[HN Gopher] Boox Mira Pro - 25.3" E Ink Monitor
___________________________________________________________________
Boox Mira Pro - 25.3" E Ink Monitor
Author : lnyan
Score : 409 points
Date : 2021-12-03 09:45 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shop.boox.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (shop.boox.com)
| vxa_victor wrote:
| These products look amazing but a major drawback is the lack of
| colors. Any chance e-ink will get color support?
| archerx wrote:
| They exist and they look cool kind of like comic books. They
| are expensive and the refresh rate is slower though.
|
| https://www.waveshare.com/5.65inch-e-paper-module-f.htm
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's all how you explain it. 4k e-ink has ~ 8M balls, and can
| refresh ... let's say 10x per second. giving a stunning
| refresh rate of 80megaballs per second.
|
| That's an incredibly high rate!
| mdp2021 wrote:
| You can use Kaleido (E-Ink EPD with RGB filter on top) - it's
| already available. Or, wait for cheap and fast E-Ink ACeP
| ("Advanced Color ePaper").
|
| Quality, you will have to assess.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| I'd absolutely love to try something like this for programming,
| but it's much too expensive for me to try out on a whim
| keewee7 wrote:
| >Onyx Boox is a brand of e-book reader produced by Onyx
| International Inc, based in China
|
| China is the only country innovating right now. The rest of the
| world really needs to start building combined manufacturing and
| innovation hubs like Shenzhen.
| criddell wrote:
| Isn't Onyx one of the more famous GPL violators? Maybe
| innovation is easier when you let others do the R&D and you
| just use it.
| fnord77 wrote:
| would smooth scrolling of text be possible?
| dirtyid wrote:
| Looks nice, but feels like another year where ebook hasn't
| arrived. Still waiting for the day of sub 500 eink 50 inch
| screens.
| lambdaba wrote:
| I couldn't (easily) find information about refresh rates and
| such, what I want is to know if this is usable for coding.
| Frankly I'm down to go with lower stats for this, because I so
| want to be able to use a computer with just natural light.
|
| If anybody has been doing this I'd love to read about your
| experience!
| deanc wrote:
| Might be a bit of a struggle without syntax highlighting?
| Contrast won't get you very far.
| deepstack wrote:
| I don't care about syntax highlighting, being coding in black
| and white terminal for a really long time. I care more about
| screen to be more like paper than screen. LED color screen
| really hurts my eyes. Coding in natural light on paper would
| be much better.
| fho wrote:
| You might be surprised how far contrast (and cursive, bold,
| etc) can get you. Eg: https://github.com/fxn/vim-monochrome
|
| edit: Also, and probably a lot more controversial, code
| structure matters a lot. No syntax highlighting will save you
| if your code consists of opaque blocks of text.
| lvncelot wrote:
| That example is a little misleading though, since it's
| using a shade of blue for comments and strings.
|
| But in general, I'd agree, I've been using a monochrome
| color scheme for a few weeks (although mostly for the
| novelty) and it's definitely usable. When given the choice,
| I will use a full-color one though.
| fho wrote:
| Good point. Here's the same image desaturated:
| https://i.imgur.com/jBCZGEO.png (GIMP -> Desaturate ->
| Luminance)
|
| I feel like it does not really lose anything in
| grayscale.
|
| Bonus: On a eInk display black on white is probably
| nicer: https://i.imgur.com/99DSGrV.png
|
| (Does Imgur allow direct links to images?)
| WJW wrote:
| I'll admit that that example did more than I expected with
| the limited tools it has, but it is still rather far from
| the things full color highlighting can do.
| lloeki wrote:
| I remember having a chat with Andrew Gerrand at some Go
| conference, about how syntax highlighting is mostly done
| wrong, we just got used to it being that way. It's not
| like we colour words in a sentence based on their type,
| but we do enjoy tools highlighting misspelled words or
| grammatical errors.
|
| In my experience syntax highlighting as a tool mostly
| help with certain classes of errors (e.g unclosed string
| or comment), not visually tokenising text for me to
| understand.
|
| I've seen some such uncoloured theme (nofrils) that would
| de-emphasise either comments or code, and you could
| toggle between the two states, which I found quite useful
| in nicely commented files:
|
| https://robertmeta.com/posts/syntax-highlighting-off/
|
| There are a bunch of learnings and a couple of links to
| references in that article. Ironically one of the most
| prevalent I experienced was this one, which I found very
| odd because picking a colorscheme for my $EDITOR is quite
| literally a choice that would affect only myself:
|
| > People on the internet will get very angry at you if
| you tell them you don't like syntax highlighting. VERY
| ANGRY.
|
| Some of these vim "color"schemes:
| https://github.com/robertmeta/nofrils
| https://github.com/clinstid/eink.vim
| https://github.com/ikaros/smpl-vim
|
| They pair well with vim-airline's "raven" theme.
| fho wrote:
| Somewhat tangential: but I love the LiquidHaskell demos,
| mostly because they show what would be possible if our
| tools would just be a tiny bit smarter.
|
| Example: 1. Goto here:
| http://goto.ucsd.edu:8090/index.html#?demo=Order.hs
| 2. Run Check, it should turn green 3. Break the
| code, e.g. turn around the >= sign in line 147 4.
| Run Check again, it will turn red and highlight line 147
| and 148
|
| What happened here?
|
| We told the compiler that elements in an ordered list
| will be in increasing order (l.119). Now the compiler is
| able to check that constraint and by turning around the
| comparison we violated the it.
|
| Ie by telling the compiler a tiny bit about our goals
| (have ordered lists) it is now able to check that our
| algorithm is correct.
| rbanffy wrote:
| You can, indeed, do a lot without colors. I actually find
| it a lot less distracting to have various shades of the
| same color and highlight with bold, italics, and a couple
| shades of gray. The other day I was wondering if I could
| add some non-ascii chars to htop's monochrome mode
| (looked like a pain, will pick it up later) to explore
| textures instead of colors.
|
| I remember using Think Pascal on the Apple II (too slow
| to be of any use) but it did a great job of highlighting
| the structure of the program under the source code. This
| is what I want syntax/semantic highlighting to do for me.
|
| These screens are higher resolution and can have multiple
| shades of gray, which is much more than what those
| pioneers had to communicate with their users.
|
| Horrendously expensive though.
| clessg wrote:
| My favorite part of that example is the language it's
| written in :) I'm sold!
| fho wrote:
| I had to look that up ... is that _Euphoria_?
|
| As stated above, I think that how the code is structured
| also heavily influences readability. Maybe even more than
| syntax highlighting.
|
| Case in point: I was fortunate enough to work on a
| Haskell project some time ago ... and one of my
| colleagues from another team at asked me how I manage to
| make my code look that concise. No secret there, it is
| just pretty easy if the language is that expressive.
| clessg wrote:
| > I had to look that up ... is that _Euphoria_?
|
| It's Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org/), but wow, Euphoria
| looks pretty slick too! https://www.rapideuphoria.com/
| fho wrote:
| Ah ... I could have known that ... some of the Haskell
| enthusiasts around here actually moved on to Elixir some
| time ago.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| I enjoyed using my OLPC XO-1 for writing, programming, terminal
| usage, web browsing, etc. whilst sat outside on a sunny day.
| Was certainly a contrast to 'phone screens, which were barely
| visible, even with a backlight and shielded under a hand!
