[HN Gopher] Thinkpad X230 with "e-Ink" display at 30fps [video]
___________________________________________________________________
Thinkpad X230 with "e-Ink" display at 30fps [video]
Author : pcdoodle
Score : 428 points
Date : 2021-04-19 09:14 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| vcdimension wrote:
| Are there any instructions online about how to fit a pixel qi
| screen to a thinkpad x230?
| rasz wrote:
| Its not plug and play, You will need a displayport LVDS
| controller.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I had a notion ink tablet 8 years ago or so. Being able to use
| the tablet outside in the sunlight was definitely cool, however
| the display quality (uniformity, dead-pixels ...) was quite poor.
| I wish there were more tablets or even laptops of this type
| later.
| mettamage wrote:
| Let's create some market demand here (and hope it goes anywhere).
|
| I want a transflective display.
|
| If any tech company reads this and wants to change the world:
| getting this in the hands of people means that many more people
| have the capability of sitting outside. This means more vitamin D
| intake. More vitamin D means improved mood (a lack of vitamin D
| could lead to depression [1]).
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908269/
| Tade0 wrote:
| I was surprised to note that my Asus G14 has a somewhat similar
| thing going on:
|
| https://wringing.it/transrefl.png
|
| Low res image to not show too much of my data, but this is the
| screen at minimum brightness with the sun shining on it. Text
| is a little blurred, but legible.
|
| My previous laptops definitely didn't have this, but then again
| I switched to this one here in 2020 after almost seven years.
| mleonhard wrote:
| Blurring doesn't protect information. Next time, just open a
| wikipedia page full-screen and take your photo.
| wffurr wrote:
| I think the G14 just has a matte display with fairly high
| brightness. It's not actually reflective; nowhere near as
| crisp as the laptop in the video.
| devindotcom wrote:
| You can see this in other LCDs as well. It's not deliberate
| AFAIK, the direct sunlight bounces off the back layers and
| causes the active RGB filters to be visible at certain
| angles.
| codezero wrote:
| Thinking of market demand - this guy hasn't even sold the three
| he built for $666, which seems really decent for a full system
| already ready to go. I'm tempted myself but wouldn't get much
| use out of it because I am deeply embedded into Apple and I'm
| Ok with that, I use my reMarkable tablets to scratch my e-Ink
| itches.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Three were already sold, with only one more left.
| codezero wrote:
| Ah, I guess it just took some time :)
| anthk wrote:
| Instead of Windows I'd setup a black and white environment under
| OpenBSD/Slackware with the System4 GTK3/2 theme and some
| monospaced icon set.
|
| Also, CWM with a black/white setup it's dumb easy, and xterm has
| an XTERMM termcap setting for the TERM variable, so that's a
| solved issue.
|
| Also lots of old X11 games will work fine, among text
| adventures/games and Game Boy titles.
|
| Finally, X11 has a monochrome switch, really useful for these
| cases (I think it adds dithering to a b/w display):
| Xserver -render mono
|
| Under OpenBSD, edit /etc/X11/xenodm/Xservers and add to the last
| line: -render mono
| black_puppydog wrote:
| The fact that this type of device is virtually inaccessible,
| short of DIY, is for me a prime example of market failure ever
| since I learned about transflectives.
|
| Btw I'd opt to replace the "E-INK" in the title with
| "transflective" assuming HN folks know to tell the two apart.
| comboy wrote:
| The title is very misleading, these are not even comparable.
|
| Btw, why aren't transflective displays more poplar? They
| doesn't seem as technologically challenging as e-ink and there
| clearly is some market for rugged phones/laptops/tablets. It
| seems they would be a perfect fit for some construction site
| type of uses.
| dannyw wrote:
| I really want this now. I'd pay $2k in a heartbeat.
| guffaw5 wrote:
| The creator posted on reddit [0] that they are exploring
| making these commercially available (in small quantities).
| Maybe you could reach out and get one?
|
| [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/mtf3hf/thinkpa
| d_m...
| krupan wrote:
| Thank you for this link. The discussion there on reddit is,
| sadly, way better than the one here.
|
| Hacker News, RTFA before you comment. Don't comment if you
| don't really know what you are talking about. Please.
| rasz wrote:
| There is an ebay link with 7 available right in the YT
| description
| guffaw5 wrote:
| Wow! 10 sold for ~$600 each!
| xioxox wrote:
| I have a Toshiba R500 - it's a machine ahead of its time -
| transreflective display, SSD, very light, long battery life,
| nice keyboard. Unfortunately the CPU and memory are limited,
| otherwise I would be using it today.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Would you be willing to part with it and ship it to the EU?
| :) I've been hunting on ebay for these every now and again,
| but I'm not quite desperate enough to piece one together from
| the parts I can find.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| I really loved my Dell Axim long, long ago. Specifically
| because of the transflective display. The Ipaqs were only
| reflective, great in sunlight but needed a front light panel
| over the screen for use indoors, not always evenly lit. The
| transflective seemed to be the best of both worlds, reflective
| in sunlight and backlit for a more even light.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Yeah... The e-ink, combined with 30fps is _very_ misleading. I
| guess most people would immediately know what it is with the
| PixelQi name.
| [deleted]
| mtgx wrote:
| Qualcomm has had this tech for about a decade, but failed to
| commercialize/improve on it:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/23/3178117/qualcomm-mirasol-...
| fractallyte wrote:
| It belongs to Apple now...
|
| (https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/12/15/apple-has-
| taken-o...)
|
| And Mirasol is a different technology than Pixel Qi.
| chrisjc wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea about this even though I was somewhat
| following the 'e-ink' technologies quite closely.
|
| An ipad with a colored 'e-ink'/LED hybrid screen would be
| such a perfect tablet in my opinion (even though I've never
| owned an ipad).
| bigfudge wrote:
| It would require a major iOS re-write though. Designing
| for e-ink is a really different paradigm, both statically
| and in relation to UX interactions. I just returned an
| onyx boox note because although the hardware was quite
| nice, the UI was just garbage. I'm sure Apple could do
| it, but it does't seem very on-brand for them. I'm
| waiting of a delivery of an RM2, but I'm still not that
| hopeful that they have solved the problem of reading an
| A4 academic PDF. Yet another reason to kill off the
| commercial academic publishing industry -- we can get
| proper epubs of papers!
| atrus wrote:
| e-ink displays and 3d printing have both convinced me that
| patents do more harm than good these days.
| fortran77 wrote:
| 3D printers -- both resin and filament-- are everywhere and
| cheap today.
|
| And there are many great affordable devices with e-Ink--I
| have several Amazon ebook readers that I use every day.
