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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

#201

Post by dreamcompiler »

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…

The OLPC had a dual-mode display that worked great for reading both indoors and out. For some reason nobody has since picked up on this idea.

http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/screen/olpc_xo_resolution_d...

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#202

Post by officeplant »

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 really would love one of these for the 2D AutoCAD work I do which mostly involves electrical diagrams and 2D building layouts for fire / gas alarm systems. One of the main problems I see is the finite lifespan of an E-Ink display vs traditional monitors. Not to say the old 1440P TN displays I use at work will last forever, but I'm not sure an E-Ink display having to refresh constantly for 8 hours a day of work will hold up nearly as long.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#203

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

snthd wrote: post #196
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…

>Allows me to actually work outside!!! This can also be achieved with a transflective panel. Edit: Here's one retrofitted to a thinkpad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuegrU_kIq8

Yeah, this is the real answer to the "outside" use case.

Lots of fitness smartwatches have them, and they're awesome. Once you walk outside there's clearly a reduced color gamut, but other than that, everything else (fps, etc) remains the same, and the screen is perfectly usable.

Can't wait until other niche mobile devices come out with this tech (tablets, phones, laptops).

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#204

Post by mdp2021 »

w-m wrote: post #149
mdp2021 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That would be, of course, if for 93 hours one played a 30Hz flashing B-W-B-W... The average dot switch, on a binary (B/W) threshold, on normal video, is probably well less than every second. A value between 1'000 and 10'000 hours is more realistic. The technology was not born for this use.

Nonetheless, the lifetime values one can find do not seem to be precise and reliable (that of 10 million is one piece of reported official information and not the only one). Having tests would be better, I am not sure how much these speculations can be trusted. Anyway, given the presence of EPD based smartphones in the market, together with the monitors, information will have to come out of users' experience.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#205

Post by nitrogen »

srmatto wrote: post #186
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…

I've read previously on HN that there's one company with a stranglehold on the e-ink patent and so the prices are artificially high for the screens. This probably would make a e-ink laptop or tablet more expensive than it should be. But yes, I agree. I've wanted an e-ink laptop for working outside for years.

We saw the same trajectory with high refresh rate displays. Back in the CRT days, you could set your display to 200+Hz on some monitors, 85Hz was common, and 72Hz was the minimum. At the same time, you had devices with reflective LCDs that worked outside.

Then LCD monitors came along, and suddenly we went from 1600x1200@75Hz to 1280x1024@60Hz. Anyone who complained was placed in nutjob territory -- "you can't see more than 24fps", "human reaction time is over 100ms", "you're holding it wrong", etc. Then, finally, high refresh rates became common, because they are objectively and subjectively superior.

Eink will go through a similar process of nerd shaming as the patents expire and new competitors emerge, but eventually outdoor capable displays will also become a normal, acceptable option.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#206

Post by Tagbert »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #201
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…

The OLPC had a dual-mode display that worked great for reading both indoors and out. For some reason nobody has since picked up on this idea. http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/screen/olpc_xo_resolution_d...

The OLPC used a transflective LCD. Basically, the low power mode was a grayscale LCD with the backlight turned off. The background was a reflective surface that reflected enough light to give a, rather low contrast, image.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#207

Post by nitrogen »

vzaliva wrote: post #193
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…

I would prefer a modular laptop where I can swap between OLED and liquid paper screens. Just snap another screen before going to work in a park.

Does the framework laptop have a modular display option?

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#208

Post by nitrogen »

cassianoleal wrote: post #200
Ancapistani wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What mouse? The use case I have for an EPD is entirely terminal-based.

That's a fair use-case but I suspect it's a _very rare_ one, which probably answers the initial question: > how there isn't a market for a work _laptop_ with a display like this?

How many software developers and authors are there? Time was when 100,000 units a year was enough to make a highly successful company.

When did we decide that only trillion dollar companies were worth considering? At that point we lose economies of scale and get into rent seeking. We'd all be much better off with a hundred $xxB companies than one or two $xT companies.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#209

Post by toper-centage »

Someone wrote: post #96

“Remove ghosting with one press” is a feature that they use to sell the device? How bad is the ghosting/how often do you need to press that button?

My old and only eReader, a Kindle 3, had ghosting issues, but it self-fixed them by refreshing often. But there's a cost to that, because a full refresh takes significant time. In complex UIs that are more than just text you often can get away with updating only a portion of the screen, at the goat of bits of ghosting. My understanding is that this is still a limitation of this tech.

Re: Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor

#210

Post by patagonicus »

dash2 wrote: post #112
patagonicus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got the smaller Dasung about half a year ago, I posted a comment about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29429093 Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Thanks! * Do you use it as your main daily monitor? * I find screen time quite addictive (which is one reason why I am on HN so much). Do you notice any difference from this perspective when using an eink screen? * Has the screen quality degraded over time? * How big a difference has it made to your life?

Let's see:

* I use it daily, but really only for my shell, including vim for coding/writing configs. Depends on the day, sometimes I spent more time in the shell than in the browser, sometimes it's mostly browser (and thus plain old screen, not E-Ink).

* I think that's hard to say since my main screen is so much larger. I did notice a difference in the evening between a tablet with Youtube vs a Kindle with a newspaper or a book. Although I do remember one or two evenings where I turned off the main screen and only used the E-Ink screen - I think there it helps with going to sleep later due to less blue light.

* I haven't noticed any degradation so far.

* I like it. I've barely had problems with eye strain anymore and eye strain was the main motivation for getting it. It's also just a bit larger than my laptop, so it's great when I travel somewhere where I'll use my laptop a lot since I'll get a second screen on the go/for the hotel room/etc.

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