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Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

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Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#51

Post by rockostrich »

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?

> IMO the real benefit of these screens is in consuming long-form text content.

Hard disagree. E-readers already do this and are 2 orders of magnitude cheaper. Long-form text content barely need 1 Hz refresh rates.

The real benefit of these screens is being able to use a computer without the associated eye-strain. Most jobs that involve looking at a screen all-day don't really require high refresh rate screens. The main exceptions are any folks doing design or editing work. This is a huge game changer for the vast majority of folks on HN that are looking at a terminal, text editor, or docs for 90% of their day.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#52

Post by jbarrs »

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.

Not sure if this is the same product, but in my job I've met one of the researchers working on this tech. The screens they were able to produce had refresh rates high enough to watch a movie.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#54

Post by jsheard »

otachack wrote: post #37

This is really cool. It does make me miss the Pebble watch though as they dove into color e-ink for certain models as well. They seemed way ahead of the time and it's such a shame they couldn't make it through.

The Pebble wasn't e-ink, it used a transflective memory LCD which they branded as "e-paper". Garmin still makes smartwatches using that technology.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#55

Post by ChrisRR »

blizdiddy wrote: post #48

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.

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

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#56

Post by joecool1029 »

otachack wrote: post #37

This is really cool. It does make me miss the Pebble watch though as they dove into color e-ink for certain models as well. They seemed way ahead of the time and it's such a shame they couldn't make it through.

Pebble did not use e-ink screens, it used a reflective memory in pixel LCD (I believe made by Sharp), refresh rates were never a problem using that technology, because it's just a LCD that has some tweaks for lower standby power usage. More on it: https://www.sharpsde.com/technologies-for/memory-in-pixels/m... It still requires a very small amount of power to keep the screen functioning.

E-Ink uses a completely different technology that does not require energy to continue displaying an image on the screen. Only requires it to change it. Operates by moving charged polymers to make them go to the surface or fall away, similar to etch-a-sketch (edit: I was thinking magna doodle) toy, but charge/not magnetism.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#57

Post by mdp2021 »

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…

> it'll be possible to have individual pixels changing

EPD displays already have that capability.

When you modify the dots you use a modality that is sensitive to former states. What happens in full-screen refresh is a cleanup to redraw on the best former state for the cleanest output.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#58

Post by chrisco255 »

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 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.

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#59

Post by jsheard »

nashashmi wrote: post #17
skerit wrote: post #3

Awesome, though I need this in a laptop.

I think you would be better off having it in a portable monitor.

Boox makes a portable 13" e-ink monitor but it's tough to swallow at $800

https://shop.boox.com/products/mira

e-ink prices still shoot into the stratosphere if you want anything larger than 10"

Re: Paperlike Color: Color E-Ink Monitor

#60

Post by chrisco255 »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #35
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.

Well it is arguably easier on the eyes for reading so it'd me great for terminals or for browsing documentation, content with little movement but lots of reading. I'd like to see this on a netbook to get better battery life and still be able to use emacs and remotely logging into systems. Just to carry around in a backpack while being on call.

Yeah netbooks and tablets I totally get the use case for e-ink in those cases.
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