|
| I'm not sure I was harmed by any patent.
|
| Many of the things we talk about on Hacker News are covered
| by patents. Why do you want to shred a piece of the U.S.
| Constitution (assuming you're talking about U.S. patents)
| over eInk?
| Miraste wrote:
| I believe that was GP's point - 3D printers are cheap and
| ubiquitous because a patent on them expired in 2009. Before
| that they were expensive and had little tooling or support:
| useless outside large corporations, despite all the
| technology involved existing for years and years. I don't
| know the patent situation of e-ink but patent law was
| incredibly counterproductive in the case of 3D printing.
| Qwertious wrote:
| 3D printers aside (I don't know enough to comment),
| literally everyone I've seen who claims e-ink is held
| back by patents is either 1) speculating or 2) repeating
| hearsay and can't provide a source.
|
| Regardless of the issues with patents in general, in the
| specific context of e-ink it's an unsubstantiated myth
| until someone provides some hard evidence.
|
| E-ink patent speculation is especially problematic
| because everyone on HN agrees that patents are a problem,
| so it _sounds_ truthy and people _want_ to repeat it as
| an example of the evils of patents.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Everytime "e-ink" comes up here in any context, we see
| people doing a hit-and-run post about patents, with
| nothing to back it up. I'm wondering what the real agenda
| is here. Is there some competitor trying to do some sort
| of astroturfing?
| zokier wrote:
| its just a meme, and people are bitter because they love
| the concept of cool eink gadgets that never materialized
| so they want to have some scapegoat.
| dmwallin wrote:
| What competitors?
| robinsoh wrote:
| > patent law was incredibly counterproductive in the case
| of 3D printing.
|
| I don't work in the 3d printing industry so I don't have
| enough knowledge to know that with any level of
| confidence. It sounds plausible but not sure if it is
| true. That's why, I am curious whether you do, ie: do you
| work in the 3d printing industry? How confident are you
| that the recent proliferation was due to an expiration of
| a counterproductive patent (which one?) rather than just
| technologies, volume, demand, industrial production
| finally coming together and becoming mass market? Has
| there been any actual detailed analysis or study proving
| this? The reason I ask is not because I am opposed to the
| claim, rather I often see unsubstantiated claims like
| this go unchallenged for a long time. In the case of E
| Ink, I even saw someone blog that statement and they
| cited an HN comment about E Ink patents that I had
| challenged and the poster never responded, and then
| someone cited that very blog post in another HN comments
| so it became a circle of references where all the dots on
| the circle are unsubstantiated.
| monocasa wrote:
| The lynch pin FDM patent was 5,121,329 which expired in
| 2009; there were similar later patents in the space
| around SLA printing that expired in the five years
| following that. There's been plenty of analysis both from
| industry and academia that it was indeed holding back the
| proliferation of 3D printing technology.
|
| Being in a adjacent field of other robotic control that
| utilized 3d printing for our own prototyping before and
| after the proliferation I can also confirm the patent
| licensing being a major impediment to proliferation of
| the technology. We had high enough margins that we could
| spend $100k on a 3d printer before 2009. But the field
| has been revolutionized since then from the
| democratization and even our own processes changed
| heavily once we could have a bank of printers rather than
| just one. Sort of like the change of a a company sharing
| a mainframe with a guy dedicated to keeping it going
| versus ubiquitous microcomputers.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Exactly. I have two low-cost (Prusa) 3d printers going in
| my office lab right now. It wasn't until recently that
| technology, software, and infrastructure for filament and
| SLA supplies lined up to allow the current "explosion".
|
| In the early days, Stratasys and others really did
| "invent" significant things in the classic sense of the
| word. We're not talking about "one click purchase"
| patents here. Allowing them exclusive use of their
| invention for a couple of decades didn't seem to hurt
| anyone.
| Miraste wrote:
| Cheap SLA printers couldn't have happened until recently
| because of the screens, but there's nothing in FDM
| printers that wasn't available in the 90s. Sure it didn't
| "hurt anyone," people don't need 3D printers, but it
| stopped a whole subfield of engineering from existing for
| twenty years. Personally I call that detrimental.
|
| At least it's not as bad as the other IP protections. If
| the lawyers who brought us copyright law had gotten into
| patents, we'd be eagerly anticipating the launch of the
| consumer television.
| Miraste wrote:
| I'm not in the industry, just a hobbyist, but this is
| well established. There are dozens of companies making
| printers, filament, models, tutorials, software, and
| innovations that legally couldn't exist while this patent
| was active. Universities, makerspaces, and small to
| medium sized businesses (and hobbyists) didn't have
| access to the tech because of it.
|
| Here is the patent in question:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US5121329A/en
|
| And here's a short explanation of the impact:
| https://creax.com/insights/the-influence-of-patents-
| on-3d-pr...
| zokier wrote:
| But things turned out pretty well in the end? That is the
| whole point of patents: they expire. You say the tech
| existing for years and years, but few years is very short
| time, even 20 years is not that long time. Just need a
| bit of patience.
| robinsoh wrote:
| > e-ink displays and 3d printing have both convinced me that
| patents do more harm than good these days.
|
| I work in the display industry. Not for E Ink. But I have no
| idea what you're talking about. I see this claim about
| patents on e-ink repeated again and again. I don't know much
| about 3d printing so I can't confirm. But each time I've seen
| this patent claim about e-ink, I ask the poster/commenter
| what specific patent or patents or data they're talking about
| and thus far every single time they either go silent or get
| defensive or in rare occasions acknowledge they didn't know
| about it and just "felt" it was the case. So could you help
| me out and explain what data convinced you? You can see my
| comment history to see all my attempts to try to get at what
| is the actual truth.
|
| FYI, in my experience in the display industry, the main
| driver of price at scale is the asymptotic cost of components
| and materials like TFT backplanes, glue, passive layers,
| coatings, Indium Tin Oxide. Low volumes are what all of E
| Inks displays except the ones made for Amazon. That matches
| up with what I see in the prices.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Are you in the US? Is there a display industry in the US
| for getting backplanes?
| dmwallin wrote:
| This gets into a chicken and egg argument. You are arguing
| that the level of demand is leading to the current price
| point, while complainers about E Ink argue that anti
| competitive practices lead to higher prices which results
| in a lower demand.
|
| In a competitive market, both are actually true. The fact
| that there aren't really any major competitors to E Ink in
| that market indicates however that there probably is some
| sort of moat (whether it is IP, or otherwise)and that
| prices are likely higher than they would be in a more
| competitive market. There are a lot of signs that there is
| latent demand in the market and lowered prices would lead
| to an increase in total market volume.