|
| (The XO-1 uses a different display technology to these e-ink
| monitors, but the result is similar: a high-resolution
| greyscale display, lit externally)
| girvo wrote:
| While not coding per se, I write fiction on my Boox Note 2 in
| Wordgrinder through Termux and it's pretty great (especially if
| I increase the refresh rate). And that's an older slower
| device!
| tapia wrote:
| I am delighted to see that they have Linux support for their
| software. You don't see that so often, especially for such niche
| hardware. Really cool!
| karmakaze wrote:
| > *Please confirm your ports (USB Type-C and HDMI) support
| secondary monitors by connecting your devices to another monitor
| first. AMD GPUs are not supported for now.
|
| I have no mental model of what this device is. Apparently it's
| not a display in the normal sense. Perhaps what's sent via
| HDMI/USB-C are effectively control signals rather than the
| colors/shades you want that get you the shades you want
| accounting for the response characteristics of the eInk display.
| What I'd like is for any of this extra logic to be in the device
| itself and not in software that requires installation and updates
| to keep working with OS updates, or other OSes altogether.
| totony wrote:
| e-ink has some special sync settings (where it's a tradeoff
| between speed and ghosting). Probably what usb is used for. You
| can also aprtially refresh the screen&stuff. Probably easier to
| do it in software.
| kentosi wrote:
| > *E Ink monitors' refresh speed is not as high as conventional
| monitors',
|
| So what is the refresh rate then? I can't seem to find it in the
| Specs section.
| acd wrote:
| Wow this looks like a nice companion device for reading
| documentation. Anyone know if Boox eink displays works with ipad
| hdmi adapter as a secondary display?
| smusamashah wrote:
| What is the lifespan of high refresh e-ink devices such as this
| monitor? Is it measured in a billion refreshes for example? E-ink
| displays have been slow to update but like this monitor there are
| a bunch of e-ink tablets which even allow you to watch videos and
| play games. In my head it feels like it detoriate the device
| faster.
| AlanYx wrote:
| It will deteriorate relatively quickly if you're using it
| primarily to watch video. Of the three vendors of e-ink
| monitors (Boox, Dasung, Waveshare), I believe only Waveshare is
| clear about this in their support documents ("The e-Paper
| display cannot work as common LCD displays, the lifetime of the
| e-Paper display is short and it is related to the update times.
| You cannot use e-Paper to display video for a long time, which
| will shorten the lifetime of the e-Paper display.").
|
| With e-ink, the dots do not fail right away; the contrast
| deteriorates around the 10 million update mark.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _lifespan_
|
| The declared generic (update frequency agnostic) lifespan for
| E-Ink displays a few years ago was:
|
| 10 million switches per dot
| w-m wrote:
| At 30 switches per second for video playback (which this
| device supports), a lifetime of 10m switches would be gone in
| around 93 hours.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| 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.
| patall wrote:
| My dad has bought the 25.3'' E ink monitor from Dasung. From what
| he tells, it does not have a backlight and is itself to dark for
| his taste outside of middle of the day. Maybe it will be better
| during summer or in bright condition but sitting further away
| from these devices may require more than just reflectiveness for
| some users.
| fbn79 wrote:
| eInk is not transparent, you canno have backlight. It's
| objective is to emulate ink on paper.
| mrjin wrote:
| It might be true you cannot have backlight, but for sure you
| can have front light. My ~7 years old Kindle paperwhite has
| that.
| patall wrote:
| I guess that may be what I meant, i.e second 24 of the
| video.
| [deleted]
| numpad0 wrote:
| Contrast ratio of E Ink is like 10:1. I don't know exactly how
| it compares but backlit LCD is approx 1k:1, OLED is 1m:1 _in
| contrast_ (pun intended).
| GuB-42 wrote:
| You can't compare the contrast of an emissive (backlit
| LCD/OLED) and a reflective (eInk) display.
|
| Put your OLED display in direct sunlight on a bright summer
| day and you will get effectively get no contrast at all, the
| screen will reflect so much sunlight that your puny LEDs
| won't do much of a difference. Backlit LCDs will get some
| weak contrast because the backpanel is a bit reflective, but
| eInk displays will always be 10:1 because they use ambiant
| light instead of competing with it.
|
| These ridiculously high contrast ratios of OLED displays only
| take into account emitted light and only make sense in a dark
| room, or VR headset.
| layer8 wrote:
| 10:1 is nevertheless quite low. Black is really dark grey,
| and white is light grey. Having bad eyesight, I find e-ink
| displays too straining to use in most lighting conditions.
| zepto wrote:
| > Put your OLED display in direct sunlight on a bright
| summer day and you will get effectively get no contrast at
| all,
|
| Recent iPhone oleds are dull but usable in direct sunlight.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Which brings us back to another thread, brightness.
|
| Freakin' OLEDs are brighter than the bloody sun!!! The
| sun! I half expect my face to get sunburned looking at
| them!
| xuki wrote:
| It's certainly not, not even close. Try this: set your
| brightness to maximum, put it in the direction of the sun
| and use another device to take a photo of them both.
| sabellito wrote:
| That's kinda the point of these things, to not be backlit;
| you're supposed to provide the needed amount of light yourself.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > and is itself to dark for his taste outside of middle of
| the day.
|
| Indeed, from the description it sounds like their work setup
| doesn't have enough ambient light for confortable reading
| conditions.
| patagonicus wrote:
| Huh, weird. I got the small Dasung with a backlight, but I
| almost never use the backlight since avoiding that is one of
| the reasons I did get an E-Ink screen in the first place. You
| do need the room to be somewhat well lit, so in the mornings
| and evenings I'll turn on the overhead lights. Probably
| slightly harder to read than a book since the background isn't
| bleached white, but it's close-ish.
| patall wrote:
| I think the difference in this setup is that you sit further
| away from the large screen than from the small one. And then,
| it becomes more of an issue. I haven't seen it myself though,
| only hearsay.
|
| Edit: Also, you are probably not in your late fifties. Eye-
| sight under low-light definitely decreases with age.
| intrasight wrote:
| What would be the benefit of this over a quality OLED monitor?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| If you are in context in which it is preferable to have * light
| reflecting instead of light emitting, and/or * bistable instead
| of kept on through energy.
|
| Some people use EPD at midday, black on white under the sun,
| and OLED at midnight, white on black ("off") in the dark.
| frou_dh wrote:
| You guys go ahead and buy, take one for the team and work out all
| the bugs/defects in Rev.A units :)
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Here are my problems with such devices. I own an Onyx Boox 3 for
| a year now, I guess I qualify.
|
| 1) these screens still have bad contrast compared to a printed
| page at the same DPI. They mostly compare to yellowed dog-eared
| 50-year-old books. The dots are also rather fuzzy, so not really
| comparable to what you get in a decent LCD at the same density.
|
| 2) if it comes to desktop use, no OS/environment except classic
| MacOS up to version 8 and maybe GEM gives a shit about monochrome
| displays, especially those where only 1-bit colors look decent
| (so Windows 3.11 would likely count too). On DEs which you can
| still theme, themes that look like printed pages (two colors for
| UI, no gradients, no exceptions to this rule) don't exist at all.
| There's GTK's "High Contrast" theme, but it renders everything
| also BIG and FAT, which is cumbersome to look at unless you need
| it because of eyesight problems.
|
| Also, there should be a way to disable all UI animations and most
| hover effects, but it either doesn't exist or keeps getting
| reinvented in any new major version so you're chasing it every
| once in a while.
|
| 3) Have you ever seen how Android renders colors on displays with
| no colors? God damn it to hell. I tried a terminal emulator. Some
| text was black, some white, some nigh-invisible, and some was
| white with a black (fuzzy) outline. I thought a monochrome
| display couldn't be ever described as garish, but now I've
| learned the errors of my ways. The only way it can work is if you
| export TERM=vt100 so it doesn't try to draw you rainbows where
| there can be none.
|
| 4) While the refresh speed got better compared to most Kindles I
| owned, when you're typing, it's still more annoying than a CRT
| with big afterburn.
|
| Maybe it's kind of acquired taste, I dunno, but not for me. Yet.
| I hope.
|
| I wouldn't mind a strictly 2-colored theme on a regular laptop
| screen as well, mind you.
| codethief wrote:
| Re 3): Doesn't Android support a black-and-white mode?
