[HN Gopher] 31.2" Color EPaper Display
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31.2" Color EPaper Display
Author : max_
Score : 69 points
Date : 2021-02-17 19:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shopkits.eink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (shopkits.eink.com)
| unixhero wrote:
| How much is it? Retail price?
| avhon1 wrote:
| It's right there on the page. $2,300.00 excluding tax
| SllX wrote:
| Thanks. Page was hugged to death so I came here to ask as
| well. :)
| qw3rty01 wrote:
| Keep in mind eink explicitly does not sell to consumers:
|
| > PLEASE NOTE:
|
| > (I) THE PRODUCTS ARE NOT CONSUMER PRODUCTS INTENDED FOR
| PERSONAL, FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES; AND
|
| > (II) PURCHASER IS PURCHASING THE PRODUCTS FOR COMMERCIAL USE
| AND/OR IN A BUSINESS CAPACITY. ORDERS PLACED BY CONSUMERS WILL
| NOT BE ACCEPTED.
| userbinator wrote:
| In other words, just buy a ton of them and resell...
| nickff wrote:
| E-ink already has authorized re-sellers who do this.
| encom wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210217192404/https://shopkits....
| crazygringo wrote:
| Is there any practical use for color ePaper yet though?
|
| From my understanding, the technology is still limited to
| extremely low-saturation colors with extremely low contrast as
| well, see [1] for example photos and how the tech works.
|
| It's certainly not ready for advertising -- instead of a vibrant
| color image, it looks like something printed on newspaper and
| left to fade in the sun for 5 years.
|
| And color e-readers have significantly worse contrast than black
| & white ones, which already aren't great.
|
| So if you truly need usable color, it seems like you're still
| always going to choose a traditional LCD/OLED display. Based on
| the fundamental limitations of the color filters used with eInk,
| I don't really see a future for it. At least not unless a new
| technology emerges that doesn't rely on using color filters on
| top of traditional black-and-white eInk?
|
| [1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/color-e-
| pape...
| ademarre wrote:
| Signage. Advertisements, restaurant menu displays, etc.
|
| New artistic styles often come from the limitations of their
| mediums. I expect the limitations of color e-ink to be no
| different.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't really see that in this case though.
|
| The whole point I'm making is that no advertiser or
| restaurant is going to use color eInk because the contrast
| and saturation are so terrible.
|
| This isn't like working around the limitations of a medium to
| develop pixel art, or black-and-white drawings, etc.
|
| Color e-ink is just a worse medium in every way. It's worse
| contrast at black-and-white (B&W e-ink is far better), and
| it's terrible contrast and saturation at color.
|
| I don't see it working for signs, ads, or menus at all.
|
| Color e-ink feels like a cool prototype, a proof-of-concept,
| but that basically demonstrates its limitations don't make it
| commercially viable for any general purpose.
| Jack_Hacker wrote:
| Ebooks with illustrations/graphs? Text books and graphic novels
| come to mind.
| kgwxd wrote:
| At 31.2" though?
| rodgerd wrote:
| For some specialized uses, sure: think about researchers
| wanting to look at illuminated manuscripts, especially
| wanting to see marginalia and the like. A large, low-
| eyestrain way of seeing high-quality scans would be very
| handy.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But that's my point -- the contrast for regular black and
| white text is so much worse with color eInk than it is for
| regular black-and-white eInk.
|
| It seems like a terrible tradeoff to make, for colors that
| are still terrible.
|
| Reading a graphic novel on a color e-ink reader will be so
| washed out... if you really want the color, it seems like you
| still have to just read it on an iPad etc.
| dvirsky wrote:
| What would be a practical application for this?
| uniqueid wrote:
| When they come down in price, I'm in for one of my displays.
| For reading documentation or news articles, it's probably much
| more comfortable on the eyes.
| dvirsky wrote:
| I agree. I'd like to try a color 10" Kindle with a screen
| like that so I can properly read graphic novels for example,
| not sure that big a screen would be very useful for that.
| rongenre wrote:
| If it were cheap, it'd be amazing for displaying artwork
| dvirsky wrote:
| It only displays 4096 colors, I don't think that's enough to
| render art properly.
| rongenre wrote:
| Well that's reminiscent of old amiga hold-and-modify, but
| good point.
| caturopath wrote:
| I'm not sure. One benefit of e-ink is the low power use.
|
| Some on-street transit stops have displays with live schedules
| displayed. I wonder if there are use cases where you'd want
| that sort of kiosk somewhere you couldn't run power (and would
| power by solar).