| aeyes wrote:
| This article has a lot of information about the Pixel Qi
| patents in the last section:
| https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-rise-
| and...
|
| Money Quote: "The Pixel QI license was picked up by John
| Gilmore, activist, philanthropist, and founder of the
| Electronic Frontier Foundation. He has released the patents
| under the Defensive Patent License."
| [deleted]
| Qwertious wrote:
| E-ink displays being held back by patents is a myth. Please
| either provide a source or edit your comment.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| WHAT patents. ALL these technologies are about 40 years old.
| There are even mentions in this thread of the Game Boy /
| Color since they use very similar stuff.
|
| There are few if any patents involved here -- the problem is
| that there is just no demand. The moment you show someone the
| flashy backlighted screen he will go for it 100% of the time
| and ditch everything else (think: there's a reason people
| "upgrade" their GameBoyAdvance's to a backlight).
|
| Perhaps if you made a storefront directly illuminated by
| heavy sunlight...
| monocasa wrote:
| The gameboy (and GBC) screens are very different. They're
| normal LCD screens with a reflective and scattering layer
| behind them instead of a backlight. E-ink's technology
| doesn't apply to them.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Sorry for the confusion, I (as well as the rest of the
| people who mention it) mean (reflective) LCD overall
| (since the article is also incorrectly using "e-Ink" ).
| monocasa wrote:
| Ah, ok. That probably would have been clear to me if I
| had given your statements the benefit of the strongest
| argument you could be making. My bad, that's totally on
| me.
| zokier wrote:
| The primary e ink patents also have already expired, they
| are from late 90s:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US5930026
| monocasa wrote:
| That is _a_ patent, which is expired, but not the only
| patent, or the lynchpin of IP keeping people from
| independently making e-ink style screens.
|
| I generally have rule about being courteous to our fellow
| HNers and not doing something that could be cited as
| evidence of willful infringement (and triple damages),
| but I'll forgo it in this one case with the disclaimer
| I'll have around it in order to help dispel the rumors
| going around here that somehow patents aren't at issue.
| There are also other patents.
|
| = = = = = = A C T I V E P A T E N T = = = = = =
|
| Do not look at this patent if you work in the space of
| computer display technology.
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US9075280B2/en
|
| = = = = = = A C T I V E P A T E N T = = = = = =
| mbar84 wrote:
| Please be aware that "market failure" is also a technical term
| in economics, relating to positive and negative externalities.
| Your use appears to be the (by now probably dominant)
| colloquial use.
|
| I personally would not use this term, just as I would not use
| e.g. "to beg the question". I wonder if this phenomenon has a
| name, along the lines of "euphemistic treadmill".
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > I personally would not use this term, just as I would not
| use e.g. "to beg the question". I wonder if this phenomenon
| has a name, along the lines of "euphemistic treadmill".
|
| I intentionally use "beg the question" with the new meaning
| to do my part in cycling out the old meaning as quickly as
| possible. The "old" meaning is a waste of precious linguistic
| bandwidth, spent on a concept that is very rarely invoked
| (and could be just as easily invoked with something like
| "presupposes the facts", which is more intuitive).
|
| If language is dynamic, then braindead vestigials should be
| bulldozed out with prejudice, especially when they tie up
| prime real estate.
| balefrost wrote:
| If you're after intuitive language, why not use "raises the
| question" or "leads to the question" instead?
| mbar84 wrote:
| If a term is overloaded, and if the purpose of language is
| to communicate, then I think the better approach is to drop
| the term as a lost cause and switch to alternatives for
| both uses, rather than fight and endless battle. For the
| two meanings I use "raises the question" and "circular
| reasoning" or "the conclusion was already part of your
| original assumption".
| goodpoint wrote:
| "market failure" has various interpretations and objections:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
|
| The way black_puppydog used it fits the term quite well.
| mbar84 wrote:
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp
|
| > A market failure occurs whenever the individuals in a
| group end up worse off than if they had not acted in
| perfectly rational self-interest. Such a group either
| incurs too many costs or receives too few benefits.
|
| > Even though the concept seems simple, it can be
| misleading and easy to misidentify.
|
| > Contrary to what the name implies, market failure does
| not describe inherent imperfections in the market economy
|
| > Additionally, not every bad outcome from market activity
| counts as a market failure.
|
| As I say, I think he's using it in a very much more
| colloquial manner: "I don't like the outcome of the market
| process", which is fine.
| psychometry wrote:
| Everyone who's tried to fight a war against language change
| has lost.
| mbar84 wrote:
| Very true and for different terms we all are on
| battlefields waging a war that we mostly are not even aware
| we're in. As part of the mob, we just steadily walk over
| the minority who coined the term and plow them ever deeper
| into the muddy ground. Such is life... and death.
|
| I still find it worthwhile to point out when somebody uses
| a jargon term from an academic discipline, so they maybe
| can leave the battlefield and its senseless slaughter and
| instead and chose some other formulation.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| I use "market failure" colloquially I guess, yes.
|
| I use it to mean that despite demonstrated technological
| viability by multiple vendors, and despite the devices
| providing a solution to the issue of actual portability
| beyond closed rooms, the market has failed to make these
| devices accessible.
|
| IIRC one of the problems is that the benefit doesn't become
| obvious in "good" lighting conditions like a walmart
| building. In that way I'm putting much of the blame in this
| on the buying side of the market for making shallow, lazy
| buying decisions. But the producers are equally to blame
| here. Nobody made a serious first move, so no competition
| evolved, despite the availability of transflectives being
| _technically_ governed by market forces.
| mbar84 wrote:
| I don't know enough to judge the root cause. My ideological
| priors would make me look to blame the government granted
| monopoly patents on the display tech.
| emteycz wrote:
| Then I'd suggest to use another term, e.g. just failure.
| andai wrote:
| Mary Lou Jepsen (who created the One Laptop Per Child laptop
| also developed transflective displays for the laptop, which
| could switch between backlit color mode and sunlight-readable
| monochrome mode.
|
| Later her company Pixel Qi even developed a screen with solar
| panels inside it, to charge the device while it is used
| outside. Pixel Qi is now defunct.
|
| Today Jepsen is working on Clearwater, a non invasive brain
| imaging technology (an infrared headband which reconstructs a
| 3D image from scattered photons), which can be used for brain
| computer interfaces.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Brain computer interfaces will be life changing for about 1%
| of users, but unbelievably invasive for the rest after
| Facebook etc gets on board (possibly via oculus?)