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Internal boox apps are good because they were designed that
| way. But things from the play store are shite on such
| screens.
|
| And yes, that's the android's idea of how to render color (or
| maybe it's the driver, who knows). It's like Microsoft
| Paintbrush on mono screens where you got different dithering
| patterns instead of colors, except worse.
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| Not a word on refresh rate.
| dspillett wrote:
| Unless they have some wizz-bang new tech that no one else is
| using yet, which they would shout about if they were, with eInk
| you can pretty much say "if your use case makes you care much
| about refresh rates then eInk isn't a good choice for you ATM".
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| I agree, but even among e-ink displays there are refresh
| rates that make it difficult to enter text or view terminal
| output.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| In text editing, I even set refresh in batched bursts of
| max 500ms (a few chars per display update), to be battery
| conservative. No problem.
| Someone wrote:
| "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?
| toper-centage wrote:
| 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.
| mherdeg wrote:
| Seeing the no-ghosts button reminded me that it's very likely
| my young kids are never going to have the fun of pushing the
| "degauss" button on a CRT.
| zwirbl wrote:
| 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
| pcurve wrote:
| There's "fast" mode. https://youtu.be/oBfWkxOfUfQ?t=994
|
| Image quality goes down, but I was very very very impressed...
| abalaji wrote:
| Maybe I haven't kept up with the eink market but this seems
| super impressive especially the video part around 14:33. I have
| a Remarkable and it's pretty slow to switch pages but I assume
| that's to prevent ghosting. With a little bit of computer
| vision magic, they might be able to add a content aware feature
| that swaps the modes based on what's being displayed.
|
| https://youtu.be/oBfWkxOfUfQ?t=873
| vasilakisfil wrote:
| for some reason, from the video, screen doesn't feel the same
| quality as other e-ink readers like kindle.
|
| edit: I mean, kindle videos feel like you are reading a real
| paper, while here feels like you are in an actual screen.
| leemailll wrote:
| try this
| https://jvod.300hu.com/vod/product/0cecde96-786d-418d-a5b7-3...
| avar wrote:
| A little slow? I was pretty amazed by how fast it is in that
| video. I haven't kept up with E-Ink technology, but I own an
| old Kindle and it takes it 0.5-1s to refresh, but that 13.3"
| display is keeping up with finger gestures when scrolling.
|
| Yes it would suck for watching movies, but it seems to be
| really useful for anything involving text, e.g. i.e. a
| secondary monitor to read documentation on, or even program on.
| I suppose the lag in text input being updated might be more
| distracting than when using it purely for reading.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Fast for eink, but also absolutely terrible ghosting, which
| makes the speed considerably less impressive considering how
| straining it looks. What's the point of a fairly quick
| response to screen updates when you have to press the manual
| refresh button in order to read what's on it?
| avar wrote:
| I haven't used this product, but if you look at the linked
| YouTube video starting at around 11 minutes you can see it
| going from "ghosting" that's hardly noticeable when reading
| an article, to really noticeable ghosting and lower
| resolution (but much faster refresh rate) in the "video
| mode". If you're watching a video presumably the "ghosting"
| would all mush together.
|
| E.g. at 11m47s[1] the reviewer is in the text mode, hasn't
| pressed the manual refresh button, and when I pause the
| video the text doesn't seem to have any visible artifacts
| (maybe some for around half a second, until the image
| "settles"?).
|
| I agree that it would suck for a lot of applications, but
| as a secondary screen to read text/documentation, or even
| watch the scrolling output from a CI system this seems
| amazing.
|
| Have you used this display in person? Is it worse than it
| seems to be in that video? If so for what (if any/all)
| modes and use-cases?
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBfWkxOfUfQ#t=11m47s
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I spend many hours of text editing / word processing on an
| Onyx Boox Max2, 13.3'', and have no problem with ghosting.
| It depends on the so-called "waveform", or firmware level
| algorithms for dot switching (and it's probably using
| Regal, though I am not sure about the details): I would say
| really almost-zero problems with text rendering (and
| update).
| misja111 wrote:
| I have a Boox Note and the excessive screen refreshes are
| really annoying there as well. But I'm impressed by the part in
| the demo where they show the playing of a video, this works
| pretty smoothly and I don't see any flickering.
|
| Now I'm wondering why those screen refreshes in 'normal' apps
| are needed? Is this just some artifact because the apps were
| written for normal displays and haven't been adjusted for
| e-ink?
| junon wrote:
| This is pretty on par for e-ink at the moment. Since the pixels
| are physical material, there is the mechanical movement time
| that has to be taken into account.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| 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 Management that can give some
| insights?
|
| Is it too expensive?
|
| Are there not enough users?
|
| Are vendors scared of the lackluster of the device when
| compared with shinny reflective displays?
| snthd wrote:
| >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
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| 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).
| salamandersauce wrote:
| It would be expensive and mouse cursors are not the most
| enjoyable with these things. You really have to crank the
| speed to use a mouse cursor without extreme frustration on
| eInk and that comes with a huge quality loss. I imagine most
| people need color for certain tasks even if it's not accurate
| like making a PowerPoint or something. For most people I
| think it would be more of a frustration than a help when
| running Windows.
|
| Boox and others like Boyue do make Android eInk tablets which
| are pretty flexible. You don't need a mouse either which
| solves that problem. Very good for reading PDFs. Termux and a
| good text editor like Emacs or Vim can let you get some work
| done.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _mouse cursors_
|
| Touchscreen and keyboard commands. I use those systems this
| way and efficacy is high.
|
| > _You really have to crank the speed to use a mouse cursor
| ... and that comes with a huge quality loss_
|
| You must mean, "use the A2 mode". Not really, on the
| contrary: on GU (Grayscale Update) they mouse cursor will
| leave a trail that can be more helpful than an annoyance.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Yeah, I retried it directly connecting a mouse to my Note
| Air and it's better than I remember. I think before I
| tried a screen sharing app with it connected to a PC and
| maybe that's why I thought it was so bad.
| baybal2 wrote:
| eInk Inc. levies giant patent royalties on eInk screen
| manufacturers.
|
| Plus
|
| There are no 8 bit eInk controllers
| atlgator wrote:
| They could partner with framework to offer the one in their
| marketplace.
