Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor • Hacker News Board

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#41

Post by thelazyone » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #34

no_wizard wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know that there is any technical reason why e-ink can’t develop a better refresh rate to match what we are used to, at least theoretically. I don’t think its refresh rates are capped in that way. The real problem is cost of course. Part of that is e-ink is still governed under a patent you must license and pay royalties to if I recall correctly

Eink works by physically moving bits of material around in a viscous liquid. You can refine that (use stronger electric field, stronger reacting pigments, less-viscous fluid, thinner layer for smaller travel distance) but never get around it.

That is true, but this doesn't pose a theoretical limit to a 30 fps monitor.

I suspect that the current technology works by "setting" in place whole regions of the screen at once, and that this kind of process is inherently slow. Maybe in a (not so distant) future it'll be possible to have individual pixels changing, in a similar way as an mp4 doesn't update all the image when not necessary.

Or not. So many technologies just embank somewhere and find their niche.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#42

Post by mrkeen » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

packetlost wrote: post #38

dbingham wrote: post #12

That refresh rate is pretty awesome. ...if that's real, and I'm a little skeptical, I kinda want a remarkable with one of these screens. That would be amazing. The poor refresh rate is one of the few things I don't love about my remarkable.

One of my coworkers has the grayscale version of that. The refresh rate goes up to maybe 20Hz on "fast mode" which sacrifices quality for speed. It looks pretty good regardless, but IMO the real benefit of these screens is in consuming long-form text content. My ReMarkable 2 has a perfectly fine refresh rate, especially for writing/drawing. Is yours the first gen maybe?

I have a remarkable 1. The refresh rate certainly keeps up with writing. It's just a bit slow if you want to hit next page a bunch of times in a row.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#43

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #12

That refresh rate is pretty awesome. ...if that's real, and I'm a little skeptical, I kinda want a remarkable with one of these screens. That would be amazing. The poor refresh rate is one of the few things I don't love about my remarkable.

[deleted]

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#44

Post by CharlesW » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

scandum wrote: post #33

chrisco255 wrote: post #5

Why make this for a desktop? E-ink is mostly useful for wireless applications and anywhere power is limited or there's a need for always on, static display.

There's likely a market for office workers since there's a significant reduction of stress on the eyes. You'd save about 0.5 kwh a day in electricity, more if the AC is running. So I could see them becoming popular once the price comes down. People who run 2 monitors might be interested as well.

> There's likely a market for office workers since there's a significant reduction of stress on the eyes.

There may be, but some studies have shown there's little difference.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/

Methods: Participants read for several hours on either e-Ink or LCD, and different measures of reading behaviour and visual strain were regularly recorded. These dependent measures included subjective (visual) fatigue, a letter search task, reading speed, oculomotor behaviour and the pupillary light reflex.

Results: Results suggested that reading on the two display types is very similar in terms of both subjective and objective measures.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#45

Post by Philorandroid » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

0:28 of the promo video, "EVOLUTION OF HULK PREGNANT" is in the Youtube search results...

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#46

Post by CharlesW » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

Version467 wrote: post #15

chrisco255 wrote: post #5

Why make this for a desktop? E-ink is mostly useful for wireless applications and anywhere power is limited or there's a need for always on, static display.

To relieve eye strain. Reading on an e-ink screen is so much more comfortable than on any emissive monitor. With current tech the downside is of course reduced refresh rate as well as low color contrast. Depending on the workload, that might be a worthy trade off. I tried coding on a grayscale eink display for a while and noticed a big difference in eye strain and overall concentration levels after a long session. Bu…

> Reading on an e-ink screen is so much more comfortable than on any emissive monitor.

E-ink vendors tout this, but the jury's still out. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762257/

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#47

Post by packetlost » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

mrkeen wrote: post #42

packetlost wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my coworkers has the grayscale version of that. The refresh rate goes up to maybe 20Hz on "fast mode" which sacrifices quality for speed. It looks pretty good regardless, but IMO the real benefit of these screens is in consuming long-form text content. My ReMarkable 2 has a perfectly fine refresh rate, especially for writing/drawing. Is yours the first gen maybe?

I have a remarkable 1. The refresh rate certainly keeps up with writing. It's just a bit slow if you want to hit next page a bunch of times in a row.

Yeah, paging can be a little slow. I use mine for reading through PDFs and it's fine for the most part. I think it might partially be poorly optimized software, not necessarily the screen, but who knows.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#48

Post by blizdiddy » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

My unsolicited advice: turn on a lamp in your workspace, and turn down your monitor brightness. An app like twinkle tray makes adjusting screen brightness as easy as adjusting speaker volume. Your eyes really don't care about emissive or reflected light.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#49

Post by sydon » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

packetlost wrote: post #47

mrkeen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a remarkable 1. The refresh rate certainly keeps up with writing. It's just a bit slow if you want to hit next page a bunch of times in a row.

Yeah, paging can be a little slow. I use mine for reading through PDFs and it's fine for the most part. I think it might partially be poorly optimized software, not necessarily the screen, but who knows.

I definitely wonder, the build is quite slim, I don't think the tech inside is that impressive.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#50

Post by Brian_K_White » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

thelazyone wrote: post #41

Brian_K_White wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eink works by physically moving bits of material around in a viscous liquid. You can refine that (use stronger electric field, stronger reacting pigments, less-viscous fluid, thinner layer for smaller travel distance) but never get around it.

That is true, but this doesn't pose a theoretical limit to a 30 fps monitor. I suspect that the current technology works by "setting" in place whole regions of the screen at once, and that this kind of process is inherently slow. Maybe in a (not so distant) future it'll be possible to have individual pixels changing, in a similar way as an mp4 doesn't update all the image when not necessary. Or not. So many technolog…

They do that already, and it results in ghosting and leftover artifacts.

It's all tradeoffs, improving one number only to a limited extent and only at the expense of other numbers. Ie, faster action at the expense of worse image. No free lunch or getting around it by handwaving 'advancement'.