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Later her company Pixel Qi even developed a screen with
| solar panels inside it, to charge the device while it is used
| outside.
|
| That's such a pointless gimmick though. Solar panels works
| best when they track the sun or are at least angled properly.
| Between the very few times you'd be using your device outside
| in direct sunlight, and actually having those panels angled
| towards the sun, you're not going to be charging anything at
| any reasonable rate. Those panels are completely useless and
| just add complexity and cost to the design. If you really
| care, you can buy portable solar chargers real cheap but they
| are universally mediocre at best.
|
| Why do stupid gimmicks like this? Why not have an efficient
| device and just charge it from the grid? Or, given that this
| was made for the developing world, charge it from a generator
| or a proper solar array or wind turbines ... or the grid
| (even developing nations will have a grid that functions at
| least most of the time)
| goldenCeasar wrote:
| Many places in my country have no access or reliable access
| to the grid and kids have to walk many miles to go to
| school, in this pandemic with the remote schooling this
| made millions of kids to miss classes or even leave school.
|
| I can think something like this would be very useful for
| these kids as chargers and solar panels wouldn't last long
| in the hand of childrens.
| lostphilosopher wrote:
| 10+ years ago I had a laptop case with solar panels and an
| outlet. It worked well; could both extend the battery life
| and charge when not in use. Not mediocre, and I imagine
| things have improved? There may be better solutions for low
| grid envs, but this one is viable.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >10+ years ago I had a laptop case with solar panels and
| an outlet.
|
| Do you think they would work better if they were built
| into the laptop screen? Because that's what OP was raving
| about.
|
| You can get batteries and external solar chargers (they
| are cheap and come in any size you want) if that's what
| you want to do. Building them into the device is STUPID.
| For one thing, you would need to put your device in
| direct sunlight to charge them ... and heat is not good
| for electronics. Also, the solar array size will be
| limited to whatever size your device is, that is: "too
| small".
| naikrovek wrote:
| man, you've got some bones to pick with solar power,
| don't you?
| macspoofing wrote:
| No. I think it's a perfectly fine technology ... but it
| isn't a panacea and it doesn't make sense for everything
| that people are trying to cram it into. Case in point,
| attaching solar panels to a smart phone or a laptop
| screen. I've conceded (somewhat) that if you really want
| to, it makes far more sense to get external panels and
| just plug them in.
| gandalfian wrote:
| 30 years ago I had a credit card calculator powered by a
| solar panel. Ideal pairing. Viewable screen in direct
| sunlight too thinking about it.
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's interesting that electronic calculators are
| basically the only type of devices ever to have
| successfully powered by integral solar panels.
|
| There are some electronic price tag products, wireless
| keyboards, decorative keychain tags, etc. that could work
| on solar only, but even those are rare.
|
| e: Forgot digital wristwatches. They seem to work fine.
| lixtra wrote:
| Solar powered parking meters seem to be another example.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| On a larger scale, there are a lot of flashing LED road
| signs or radar speed warning signs that aren't connected
| to the grid. Instead, they are powered by a small solar
| panel with a battery for at night. Even simple stop signs
| on wooden 4x4 posts have these.
|
| At least in my area, the speed warning signs tend to get
| moved to a different location a couple of times a year,
| and not having to run any wiring probably makes that
| significantly easier.
| csharptwdec19 wrote:
| > wireless keyboards
|
| I really like the Logitech K700 solar keyboards, with two
| caveats:
|
| - In a couple of mine, the included battery seems to have
| lost the ability to keep a charge well before you would
| expect (i.e. a year). This is a bit of an annoyance in
| that it is a rechargable button cell, not your run of the
| mill AA/AAA sized NIMH/Lithium bit.
|
| - The build quality on these as far as sturdiness/etc
| isn't great. And if it ever gets 'flexed' too much, you
| wind up with broken traces internally, leading to issues
| where the juice doesn't flow one way or another unless
| you flex it back in the right way.
|
| I love them in the office, but at home they just don't
| handle the use of clumsy roommates.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I was going to mention watches! I love my Casio Tough
| Solar and wore it daily for five years. It never reported
| a charge level less than 'High'. If it didn't say on the
| box that it was solar, the only thing I would have
| noticed is that the battery never seemed to run down.
|
| The solar charging is probably the biggest feature I'm
| missing in my smartwatch, but at least it has a (low-
| power, daylight-readable, always-on) transflective
| screen.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| One of the really high-end Garmin watches have solar
| charging: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/641375
|
| According to their docs it increases the battery life by
| up to 3 days when you're not using the GPS.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Good to know, thanks! The price is a bit more than I can
| justify at the moment though, you weren't kidding about
| the high-end part. That's worth more than my car!
| macspoofing wrote:
| >It's interesting that electronic calculators are
| basically the only type of devices ever to have
| successfully powered by integral solar panels.
|
| Because they are ultra-low powered devices. If tiny solar
| cells can power that kind of device, then it can also be
| powered through kinetic energy (i.e. user's movement) as
| well ... Or you could spend $5 and put a standard watch-
| type battery in there which will last you years. So even
| there solar panels are a bit gimmicky. But ok, do
| whatever you like.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And it's pretty simple to figure out why it's so for
| electronic calculators. I had one of these, a modern-ish
| one though, except that the solar panel was defective and
| never actually worked. I only noticed after 3 years of
| use. That's how much the builtin _half-discharged_ coin
| battery would last... and how useless the solar panel
| actually is... I would even guess they only put in the
| solar panel for the look.
|
| You could probably power such a calculator from ambient
| radiowaves, using a galena crystal...
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| A lot of basic solar-powered calculators don't have
| batteries at all. Covering the solar panel will shut it
| off.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Yeah, what I mean (and has been better put elsewhere) is
| that the consumption of your average calculator is so low
| as to be practically negligible (<1mW?), otherwise
| capable of running for years on a depleted battery. Which
| is why they may work from such a small solar panel, but
| at the same time it says nothing about the solar panel
| itself.
| kn0where wrote:
| And a lot of cheap calculators don't even have real solar
| cells: https://youtu.be/uLTDuGhqE2w
| Renaud wrote:
| Calculators need mere microwatts of power to function. A
| very basic laptop is in the tens of watts.
|
| A difference of many orders of magnitude that you can't
| compensate by the size of solar panel on a small device.
| supermatt wrote:
| > A very basic laptop is in the tens of watts
|
| The latest version device in question (the OLPC) is ~5W
| under normal usage and less than 1W when idle.
|
| Im not sure about an integrated solar panel - im not sure
| i would want to keep my laptop exposed to the sun - but i
| was able to keep a 2015 macbook charged with a small
| solar panel while travelling (approx 4 hours a day of
| heavy usage).