| Epa095 wrote:
| The old OLPC laptop had a weird screen which kind of became a
| black and white e-ink screen when the brightness got turned
| all the way down, and was a quite normal colour screen
| otherwise. No clue how it was made though, and if there has
| been any further work in that direction.
| timClicks wrote:
| The model number is the XO-1 in case anyone wants to
| investigate.
| tern wrote:
| If you're curious about this, it's an interesting story:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi and I still want a
| device with one
| srmatto wrote:
| 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.
| nitrogen wrote:
| 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.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| 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.
| ..
| Tagbert wrote:
| 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.
| nhumrich wrote:
| What you _can_ do, is buy the boox lumi, a 13 inch Android
| e-unk tablet. Then get a Bluetooth keyboard folio for it. You
| now essentially have a 13 inch laptop chromebook.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| If you just want it for reading, you could buy a $200 laptop
| and use this as an external display. If you're not running
| hot you could leave your laptop closed inside a backpack or
| case while you used it. Still kind of fiddly but it sounds
| good to me.
| officeplant wrote:
| 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.
| gbraad wrote:
| Lenovo ThinkBook has an eink screen. Not exclusively, but
| works quite well.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Hard sell, but a laptop with a reversible 2-1 screen, one
| side OLED, and one e-ink, would probably be a winner.
|
| Or something like the framework laptop, but with a plugable/
| unplaggable screen, and you switch as needed.
|
| I would buy one. Espacially on travel, where the prospect of
| working outside in nature, and having a one week battery life
| would be fantastic for work.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _a laptop with a reversible 2-1 screen_
|
| The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus has an E-Ink display on the outer
| side - but I think it remains an outer side.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Yes, that's the deal breaker. If I can't type with the
| keyboard, or if I have to add some additional keyboard
| for mobility, it gets very cluncky.
| cestith wrote:
| At the same time, there have been so many convertible
| tablet/laptop systems that either have the pivot at the
| bottom center of the screen or less commonly a screen
| that turns over between two arms on the sides that it's
| hard to believe someone couldn't do the same with a two-
| sided screen enclosure.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| No colour. I want an e-ink with syntax highlighting. This is
| great and all, but even 16 base colours would go a long, long
| way. Oh also, would be nice if it were built into a MBP and I
| could switch between monitor types quickly, but I know that's
| a pipedream.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| I'm currently using (on a color LCD) a syntax highlighting
| theme that uses about 4 shades of gray, plus typographic
| differentiation. It would look fine on an e-ink screen.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Try reducing your screen's refresh rate to mimic that of an
| eInk display. Interacting with the machine becomes a horrible
| chore. Every input feels laggy and sluggish. It's hard to
| control the pointer. Even at 30Hz it becomes very difficult
| to focus on the actual tasks because the computer doesn't
| seem to respond to your commands.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| What mouse? The use case I have for an EPD is entirely
| terminal-based.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| 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?
| nitrogen wrote:
| 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.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| How many developers and authors have a workflow that
| doesn't include a GUI with a pointer?
|
| I for one would not like to go back to terminal-only.
| There's a lot to be gained from decent graphical
| interfaces, and having them smooth makes working on them
| more pleasing, which reduces my stress and allows me to
| be more productive.
| nitrogen wrote:
| LCDs of the 1990s had ghosting, and this was solved with
| pointer trails and other accessibility features, like
| disabling animations. People should be able to make the
| choice of outdoor visibility versus update smoothness.
| patentatt wrote:
| A lot of counterpoints here, how about a half normal display,
| half e-ink? Left side of the monitor is LCD m, and the right
| side is e-ink. Might be a bit cramped for some use cases,
| might work for others. Or, how about a rollable, flexible
| OLED that can dynamically roll out and cover more and more of
| the e-ink display, so that you could roll out the OLED when
| needed, or tuck it in when you want full e-ink?
| throw8932894 wrote:
| I work on a beach a lot. Laser printer costs $100 and paper
| is like 0.01 cents. Probably better usability.
|
| This thing is not hardened for outdoor use. I dont think it
| would work in cafe. If it drops on floor, liquids, sand,
| salty water....
| daneel_w wrote:
| I don't understand your post. First you state that you don't
| understand how there isn't a market for a laptop using this
| screen, then you underline that there is a huge market out
| there (somehow "typical ThinkPad users", who apparently don't
| care about color or anything else, and just want to read and
| write), and then you ask why these things don't sell much and
| if the problem is that the device is lackluster compared to a
| normal cheap LCD display.
|
| Have you looked at these displays in use? They're slow,
| flickery, have low contrast, and cost absurd money. They're
| still desperately trying to crawl out of the "enthusiast /
| early adopter" stage. I really want one. Everyone really
| wants one. But nobody wants the overpriced rubbish the
| current generation is.
| rexreed wrote:
| I did that in the old days with a repurposed kindle.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| No one is going to sell a device that costs significantly
| more than any other for the same power to provide what 99% of
| users would consider a sub par/ unusable display.
|
| Like seriously can you imagine trying to sell a laptop that
| is unable to watch any media, play any games and has the
| refresh rate / perceived performance of a 15 year old tablet.
|
| This stuff isn't ready to be a 'main' display yet.
| gonzo wrote:
| > Like seriously can you imagine trying to sell a laptop
| that is unable to watch any media, play any games and has
| the refresh rate / perceived performance of a 15 year old
| tablet.
|
| In a word: yes. But I was 10 or 11 years old before we had
| a color TV.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to - watch
| any kind of media - looks 'laggy'
|
| Imagine thinking that the consumer market is only for media
| consumers. There is a whole market of enterprise products
| out there, and there is certainly a use case for a _work_
| laptop which needs no multimedia support.
|
| I wouldn't argue that someone buying this machine would
| only use only this machine. But I know I am not alone in
| saying that this would be my daily driver when focus is
| required.
| exhilaration wrote:
| In addition to the videoconferencing others have brought
| up, pretty much every Fortune 500 out there has extensive
| training requirements for their laptop-using employees -
| that content is a mix of video and slideshows. Those
| corps are the biggest purchasers of "work" laptops.
|
| For the uninitiated, the training I'm referring to covers
| everything from sexual harassment to infosec to insider
| trading to "why you don't really need unions".
| bregma wrote:
| No manager would consider signing off on devices that
| don't make their PowerPoint deck look great. Without the
| corporate or consumer market you're going to struggle to
| find revenue.
| paulcole wrote:
| Managers! What a bunch of bozos who only care about how
| their PowerPoints look, amirite?
| xuki wrote:
| Manufacturers need to do this at scale. It'll be so
| expensive if they only make a few thousand units.
| bluGill wrote:
| Not much of a market, I have to do media based training
| all the time, even though my 95% case is text based.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Are you implying that contrast and color is _disrupting_
| your focus, and that full-screen flicker during movement
| _increases_ your focus?
| jdavis703 wrote:
| The only time I've "needed" to watch video at work has
| been for cheesy, anti-harassment training showing pre-
| recorded situations that are obviously illegal.
|
| The other cases are videoconferencing, where someone is
| basically showing a fairly static powerpoint, sprint
| planning board, or other, text-heavy content.
| avar wrote:
| I'm as much of a fan of the potentials of this technology
| as anyone, but it really look like it's terrible to use
| as a _main display_ even for non-multimedia applications.