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Feels like a bit of a no-mans land size wise. Too small to be
| good menu boards or art displays, too big and expensive to be
| most of the other options I can think of.
| itronitron wrote:
| I could see using one for proofing color print jobs of artwork,
| but I'd want more data on the actual pigment color profiles
| before purchasing one.
| ortusdux wrote:
| It sounds like it only has a color depth of 4096.
| wcfields wrote:
| Outdoor sun-light readable signage.
|
| A comparable high-brightness 1080p display is about the same
| price [1], but uses a lot more electricity and from my
| experience with them, they have definite lifespan (2-4yrs,
| despite the 100k hours light lifetime claim) if they're running
| 24/7.
|
| [1] https://www.compsource.com/buy/DS322LR41/Dynascan-4769
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I wonder what the cost driver is for large eink displays. Low
| yield? Very expensive or time-consuming processes? Low volume?
| eightysixfour wrote:
| General argument seems to be that they're heavily patent
| encumbered and the e-ink company has no competition, so pricing
| and innovation have stalled.
| davemp wrote:
| I wonder why the e-ink company company is using this
| strategy. I feel like there are a huge amount of embedded
| devices that would absolutely love to have a screen like this
| or cannot even exist without a such a screen. But the amount
| of NDAs, restricted dev tools, and unit costs kill most of
| these devices in their infancy.
| nickff wrote:
| There are two main issues (speaking as someone who has
| looked at e-ink for products):
|
| - e-ink is optimizing for maximum profits, using classic
| monopoly pricing
|
| - because they are optimizing for profits, their volumes
| are necessarily small, so their per-unit costs are actually
| relatively high
| rmah wrote:
| High profit margins for eink are the main cost driver
| [deleted]
| jve wrote:
| I saw this link as an answer before, but now I don't.
|
| Anwyay: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
| gnabgib wrote:
| I wonder if it's 2560x1440 (as claimed in the upper section), or
| 1280x720 (as claimed lower). Given the lower resolution is 1/4 of
| the larger, and the product description diagram shows quarters..
| perhaps it's 4 displays merged into the final project (perhaps it
| can be further embiggened).
|
| 4096 colours seems limited though.. the 13.3 linked in January
| [discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21996326) looks
| much more impressive - although the NDA and lack of definitive
| numbers makes it hard to compare.
| shezi wrote:
| It is probably 2560x1440 with four different colour subpixels
| per addressable pixel, giving you an image resolution of
| 1280x720.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| Forgive me if I'm misremembering details, but I think the way
| color e-ink displays work is they have the black/white "ink"
| capsules that are pushed up/down by magnetic charges, just like
| a regular black/white e-ink display, except for in the colored
| ones, each "pixel" also has a red or green or blue color filter
| over it (one of each in a cluster). But that means the pixels
| per inch drops because now 3 black/white "pixels" have to work
| together to be one single color "pixel"
|
| I'm not really sure how they measure resolution with this, that
| could still just be a mistake. But I do know e-ink displays
| sacrifice resolution for that colour with current technology.
| ggm wrote:
| At least one HN story in the last month was an eInk type
| product, either them or a competitor, able to position the
| tiny cells into more than one pair of modes, the current ones
| is up or down this one had some colour space like rgb as
| well. So it wasn't 1/3 the pixel density for a colour pixel.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| So, assuming that's what it is, subpixel resolution is now
| being advertised as the "true" resolution? Because when I buy
| a 1080p display, I'm expecting 1920x1080 addressable pixels.
| Whether that's implemented as 3840x2160 (2x2 subpixel) or
| 5760x1080 (3x1 subpixel) is not my concern. And if I bought a
| display advertised as 3840x2160, and my computer told me it
| was 1920x1080 (because it's a 2x2 subpixel layout), I'd be
| upset.
| addaon wrote:
| Unfortunately, there's plenty of precedent around this,
| especially with Pentile displays and similar.
| userbinator wrote:
| Bad precedent, to be honest... Pentile was infamous for
| its inferior image quality on things like text and fine
| lineart.
|
| It reminds me of the LCDs on digital cameras, some of
| which use the same trick to reduce costs --- natural
| photos don't look any different, which is why it gets a
| pass, but text has a noticeable graininess to it as a
| result.
| dheera wrote:
| Waiting for Waveshare to copy this and bring its price down to
| $500!
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Waveshare licenses from E-ink, it doesn't copy from them.
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(page generated 2021-02-17 21:00 UTC)