|
| Obv depends on time of year, location, weather, etc.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| But even 1W is several orders of magnitude greater than
| the average LCD calculator.
| [deleted]
| ant6n wrote:
| Fewer moving parts? How much power does a low powered
| laptop need while in transflective mode? How much power
| does a solar panel produce that's not facing the Sun?
|
| One could cover the front and back of the screen panel on
| solar panels this way, if it could create a device that's
| mostly independent from a grid or extra gadgets to plug in
| it could be nice. But yeah, maybe an external little solar
| array would be more flexible.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >How much power does a solar panel produce that's not
| facing the Sun?
|
| Nothing.
|
| >But yeah, maybe an external little solar array would be
| more flexible.
|
| And those little solar mats are mediocre at best. They
| just don't work very well. They take forever to charge
| and require strong direct sunlight. But hey, if you want
| to use them, go ahead. They are still better than having
| them built into the device.
| ant6n wrote:
| So it appears modern smartphones have a power consumption
| of about a Watt (see cousin post). Assuming a
| transflective display, that laptop could use a similar
| amount of power. Assuming a 20cm x 30cm charge area and
| 1000Watt/m2, you need to only capture 1.7% of the energy
| of the directly incident sunlight [1]. Or assuming your
| panel has 10% effiency, you need to get 17% of direct sun
| light light onto the surface. Thats a fair allowance for
| clouds and weird angles and whatnot.
| [1] 1W / (20cm*30cm*1000 W/m^2)*
| Semaphor wrote:
| At a metal-festival in Northern Germany I was at in 2019,
| there was a guy with a 1-2m2 solar mat. It was enough to
| charge his phone and play music. Doesn't seem too
| horrible.
| aj3 wrote:
| I imagine that in places where electricity is scarce,
| adults might have different priorities than charging kid's
| laptop. Maybe the idea is that you leave laptop open in sun
| if the battery dies and it charges without needing access /
| permission to use power grid / generators?
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Give them a laptop and put the solar panel on the side?
| Even in the exact case you're mentioning, they're better
| as separate devices. (It wasn't done this way because the
| solar panel would be used for other purposes, but
| treating the user as hostile is the clearest sign that
| something has gone terribly wrong in your design
| process.)
| macspoofing wrote:
| >I imagine that in places where electricity is scarce
|
| I think that's what most people in the west imagine and
| that's why this is a gimmick that resonates with well-
| meaning westerners. Besides the fact that developing
| world is a diverse place in all aspects (so the the
| stereotype you're imaging is wrong for the vast majority
| of the developing world), communication is such an
| ingrained human need, that communication devices like
| smart phones are everywhere.
|
| But none of that matters. These panels just do not work
| well - or at least as well as you can expect given the
| surface area and whether or not there's enough sunlight.
| That's why nobody bothers with building them into
| devices. Besides you can buy little external solar
| chargers for real cheap. And the external ones are better
| than the ones built into the devices because you can
| angle them, and they aren't a failure point you need to
| worry about (that is, if they die, your device doesn't
| need to be replaced), and aren't limited to device size.
| Also, I don't know why you would want your electronics
| exposed to direct sunlight... Heat is not good for
| electronics.
|
| Again, I support low-power, energy efficient devices.
| There is a very real use case for them, and not just for
| the developing world. But these gimmicks, like building
| in solar panels into the device, are dumb.
| aj3 wrote:
| I am married to a teacher and can assure you that even in
| 'the West' there are kids without personal smartphone and
| without a single computer/tablet at home.
|
| No idea whether heat aspect is worked around in OLPC
| somehow by carefully selecting materials used or
| whatever, my point is that making these laptops self-
| sufficient would indeed be useful (if at all possible).
| initramfs wrote:
| Definitely agree. There is a profit incentive to make
| laptops powerful but there is very little competition at
| the low end, unfortunately. I solar powered a
| microcontroller in indoor light just to prove that
| powering a computer is possible (96mhz is far more
| capable than even some early 486 PCs that ran Windows) ,
| and not just a calculator.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ztj_MDNRcI
|
| of course, powering a screen would require much more
| light, but it's not impossible if there was a full system
| re-development - from low power monochrome displays to
| light peripherals. Our group hopes to get a terminal to
| display on an e-ink, which seems doable:
| https://forum.ei2030.org/t/paperterm-project-definition-
| and-...
| userbinator wrote:
| _Also, I don 't know why you would want your electronics
| exposed to direct sunlight... Heat is not good for
| electronics._
|
| Also UV. It'll destroy plastics rather quickly.
| einpoklum wrote:
| If you have non-utilized surface area / volume in the
| screen part of your laptop, why not put solar panels in
| there? Yes, their reception might not be optimal due to
| angling constraints, but if they're light enough, they
| might still be useful to have. So you don't know for a fact
| that it's a gimmick.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Why do stupid gimmicks like this?
|
| This are very harsh words. Do you have evidence to back the
| claim that the designer did not do proper research?
|
| Perhaps they had reasons to believe that a self-contained
| device would survive being handled by children, while an
| external panel would get lost or broken.
| Renaud wrote:
| Cost is probably what killed that project, but it's not
| entirely stupid, although it would certainly be better with
| a foldable panel at the back of the screen that can be
| positioned optimally.
|
| A 30x20cm laptop could get at best 12-10W of sun power with
| a solar panel on its surface.
|
| You could build a useful laptop with the same spec as a
| smartphone with a standard 4000mA battery and need about a
| charge a day in normal use.
|
| Since the exposure of your laptop to the sun would be
| suboptimal, you may only get 4W for say 5h a day, which
| seems fairly reasonable and is enough to recharge the
| battery every day.
|
| Even on bad days, you would probably be able to use your
| laptop half of the time, which could still be a few hours
| and enough to make a difference to someone with otherwise
| no access to technology.
| II2II wrote:
| > Why do stupid gimmicks like this? Why not have an
| efficient device and just charge it from the grid?
|
| I used to have a laptop with dual batteries, so one could
| swap one battery out with another to have an uninterrupted
| power supply without having access to the grid. Very few
| people need an uninterrupted power supply while away from
| the grid, but some people do. That is why such a design
| existed. Something like an integrated solar panel may fill
| a similar niche.
|
| It is also worth noting that a technology should not be
| dismissed simply because the first iterations appear
| impractical. If we took that attitude, many of the things
| we enjoy today simply would not exist. Just think of
| personal computers from the late 1970's and early 1980's.
| Few people used them since they were not very practical. On
| the other hand, that seed of a market both financed the
| development of the machines we use today and directed the
| development of the technology towards something we would
| want to use today. (Put another way: if people did not use
| that impractical technology in their homes, it likely that
| computers would remain the tools of large institutions.)