|
| I.e. try setting your mouse or keyboard to have even
| 50-100ms of lag, a lot of people would find that very
| distracting to use even for just using a terminal
| Emacs/Vim & for writing plain-text.
|
| There's a reason these things are being marketed as
| "secondary displays", which makes perfect sense.
|
| In terms of cost I really don't see why anyone would want
| to do it differently anyway. A 20" LCD is dirt-cheap
| these days, so if you're already spending 5x or 10x that
| on the same size of E-Ink display why not get both?
| achow wrote:
| > _..try setting your mouse or keyboard to have even
| 50-100ms of lag, a lot of people would find that very
| distracting to use_
|
| Except that Remarkable 2 has 20ms latency, same as
| iPad's. [1]
|
| That makes pencil behave like a real one; that is a user
| cannot perceive the difference between writing on eink
| tablet vs writing on paper.
|
| [1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/remarkables-
| redesigned-e-p...
| strangetortoise wrote:
| While the 20ms latency on the Remarkable 2 is very
| impressive, let's please not say that users "cannot
| perceive the difference". At best the latency "does not
| bother" users. There are whole swaths of professions for
| which 20ms is a huge amount (professional gamers,
| musicians, etc), and even personally (And I generally
| view my lag perception as quite poor) the 20ms on the
| remarkable was noticeable enough that it did not feel as
| nice as having a good pen on paper.
| andai wrote:
| 20ms latency is about average for a text editor:
| https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/
|
| (Not that that's a good thing...)
| samatman wrote:
| Apple pushed an update in iOS 13 which brings the latency
| on the Pencil down to 9ms.
|
| Which I remember vividly because it's when latency on the
| Pencil subjectively "went away" for me. Especially for
| tight loops in cursive, on iOS 12 the line would 'catch
| up' with the stylus, but at 9ms I don't perceive that.
|
| Edit: crosshatching is an even better example of a
| technique which feels completely different at 9ms rather
| than 20ms.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Basically every enterprise of a reasonable size is going
| to require their users to consume multimedia content of
| some sort - web calls, training materials etc.
|
| If the crux is that even you, clearly a passionate eink
| advocate, wouldn't be able to use it as a sole device
| then that essentially makes the market _tiny_. In fact, a
| secondary eink display sounds like exactly what you need.
|
| When the refresh is more capable it'll be more of an
| option, and I cannot wait for that to be the case. But
| it's just not feasible to sell a laptop with an eink
| display as yet.
| andai wrote:
| This sounds more like a usecase for the Pixel Qi screens,
| transflective LCDs which are sunlight-readable but with
| normal refresh rates and which have a full-color backlit
| mode. Still not sure why the tech never took off...
| willcipriano wrote:
| "IT gave me a crappy black and white laptop. They are so
| behind."
| nsxwolf wrote:
| In this day and age it's pretty hard to imagine a use
| case for a work laptop that completely excludes
| multimedia.
|
| No Zoom calls? No online learning videos? I think most
| workers today would hit a brick wall pretty quick if this
| was their only display.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Zoom or watch videos on their phones? They're carrying
| one anyway.
| tw04 wrote:
| > There is a whole market of enterprise products out
| there, and there is certainly a use case for a _work_
| laptop which needs no multimedia support.
|
| You think in 2021, when I'd argue the majority of folks
| that own a laptop are working remote, there's huge demand
| for a laptop that can't display a video feed from a zoom
| or WebEx meeting? That sounds extremely unlikely to me.
| I'd wager the demand for such a device would measure in
| the thousands and would never be cheap enough to sell
| more than a couple hundred.
|
| You'd be far, far better off just making a Bluetooth
| keyboard case (like the old clamcase or brydge cases) for
| a boox and calling it good. You'd have an ssh terminal
| and basic office apps as supported by Android.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _a laptop that can 't display a video feed_
|
| Actually, those displays do. They may work fairly well
| for the purpose. When I tested those capabilities years
| ago, the chief issue was with ghosting; the second with
| choosing either high definition with strong artefacts or
| fast, cleaner low definition; the third was with having
| algorithms that minimize dot switching (which is energy
| costly). But there is a possibility that newer refresh
| algorithms fixed most of that.
|
| Even at the state of a few years ago, to just see talking
| heads and presentations the video capabilities of EPD
| were already more than adequate. It makes little sense
| energy wise (wrong instrument), but it is doable. Those
| who want the EPD properties for production may see little
| loss in the lower video quality - provided the issues I
| listed above have been mitigated, foremostly the
| ghosting.
|
| --
|
| Edit:
|
| I checked on YT and, look, it seems to me that video
| quality on EPD has boosted to incredible levels. See my
| other comment
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29430696
|
| or directly the video at
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqASRsIWVw
|
| Surely such laptop would be able to <<display a video
| feed>>. Suboptimally. (Yet, in a way, amazingly.)
| qaq wrote:
| 1% is 1.6 million units per year that's a billion dollar
| company
| ako wrote:
| I doubt an lcd display in a laptop costs a vendor more
| than $10. So that would make it a 16 million dollar
| company. If a E-Ink display costs $100, it would still
| only be a 160 million dollar company...
| qaq wrote:
| a good display is several hundred dollars. Market
| valuation does not equal to annual sales. A niche
| notebook like this can be sold at higher premium. The
| idea would be to offer notebook not the display.
| JoelMcCracken wrote:
| how does this criticism not apply to monitors or tablets,
| which boox already makes?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Yeah, a lot of negative comments, from people coming up
| with all sorts of multimedia use cases, when there is
| clearly a market gap and plenty of people that want work
| houses without multimedia capability.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Not ready for primetime? Is it the button on the side of
| the display so that a user can manually refresh it?
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| What if they made the display modular, so that you could
| swap it with a regular display for when you want to do
| gaming and other stuff like that?
|
| I personally would buy an e-ink laptop, but then again I'm
| very much into e-ink, I have a Kindle and ReMarkable 2,
| years ago I also bought DPT-S1 but I returned it because it
| was too expensive.
|
| Also colour e-ink displays have been getting better and
| better too! So I'm sure that in time, it'll be amazing!
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _so that you could swap it with a regular display_
|
| You may just want to lay an EPD tablet on the original
| screen and link the two. Check:
|
| https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachme
| nti...
|
| Issues? Yes. HDMI does not allow for the touchscreen, and
| you may want that. And the hardware system must optimize
| battery life, which can be awful on the HDMI connection.
|
| What you really want is an optimized data connection and
| screen mirroring to the tablet.
|
| Or, an EPD tablet with the ability to use more than
| Android...
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Or, an EPD tablet with the ability to use more than
| Android...
|
| This is my hope with the future PineNote running a Linux
| distro.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I was wondering if you can freely customize the system
| (install software like a normal Linux Desktop OS) and
| checked, and I found a curious detail (
| https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineNote ):
|
| > _NPU (Neural Processing Unit) Capabilities: * Neural
| network acceleration engine with processing performance
| of up to 0.8 TOPS; * Supports integer 8 and integer 16
| convolution operations; * Supports the following deep
| learning frameworks: TensorFlow, TF-lite, Pytorch, Caffe,
| ONNX, MXNet, Keras, Darknet_
|
| Very odd for an EPD tablet!
