. Lighting today can cost fractions of watts, and on the other hands EPD can be energy costly - it depends on how many cell updates you are causing. So, the matter is probably less with energy consumption, and more about getting a better effect based on user and environment.

> This product is not for in-field use

Sure, it does not seem specific. But it can have its places. Be it some production site - maybe a quarry near the tropics -, be it personal - maybe you want to do some work in your garden...

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#108

Post by ddingus »

mdp2021 wrote: post #69

Do not miss an important detail: it is Kaleido. It means, it uses an overlaid colour filter matrix (RGBW, if I remember correctly). This allows for the comparatively high refresh rates of B/W EPD, but it is B/W EPD with a semi-transparent multi-tinted layer on top, which obviously impacts the brightness. (The alternative would be multi-pigmented EPD cells - "Advanced Color E-Paper"... Which suffers from dramatically…

Dramatically low basically equals the single color refresh rate multiplied by the number of base colors used to form color images.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#109

Post by mdp2021 »

orbital-decay wrote: post #106
mdp2021 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the same issues with glare True, but that is a property of the products, not of the technology. (It seems that they are not using external layers of the highest quality.) So it may be possible to find an EPD display with a decent anti-glare finish. (It may also depend on the production batch.)

It absolutely is the property of technology. You fundamentally need the see-through layer, and there's not a lot of materials that meet all requirements (optical transparency, durability, finish, coatings, etc); essentially it's plastics and glasses. In that sense, EPD isn't any different from other display tech.

Why would EPD be different from LCD natively shipped with anti-glare coating, or selected good matte films for our glass-based displays (e.g. "smartphones")?

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#110

Post by mdp2021 »

ddingus wrote: post #108
mdp2021 wrote: post #69

Do not miss an important detail: it is Kaleido. It means, it uses an overlaid colour filter matrix (RGBW, if I remember correctly). This allows for the comparatively high refresh rates of B/W EPD, but it is B/W EPD with a semi-transparent multi-tinted layer on top, which obviously impacts the brightness. (The alternative would be multi-pigmented EPD cells - "Advanced Color E-Paper"... Which suffers from dramatically…

Dramatically low basically equals the single color refresh rate multiplied by the number of base colors used to form color images.

You seem to be suggesting "a collection of pigmented subcells similar to the traditional B/W cell".

ACeP works differently: the pigments are in a single cell, and it is a matter of different densities, size, speed, electrical sensitivity per material (per pigment) that determines the procedure ("waveform") to obtain the wanted colour in a pixel.

So, it does not seem linear at all.

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