| rzzzt wrote:
| IBM/Lenovo themselves supported dual batteries at one
| point with the Ultrabay expansion slots:
| https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Ultrabay
| nogridbag wrote:
| Dell used to offer dual battery bays in its business line
| like the Latitude C840:
|
| https://youtu.be/9XkeTCIC1TA?t=453
|
| Side note: The clips holding in the batteries were the
| number one failure mode on those laptops.
| userbinator wrote:
| _One Laptop Per Child laptop also developed transflective
| displays for the laptop, which could switch between backlit
| color mode and sunlight-readable monochrome mode._
|
| In practice, mono mode was just barely readable in bright
| sunlight, and the colour mode was a grainy mess for anything
| with fine detail due to the lack of true RGB pixels[1]. I
| knew someone who had one of those --- it was more of a cute
| toy than anything actually useful, and that was at the time
| when tiny "netbooks" were still common.
|
| [1] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| I had an XO-1 and your description is really selling the
| display short, it was much more than just barely readable
| in bright light. Yes resolution was fairly low on the
| display, but it was first generation technology and the
| entire laptop cost only $200. OLPC made many questionable
| decisions, but the screen was good tech. I remember wanting
| transflective screens in other devices for a long time
| before finally giving up hope.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Agreed, the screen was one of the best things about the
| XO-1. Transreflective displays do live on here and there,
| I have an Amazfit Bip [1] which uses one.
|
| 1: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/amazfit-
| bip,review-5629.html
| jschwartzi wrote:
| Garmin watches also have transflective displays. I've
| never needed the backlight since I've always got either
| sunlight or a headlamp.
| dleslie wrote:
| I have two XO-1s; they're great to use while sitting on the
| end of a dock, hacking in a remote terminal.
|
| Literally no other screen I have comes close to how
| readable the XO-1 is in bright light.
| FlyMoreRockets wrote:
| I also have a couple XO-1s and agree, the transflective
| screens are excellent. My Kindle Paperwhite has a more
| readable E-ink display, but isn't _that_ much better.
| phonon wrote:
| > Jepsen is working on Clearwater,
|
| Openwater.
|
| https://www.openwater.cc/about-us
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| In my experience the Palm Pilot Pro had the best view-ability
| of any electronic device (GameBoy being a close second) in
| (outdoor) full sunlight.
| macawfish wrote:
| Well and there are large, high resolution full color
| transflective displays out there! It's really frustrating that
| these aren't available. My mental health would improve
| substantially if it were easier to work outside.
| ohazi wrote:
| Availability is also one of the principal problems with
| e-Ink, and is directly related to the patent issue. It is
| next to impossible to source e-Ink displays (even at
| outrageous prices), or to work with E Ink corporation in
| _any_ capacity unless you are huge and are in a market they
| are interested in. Making another generic ebook and can
| credibly claim that you might sell half a million? Maybe they
| 'll talk to you. Work for Lenovo and want to put an e-Ink
| layer in a trackpad? "We're not pursuing that market segment
| at this time." It's not an open market, and they haven't been
| interested in moving beyond ebook readers for the last
| decade.
|
| Smaller designers who want access to the technology can't get
| it from a western company, because none are stupid enough to
| attempt to design a competitor while E Ink the company is
| still around to sue them.
|
| Fairly recently we've started to see Chinese electrophoretic
| displays crop up, and I can actually get a devkit or buy them
| by the low thousand, because E Ink isn't going to be able to
| sue them in China. But you still don't see them designed into
| very many products sold in the west, because it would be easy
| for E Ink to stop the end product from being sold.
| varispeed wrote:
| What is preventing someone from creating a display with the
| same concept as e-ink? This is not a new technology and the
| idea has been around since 70s.
| wjdp wrote:
| If nobody can buy these displays, who is keeping the E Ink
| corporation in business?
| emteycz wrote:
| Patents aren't part of the market, it's regulation.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| That's actually the fairest point of critique about my
| rambling that I've heard in a while, and I have been rambling
| about this since 2012. :D
|
| That being said, the Toshiba Portege showed that a big
| manufacturer _can_ produce these at scale if they want to,
| and they haven 't continued with it. If someone here is
| willing to share stories from the trenches if that particular
| battle ground, I'm all ears. :)
| IshKebab wrote:
| This isn't e-ink. He even says "it's kind of like e-ink" in the
| video.
| Qwertious wrote:
| On top of that, while there _are_ e-ink screens that can
| refresh at 30Hz, they aren 't bi-stable. In other words, you
| have to give up the main benefit of e-ink in order to get half
| the refresh rate of a normal LCD.
|
| The fundamental problem behind e-ink refresh rates is that
| there's an inherent physical limit to how quickly you can shake
| your ink particles up and down without damaging things.
| einpoklum wrote:
| You had me at Thinkpad X230. Although the 220 keyboard is better
| IIRC.
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| This is what I thought too ... I am giggling over this ... :
|
| Them: "Woah, you just tip the screen computer down and it can
| project an immersive 3D holographic experience? That you can
| interact with directly? That's just so amazing!"
|
| Us: "Woah, it's a X230? Even cooler if it had an X220
| keyboard!"
| rvense wrote:
| I think someone managed to stick a 220 keyboard onto a 230
| icey wrote:
| There are quite a few people who have done this (myself
| included). The process is pretty straightforward since they
| have nearly identical chassis. r/Thinkpad has a lot of
| details on how to do it. The toughest part is covering the
| right connections on the ribbon cable for the 220 keyboard
| since the pinouts are slightly different. It is a fun little
| project and the keyboards can be found pretty cheaply on
| eBay.
| rasz wrote:
| dont you need a bios(smc) modded firmware flash to make all
| the keys work?
| icey wrote:
| Yes, you're right. I forgot about this step because I
| also corebooted my Thinkpad and replaced the NIC at the
| same time as keyboard. For the keyboard, I used these
| instructions: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_Clas
| sic_Keyboard_on_x...
|
| (Corebooting was not needed to flash the bios, it just
| seemed fun at the time)
| pinusc wrote:
| Yes, however the process is very easy today and can be
| done entirely software-side, thanks to 1vyrain [1]. So
| you don't need to flash the BIOS using an external
| programmer, just run what amounts to an
| exploited/modified update. I recently did this on my
| T430, and could not be happier about the keyboard.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/n4ru/1vyrain
| tyler109 wrote:
| You should join our eink community: we are working on an open
| source eink laptop. Join our Discord server:
| https://forum.ei2030.org/t/welcome-to-the-ei2030-forum/7
| TekMol wrote:
| Why a laptop and not just a mobile monitor?