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Mind you, Android can be pretty effective on the tablet
| for some tasks. But when you will want to use a complete
| Office Automation suite, instead of the more toyish
| mobile alternatives...
|
| What I finally did, this June, was: I coded my own word
| processor for Android.
|
| A dual boot system (Android vs Linux Desktop) would be
| the best solution.
| cestith wrote:
| I used to run a full Debian chroot on Android. It was
| very handy except that if you ran it on an unrooted
| Android device you couldn't be a user with full root
| capabilities. But gcc, make, tar, gzip, and git worked
| well enough to compile working stacks for other languages
| (the first software I built on it was Perl from source)
| as a regular user. Thousands of packages available and
| the ability to build from source, right on my phone in my
| pocket. They had other distros for it, too. Unfortunately
| that project - GNURoot - seems abandoned. Possibly
| fortunately a new one is from the same maintainers. I
| think I never used X on it. https://play.google.com/store
| /apps/details?id=tech.ula&hl=en...
|
| There's another called Debian noroot (https://play.google
| .com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu...) that
| appears fairly up to date but I haven't tried it. It's
| well rated but said to be slow. It includes XFCE and
| apparently starts it by default. It uses PRoot.
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=studio.com.
| tec... is yet another, and also uses PRoot. I have
| concerns about their page saying they have closed-source
| modded versions of F/OSS operating system distros though,
| and that they'll only provide source to developers who
| register with them. That's kind of unneighborly if
| they're customizing BSD or Apache licensed portions of a
| distro and illegal if they're doing it with GPL or LGPL
| portions.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| https://github.com/guysoft/cuntubuntu
|
| ...But that seems to be a fork, last updated in 2013 of
|
| https://github.com/pelya/debian-noroot
|
| which was updated in 2020.
|
| I'd love to test that on the Onyx Boox Max2 plus BT
| keyboard... I will try it and see what can be done with
| it.
| ranit wrote:
| And these days: if it cannot make video calls it is not a
| computer for work.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| A YouTube search for "Hisense A5 pro cc video call" did
| not return precise results, but some can be suggestive of
| the possibilities. See for example
|
| Title: _Hisense A5Pro CC Review 3- Battery, Videos &
| Games | Eink Kaleido 1 handling fast scenes_
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqASRsIWVw
|
| Some would find those results jawdropping. I presume that
| Video Calls using E-Ink displays are now much more than
| possible.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Possible but lackluster
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| If you get enough shoulder-taps, a device that can't take
| video calls might be the best one for work.
| ranit wrote:
| Ideally, yes ... but in large orgs with different
| internal agendas and politics it might be problematic to
| get through :)
| zepto wrote:
| My work computer can't take video calls. It is better
| that way.
|
| I have an iPad for that.
| netcan wrote:
| So... An eInk laptop wouldn't be _for_ media. It 'd be a
| different product with different pros/cons. Easier on the
| eyes. Better in sunlight. Easier on battery. Quite usable
| for reading, emails, code and any "mostly text" use.
|
| To the OP's original point "why doesn't this just exist..."
| IMO, it could, but it would need to be a different product
| class. Just sticking the monitor onto a windows machine
| isn't good enough. It needs its apps/etc. The market is
| probably much smaller than the phone/tablet and
| laptop/desktop markets. Perhaps potential vendors don't
| think it's big enough to support the necessary OS, apps &
| such.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _It needs its apps_
|
| Out of experience: not really.
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| The thing it doesn't needs is apps.
| jjguy wrote:
| My view, you are describing the Kindle.
|
| Amazon sees the same potential - and risk - and has been
| quietly iterating for over a decade in the segment.
|
| If you want to go seriously explore it as a product, I'd
| start with a deep dive study there and develop a few
| theories how you think you could be different enough to
| blow it wide open.
| fsflover wrote:
| Perhaps this might be relevant:
| https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/.
| arvinsim wrote:
| It needs to be significantly cheaper than current
| monitors to make business sense.
|
| Remember, it's not about the objective value of the
| device. It's the perceived value that matters.
| vzaliva wrote:
| 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.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Does the framework laptop have a modular display option?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| No I specifically ask this to one of the founders and the
| display is not customizable unlike the rest.
|
| You get the reflective non matte display and according
| there were no plans for a matte or EPD option.
| rini17 wrote:
| You expect anything from a market that till very recently
| sold 768p displays and hdds?
| dugditches wrote:
| patents if i recall.
|
| a netbook style, or even like old kindle keyboard sized up
| would be pleasant.
| jll29 wrote:
| I can't wait until this reaches maturity to get a 11" or so sub-
| notebook which is quiet, low energy, with a good keyboard for
| reading and writing (text/code editing, emails, PDF reading of
| scientific papers).
|
| Looked into this a couple of years ago and it was too early, now
| one could almost design & build that.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| You can already get a 10 or 13" eInk Android tablet and do all
| that already. Just need to bring your own keyboard.
| mhitza wrote:
| > PDF reading of scientific papers
|
| Unless you have perfect eyesight, at 11" those types of
| documents won't be a pleasant reading experience. I'm in the
| market for a good e-ink tablet to fulfill that role, but I
| don't consider current offerings quite there yet (maybe I have
| too many criteria in mind, like price, specs, supporting
| software, hackable if company goes bust, etc).
| girvo wrote:
| The Boox tablets are full android devices and support USB-C
| connectivity and Bluetooth for keyboards. They even have a
| clamshell keyboard case/attachment for sale that I have and use
| with my Note 2
|
| Termux + Termux.Styling set to Black on White is surprisingly
| powerful, and works better than I expected. Adjusting the
| refresh rate helps too.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Can it talk to my laptop via bluetooth? _That_ would be rad.
| I 'd use it outdoors, with my laptop running but still folded
| in my bag.
| patagonicus wrote:
| Looks pretty nice, especially the USB-C input. I might have
| gotten that one if it had been available when I was shopping for
| an e-Ink screen.
|
| I got a Dasung 13" one a while ago, the larger Dasung wasn't
| launched yet (and I was struggling a bit to justify the price tag
| of the 13", now I'd probably go for the larger one). It's very
| limited, basically only works for black and white text, but for
| that it's great. I use it pretty much daily, just keeping a shell
| open there. I've changed my terminal to be black on white and all
| colors map to light/dark gray (for light/dark versions of the
| basic terminal colors), which works decently. I did change themes
| for things like tmux and vim to work better on a grayscale
| screen.
|
| Reading text on it is great, but compared to a Kindle Oasis
| (whatever the newest model was last summer) its DPI is quite low,
| so you can't have text as small without it getting blurry. I
| mostly got it because I noticed that I was getting some eye
| strain staring at a regular screen all day and as best as I can
| tell it really has helped with that. It's also powered off of
| USB, which makes it usable on the go as a second screen.
|
| My main gripe is using a Mini-HDMI-Port with a custom cable to
| inject power from USB (I _think_ HDMI- >Mini-HDMI plus a separate
| USB cable for Micro-USB input also work, never tried), but it's
| also a bit annoying that the inputs are on the sides and not the
| back. I also use it with a monitor arm at home, the included pole
| for standing it up is ok for on the go, but I really wouldn't use
| it permanently.
|
| TL;DR: expensive, but if you want to reduce eye strain while
| reading a lot of text it really helps. Main driver for shell /
| coding tasks and I sometimes read longer websites/Google Docs/etc
| on it, though less frequently.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| Would love this as a second or third screen to read books /
| documentation from.