| Tepix wrote:
| You can already by a 13 inch mobile e-ink monitor. There's
| the Onyx Boox Max series starting with the Max2 (the current
| model is the Max Lumi) with HDMI in and the Dasung Paperlike
| monitor. They are pricey, however.
| yoz-y wrote:
| What would be an advantage of that?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| It can be used as a PC display, which I'd kill for
| (figuratively) as long as it's affordable. If it's $200 or
| more, that's not what I consider affordable.
| TekMol wrote:
| To develop a laptop is a much bigger goal than developing a
| monitor.
|
| And everyone has different taste/priorities when it comes
| to laptops.
|
| I would like to put the monitor on a stand behind the
| laptop so it is on eye height.
| yoz-y wrote:
| Since such a screen would be most usable outdoors, I
| wonder about the setup. I guess if it'd be light and thin
| enough it could be put on top of the screen in that case?
| Or would you have a separate stand for it?
| TekMol wrote:
| I would think a seperate stand. So I can put it behind
| the laptop and get it to eye height.
| Qwertious wrote:
| E-ink monitors already exist. Look up the Dasung e-ink
| monitor.
| TekMol wrote:
| That might be an option. Have you tried them?
| tazjin wrote:
| I have one and use it outside regularly (e.g. [0]), it's
| pretty amazing!
|
| There's some open-source tooling[1] for it which can
| control screen features like
| brightness/refreshes/rendering modes/... and I've set it
| up[2] to work with my unprivileged user so that I can
| bind these features to keys in my Emacs.
|
| With these screens you want to use light themes, and use
| tooling to improve contrast on websites (a friend wrote a
| Firefox extension[3] which is amazing for this).
|
| [0]: https://photos.app.goo.gl/eGgGYR7ecBqv9gqy8
|
| [1]: https://github.com/leoluk/paperlike-go
|
| [2]: https://cl.tvl.fyi/c/depot/+/3029
|
| [3]: https://github.com/adisbladis/einkmode-firefox
| hollander wrote:
| If you have some kind of overlay screen you can have both
| worlds. But I was still under the impression that E-ink was
| the only option. Today I learnt about transflective
| screens. I hope they catch on. I would buy it.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Perfect machine for working on a beach.
| hobo_mark wrote:
| Wonder who'd want to do mentally demanding work under hot sun.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Me?
|
| It would be stupid to keep my wife and kids home during
| summer just because I need to work. So they sometimes travel
| without me.
|
| I have actually been working remotely for many years. It is
| sometimes possible to move stuff around so that I have mostly
| reading for a week or two and then I could do it anywhere I
| want.
|
| I have experimented with traveling while working remotely
| with some mixed results.
| yc-kraln wrote:
| I have often thought that a device purpose-built for music with
| one of these transflexive screens would be absolutely fantastic.
| Even the 10" screens are big enough; Two screens for a folio
| would make a fantastic device for any musician to travel with.
|
| Now I sort of want to build one. Adafruit doesn't stock them
| anymore ( https://www.adafruit.com/product/1303 )
|
| Anyone know where I could get two?
| guffaw5 wrote:
| I just bought one on ebay[0]. I've been having trouble tracking
| down a compatible driver board though.
|
| Edit: Apparently this[1] is the matching driver board.
|
| [0] https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pixel-Qi-10-1-PQ3QI-01-LCD-
| Display-...
|
| [1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/Kit-For-PQ3QI-01-HDMI-DVI-VGA-
| LCD-L...
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| Related, I really hope someone will make a laptop with TCLs
| Nxtpaper* - or alternatively Apple starts offering their
| Nanotexture option on Macbooks.
|
| * https://m.gsmarena.com/tcl_nxtpaper_brings_new_display_techn...
| potiuper wrote:
| Does it work with Linux?
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Yes and it works better than Windows because you can turn the
| backlight completely off for maximum battery life.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Oh, you can't turn the backlight completely off in Windows?
|
| (I had no idea; I only use Linux on ancient ThinkPads,
| since... well, that's what they're for! :P)
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Yes, it seems to be a driver issue under windows, however
| it's less that 0.1w at min brightness
| dreamlayers wrote:
| The first video iPod has a colour transflective LCD. Why aren't
| there more colour displays like that?
| rhim wrote:
| Are there major differences in battery life?
| foobar33333 wrote:
| One thing to note, this is _not_ an e-ink display. The quotes
| around e-ink should be replaced with "diaplay that looks like
| e-ink" There are no colored capsules in this screen which float
| around to create a picture. These are usually just regular LCDs
| with no or little backlight and a reflective backing.
| floatboth wrote:
| Transflective displays do seem to result in decent battery
| life, the Pebble Time watch is a good example. Though we do
| now have long lasting OLED watches - looks like running
| Android on a beefy CPU vs a tiny RTOS on a microcontroller is
| the bigger difference... buuuut still the Pebble gets away
| with a smaller battery than these OLED ones I think?
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Same as running the laptop with the brightness all the way down
| (Windows) and backlight completely off (Linux). This is
| specific to the X230.
| bananicorn wrote:
| This is the same type of screen used as in the pebble
| smartwatches[0], right?
|
| Honestly, I wonder why that technology hasn't been used for
| anything like the Thinkpad in the video - I'd love to have such a
| device!
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Hardware
| pareidolia wrote:
| No, the Pebble used a Sharp Memory LCD, a different
| transflective technology. It can only do greyscale while
| pixelQi uses prisms to separate the colors. That's why you get
| color with backlight and greyscale out in the sun.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > It can only do greyscale
|
| Eh? My Pebble Time has a color screen, and it sure is
| transflective.
| corgihamlet wrote:
| The pebble time has a display like an old Game Boy Color
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And so does Pixel Qi. They're both LCD, after all.
| kiririn wrote:
| I can speak only for the Pebble Time Steel, but it is
| leaps and bounds better than the gameboy color.
|
| I would kill for an equivalent display in a laptop -
| saturated colours and eink readability in direct sunlight
| with 30hz refresh
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| "transflective" is just a broad description of displays
| which take in light and reflect it back, implementations
| and drawbacks vary.
| Woung1938 wrote:
| The most plausible explanation is that the tech is patented to
| such a degree that producing this kind of solutions is just not
| economically viable.
| Qwertious wrote:
| The most plausible explanation is that it's expensive because
| there's no economy economy of scale, and that there's no
| economy of scale because people don't want to pay extra for a
| worse quality screen even if it has a slightly better battery
| life.
| mbar84 wrote:
| Considering how long ago the OLPC project was, hopefully the
| patents are running out soon.
| Qwertious wrote:
| Patents aren't the main problem here; the lower refresh
| rate and resolution mean not many people want it.
|
| Fewer people wanting it means lower economy of scale and
| higher prices, which means even fewer still.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Always with this excuse, but I really doubt it. There's just
| a million manufacturers of this or technology similar to
| this. Many of them have failed and people usually would only
| notice and care _after_ they failed.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Anyone else here old enough to remember the Mac Portable? It had
| a monochrome reflective (no backlight) display fast enough to
| display video (a rarity at the time) and worked great in
| sunlight. Apparently it wasn't so great in low light. There was a
| backlit version sometime later, per wikipedia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Portable
| xwdv wrote:
| My demands for an e-ink display aren't even that high. I just
| want some kind of e-ink that can be used with vim and terminals
| that will be easier on the eyes, I can use a separate monitor for
| graphical applications. What are my options in 2021?
| Causality1 wrote:
| Transflective screens are a vastly underappreciated technology
| these days. Back in the 00's basically every PDA came with one as
| standard. I don't know why we just decided we didn't need them in
| the smartphone era.
| snthd wrote:
| >every PDA came with one as standard
|
| including the N900
| foobar33333 wrote:
| This video is an example of why. It looks crap and has no
| color. I have no problems seeing my phone in the sun and it
| looks stunning. The HN crowd hypes up tech that real users
| don't want and exaggerates problems that real users don't have
| or don't care about.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| I'm personally fine without color on a device I can use
| outdoors. Text don't need to be colored to be readable. I
| tried to work on a laptop outdoors - even in shadow in sunny
| weather I had to set brightness close to maximum which drains
| battery too fast.
| techrat wrote:
| It's in color. It just appears more black and white when in
| direct sunlight.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I just tried to use my iPhone on direct sunlight. It does not
| look stunning. It is barely usable.
| _jstreet wrote:
| I agree, I'd rather not have to turn the brightness up to
| 100% so that my battery life drains faster to be able to
| view my phone in direct sunlight.
| floatboth wrote:
| My OnePlus phone in direct sunlight not only pushes the
| physical OLED brightness to the max, but seems to also
| apply some filter to the image that makes dark colors
| brighter, e.g. a dark gray keyboard almost turns into
| lighter gray. Does help with visibility.
| gsich wrote:
| Turn 180deg and the problem is solved.
| floatboth wrote:
| They're not the best for multimedia, that's why. But for
| strictly informational displays they're really nice. I like the
| one on the Pebble Time watch.
| bluedino wrote:
| If the X220/230 had came with an IPS screen, preferably 1440x900,
| I would have never switched to MacBooks
|
| (I am aware the tablet version came with an IPS screen but that
| is a different model)
| rasz wrote:
| x230 non Tablets also came with IPS
| https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=127949 I know
| because I have a few, all have blemishes on panels at this
| point.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And the Lenovo IPS screens on the X220(t) were notoriously bad
| anyway. The ghosting being so extreme I used to think my xterm
| had transparent backgrounds enabled (imagine my horror when I
| realized I didn't).
| andai wrote:
| Super cool, I love these! Is this an old Pixel Qi display? Or is
| anyone still making them?
| Snoozus wrote:
| Looks like transflective screens were available in some Panasonic
| Toghbooks, the internet says CF-19 MK5-8
| TekMol wrote:
| Are these types of displays available as external monitors which
| are powered by USB?
|
| Would love to work outside and put the monitor on a stand so I
| don't have to look down.
| Twirrim wrote:
| The slower FPS and slight blurring is making me nostalgic for the
| old "luggable" portable computers from the 90s, and early LCD
| display laptops, though it's no where near as bad as they used to
| be.
| devn0ll wrote:
| Absolutely fantastic! I saw the post on Reddit and I immediately
| thought "WANT IT".
|
| Black and white in direct sunlight? And color in the shade,
| development dream this thing. (At least for me that is)
|
| Shame the company behind it does not really exist anymore.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| The PixelQI IP was acquired by someone else, but I'm pretty
| sure they've just sat on it.
|
| I would kill for a 12.1" 1440x900 QI panel for my X201.
| voxadam wrote:
| The Pixel Qi IP is apparently now owned by Tripuso Display
| Solutions.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.tripuso.com/
| techdragon wrote:
| Are they even in business? I mean that site looks like they
| don't even want customers...
| rbanffy wrote:
| The best way to find that out is to build a transflective
| LCD screen. I'm pretty sure they'll be in business only
| if someone tries to make something.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| Tried calling 6 months ago. Number is dead.
| bogwog wrote:
| Maybe someone in Georgia can drop in and do a wellness
| check
| einpoklum wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure they've just sat on it.
|
| Ah, the magic of intellectual property ownership, supposedly
| helping to promote technological progress.
|
| Is this US-registered IP?
| me_me_me wrote:
| You don't want that! You want a thinner lighter laptop with
| tiny battery and shitty keyboard. Trust us on this, we are
| professionals.
| blagie wrote:
| The problem is lack of standardization. My desktop is decked
| out the way I like. That's different from how you'd like.
|
| I'd obviously buy a high-quality high-res reflective display
| for my laptop. I wouldn't swap out the rest of my laptop for
| a random laptop with a high-quality high-res reflective
| display.
|
| But you can't just swap laptop components, except for
| sometimes SSD, RAM, and wifi card.
|
| If there were an industry-standard 13" and 15" laptop form
| factor with swapable components like a desktop, there would
| be a market for eInk displays and other oddballs. You could
| stick them in your HP, and Ivanka could stick it in her
| Lenovo. I'd buy a:
|
| * Keyboard with eraser dongle
|
| * Overbuild, rugged case (think ToughBook). I don't mind the
| weight.
|
| * Motherboard with two M.2 slots (for RAID), ECC memory, and
| lots of ports
|
| * High-res outdoor readable display
|
| * High-quality microphone and camera (I don't care about
| speakers)
|
| And stick it all together.
|
| I'd never buy a Toughbook as-is, since the display doesn't
| have enough resolution. I don't like a lot of the
| workstation/gaming style laptops either, mostly since they
| use a ton of power, which leads to fan noise, heat, and other
| annoyances.
|
| At the end of the day, without being able to customize, the
| thinner laptop with shitty keyboard seems to be what I want.
| me_me_me wrote:
| > At the end of the day, without being able to customize,
| the thinner laptop with shitty keyboard seems to be what I
| want.
|
| See, I told you :)
|
| You can have any laptop you'd like "so long as it is
| black".
| craftinator wrote:
| I just spit toothpaste everywhere while reading your comment,
| thanks for that.
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