| efferifick wrote:
| I wonder how well one can modify the framework laptop to use the
| 13 inch e-ink monitor. Even if a small hdmi cable needs to run
| outside the case, as long as the lid can close (no need auto
| sleep) I'd be happy. I don't know anything about 3D printing, but
| it will likely be necessary (perhaps not sufficient though).
| mdp2021 wrote:
| One of the only non-modular parts of the Framework is, very
| unfortunately, the display (it's glossy).
|
| If you just want to use an HDMI connection, a piece of plastic
| is sufficient, see:
|
| https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmenti...
|
| But do not think the solution is without issues (I mentioned
| elsewhere: touchscreen, battery...)
| oblak wrote:
| Man, I can't wait for something like e-ink to become usable as an
| actual 120Hz monitor. I've been sitting in front of shitty
| screens my entire life. Give display that do not shine and you
| could play games on.
|
| Won't happen in my life though
| gcanyon wrote:
| I don't need touch, and I don't need a sub-one-second refresh
| rate. I _do_ need a monitor I can read documents on without eye
| strain that doesn 't cost ~8x what an equivalent LCD monitor
| costs.
| denysvitali wrote:
| 799 USD
| chx wrote:
| Nope, that's the Mira, the Mira Pro is 1800.
| OliverJones wrote:
| I love these E-Ink guys. They've been plugging away for a quarter
| century and their stuff keeps getting better.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| It's only taking so long because they won't allow people to
| actually help progress the tech.
| cgb223 wrote:
| I own a Boox Note Air 2.
|
| Bought it when I was looking for a large screen eReader for the
| technical epubs and pdfs I've amassed over the years that require
| a big screen (big pages on the pdfs)
|
| pros and cons of this company are pretty clear
|
| Pros are that they have large eReaders and support any file
| format
|
| They also run android so if you use an app like Pocket or an RSS
| feed to read articles, they work well enough
|
| Cons:
|
| The company's documentation is more or less broken. Google how to
| fix something and their docs are missing, outdated, and often in
| broken english.
|
| The screen itself is big but slow to refresh and in most modes
| leaves traces of the previous pages. They have a manual button to
| full refresh the page, but a user shouldn't have to do that.
|
| It's not a certified android device so you have to jump through a
| bunch of somewhat insecure hoops to get the play store installed
| and log in.
|
| Privacy: There privacy statement basically says "lol we promise
| to be private k?" So I want to run this thing through wireshark
| to see how true that is. My only skepticism is that it's a
| Chinese company, and that might not be fair, but given the
| information I have on my device it would be good to confirm.
|
| All that said, they have a color eInk screen that's coming out
| soon that looks wonderful.
| tata71 wrote:
| > insecure
|
| Compared to...running Play Services? Doubt.
| ev1 wrote:
| security, privacy, and anonymity are separate concepts
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| Oh yes, the CCP and Play services are exactly identical.
|
| Thanks for your incredible insight
| tata71 wrote:
| This is the sort of device you either replace the OS, or put on
| a segregated network.
| dont__panic wrote:
| I use NetGuard on mine to prevent it from phoning home, and
| restrict internet connections to Firefox and a couple of
| other apps that I trust. I also mostly use mine with wifi
| off, since it's an ereader/notetaking device that doesn't
| need to constantly drain battery via wireless internet.
|
| I am a little nervous about the trustworthiness of Onyx, but
| at the same time... I don't really trust my smart TV, or my
| old Kindle, or visiting friend's Windows laptops either. So I
| guess it's kinda moot.
| fsflover wrote:
| It's not moot. Choose devices with FLOSS like
| https://pine64.org/pinenote.
| h2odragon wrote:
| $800 to pre-order. (Corrected: $1800 for the pre-order, $800 for
| the smaller one)
|
| E-ink is one of those great technologies that seems like it has
| potential but won't "arrive" until after the patents all expire.
| dotdi wrote:
| The $800 model has an "Add to Cart" button for me (in Germany).
| The 25.3 model shows "Pre-order".
| lovelyviking wrote:
| "BOOX Mira Series only supports direct mail from China. And
| US, EU and UK warehouses are not supported for shipping. Some
| countries may levy tariffs on the imported goods. For the
| amount of tariffs, please consult the local customs
| department."
| hutrdvnj wrote:
| Is it expensive because of the parents or because it's not
| cheap to create a big sized e-ink display? I mean small e-ink
| displays for ebook readers or e-ink tablets are quite
| affordable these days.
| samwillis wrote:
| This is an interesting old thread about einks business model
| and parents:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
|
| Some of the early parents have expired but there are a lot of
| them...
| codethief wrote:
| Came here to link to this thread. Also make sure to check out
| the color e-ink displays by Clearink that the top comment
| mentions. They are quite impressive. (Unfortunately, I
| recently heard from the people behind the Supernote tablet
| that those displays by Clearink are very low in contrast and
| therefore require lots of ambient light. There goes the dream
| of color e-ink displays...)
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> it has potential but won't "arrive" until after the patents
| all expire_
|
| This is somewhat of a misconception. The high cost today has
| nothing to do with patents anymore, for the most part, though
| that' still a speedbump. It getting good yields in the fabs for
| the e-ink films that's the problem, and that's where e-ink has
| the secret sauce and why others can't compete even though they
| know how it works.
|
| It's like saying TSMC's 3nm won't get any traction until it's
| patents expire, while the true vale comes form the fact that
| only they can get that process to scale profitably and their
| competition can't, even though they have access to the same
| tech and materials and $$$ funds.
|
| So, I'm sure there are competitors who can replicate the e-ink
| tech. But to fab it profitably at that scale? Nope.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > It getting good yields in the fabs for the e-ink films
| that's the problem
|
| There is a decent market for rigid (heavy) 20-30" ~100 dpi
| panels as desktop monitors. Lowering the pixel density would
| certainly increase the yield, as would the rigid back. There
| is a high premium for light panels for e-readers and
| portables, but for use as a desktop monitor, we can deal with
| a lot more weight and, since we see them from further away,
| we can deal with lower densities.
|
| From where I sit, it's hard to tell whether my laptop has a
| high-density screen or a more normal 1080 one.
|
| I'd love to have one, but I wouldn't even consider it if it's
| twice as expensive as a 4K HDR 120Hz LCD monitor.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> There is a decent market for rigid (heavy) 20-30" ~100
| dpi panels as desktop monitors._
|
| Do you have a source for these claims?
|
| Looking at what seels well today, and what most average
| consumers go for, it's bigger screens with high pixel
| density. Low pixel density displays are mostly found in
| bottom of the barrel, discount bin products whith poor
| margins for their manufacturers, so the market has already
| spoken with their money in this regard and separated the
| winners from the losers.
|
| So I think, that market you think of, exists only for you.
|
| _> Lowering the pixel density would certainly increase the
| yield_
|
| That's not how yealds work here. Small display sizes gives
| you good yealds and affordable price. That's why you mostly
| see them on electronic shelf labels and ebook readers.
|
| That's why large e-ink displays, like the remarkable
| tablet, are so expensive.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Do you have a source for these claims?
|
| No. There are no products in this space that can compete
| with the midrange LCD displays.
|
| > So I think, that market you think of, exists only for
| you.
|
| I'm sure Boox would be happy to be able to sell a 24"
| 1920x1200 display for $200, if they had an adequate
| supply of panels.
|
| > That's not how yealds work here.
|
| If you increase feature size, you, usually, have fewer
| defects. A 20" 200 dpi panel has 4 times more places
| where something could go wrong than a 100 dpi one, and
| its features would be more prone to fail for defects the
| same size. Lower resolution should decrease the areal
| density of detectable defects because the defects would
| be less likely to disable the pixel. Unless I'm
| completely wrong and the kind of defect on e-ink panels
| is completely different than defects on ICs and PCBs.
|
| Yield for smaller displays works differently - areal
| density of defects being the same, a smaller panel has a
| smaller chance of having a defect.
|
| > That's why large e-ink displays, like the remarkable
| tablet, are so expensive.
|
| The Remarkable is a high density display and they sell it
| for the price people are willing to pay.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> No. There are no products in this space that can
| compete with the midrange LCD displays._
|
| Then how can you make such claims? You're just blowing
| smoke at this point. My take: The are no such products
| because nobody would buy them, that's why nobody makes
| them.
|
| If you think the market is wrong, and there's such a huge
| demand waiting for a product that doesn't yet exist, why
| not put your money where your mouth is and go all-in
| funding such a product? If you're right, you'd get rich.
| Or you're actually wrong, and it will flop massively.
| Which one is it?
|
| _> Yield for smaller displays works differently - areal
| density of defects being the same, a smaller panel has a
| smaller chance of having a defect._
|
| Yeah, that's why cutting the e-ink film into smaller
| displays gets you better yields, since you can throw away
| the smaller sections with the defects, instead of
| discarding larger ones, and lower the costs, which, like
| I said previously, is why you mostly see smaller e-ink
| displays based products, and why the ones with large
| screens are so expensive.
|
| _> A 20" 200 dpi panel has 4 times more places where
| something could go wrong than a 100 dpi one_
|
| Genuine question: do you have any industry experience
| working with e-ink displays, or are you just making
| uninformed assumptions for the sake of an armchair
| argument? As, that's not how yields scale in e-ink film.
| Source: I worked designing devices with e-ink displays.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Genuine question: do you have any industry experience
| working with e-ink displays
|
| No. I'm doing math. A 200dpi panel has 4 times more
| components per area than a 100dpi one. You can check it,
| if you are not sure.
|
| Do you have experience with e-ink panel manufacture?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> No. I'm doing math. A 200dpi panel has 4 times more
| components per area than a 100dpi one. You can check it,
| if you are not sure._
|
| Defect rates don't scale linearly to density IRL as you
| assume, and the type of defects changes as well. This is
| not the same as semiconductor manufacturing though plenty
| of parallels can be drawn.
|
| _> Do you have experience with e-ink panel manufacture?_
|
| I have deep insight in this industry due to my
| development experience with this tech. So the
| manufacturers tutor us on the nitty gritty details of the
| tech which stem from the manufacturing limitations, as my
| employers are making expensive purchases from them.
|
| Of course, you are free to believe that I'm wrong and
| your kindergarten math is the answer to a profitable
| product to which the industry are completely oblivious
| too.
| codeisawesome wrote:
| I would love to be a fly on the wall when the unit price
| calculation for some high tech item is made. I wonder if it
| just goes like "component x + y + margin%"... what those
| components are in stuff like processors, screens etc must be
| so interesting!
| h2odragon wrote:
| It cost us $X billion to set up the line, materials,
| marketing etc. We expect to sell $Y quantity. Price = $X /
| $Y.
|
| Or more usually, it seems: "We think we can get $N for it;
| so if we can make it for $N/10 we'll announce production
| and find a manufacturing partner to make them for us on
| credit."
| fossuser wrote:
| Rumor I heard from someone in the industry is that the patents
| have expired, but now the original holder pressures the few
| fabs to refuse work from competitors or get black balled.
|
| As a results it's extremely hard for new people to enter the
| industry and the original e-ink people have zero interest in
| actually building stuff vs. just leveraging this kind of power
| to screw others and keep margins high.
| axegon_ wrote:
| Given the prices of e-ink displays in general, this is not too
| bad. Still outrageous though.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| Seems bonkers to me. If they'd been more permissive with
| licensing the tech, they'd have made a lot more money, advanced
| the tech, and they could have exploited spin off. The way it
| was handled seems petty and small minded in a stupid and greedy
| way.
| scns wrote:
| Might be motivated by FOMO. Fear is a bad advisor
| <edit>sometimes</edit>.
| dabeledo wrote:
| $800 to preorder the smaller 13in one. The other one (25.3in as
| in the title) is $1800
| girvo wrote:
| I adore Boox. My Note 2 is amazing (and keeps getting better and
| faster note-taking with firmware updates every few months).
|
| I've ordered a Mira, the 13.3" one, which I think is a more
| useful size for the type of documents and uses e-ink has.
|
| This is super cool though!
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| Their devices look really neat, but I don't think I can bring
| myself to buy one until they resolve their GPL violations.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/fz4yka/max3_revi...
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Maybe someone can convince Naomi Wu to go visit their office
| in person like she did for Umidigi.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| I saw the original video on the Twitters, but didn't check
| out the followup until now. I'm thrilled that her visit
| worked and that the files were posted!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj04MKykmnQ
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| That promotional video didn't show a visible page refresh once.
| Which was what I was most interested in seeing, since lag while
| typing might be the thing I'm most worried about [well that and
| my syntax highlighting (:]
| trabant00 wrote:
| I am sad they go with the health angle. There is no evidence that
| suggest backlit or blue light are any more damaging for the eyes
| than a piece of paper with the same text. It's focusing that
| strains the eyes.
|
| https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/are-computer-...
|
| > Long hours staring at digital screens leads to decreased
| blinking. Blinking less sometimes causes a series of temporary
| eye symptoms known as eye strain. But these effects are caused by
| how people use their screens, not by anything coming from the
| screens. The best way to avoid eye strain is to take breaks from
| the screen frequently.
|
| > The amount of light coming from a computer has never been
| demonstrated to cause any eye disease.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Anecdotal but I consider it absolutely farcical that you could
| claim using an e-ink is no better for your eyes. I can
| literally feel the difference when using my ereader.
| martopix wrote:
| On the other hand it is well known that it contributes to
| sleeplessness.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Lots of people are bothered by the backlight on their monitor.
| Lots.
|
| Eye strain != eye disease, or eye damage. A parallel, is you
| can strain a muscle, and it will be find in a few days with
| light use.
|
| This is precisely how many feel, when "over exposed" to endless
| bright light in their eyes.
|
| I looked at their product page, and did not see anything about
| "permanent damage to your eyes!", but... I certainly could have
| missed that.
|
| Sadly, I'm being forced to defend a company I dislike greatly,
| for their phone-home-to-china firmwares in other boox products.
| I can only imagine what any accompanying software they may
| include, to auto-adjust/etc the monitor, will entail.
| randomor wrote:
| Why hasn't anyone built a short throw projector for office
| work(coding) yet?
|
| - reflective light just like eink so less eye strain
|
| - better refresh rate and latency
|
| - better color range
|
| Is it the resolution?
| patentatt wrote:
| Do projectors have less eye strain? That's quite intriguing if
| so. What if you had a front-projector projecting on an e-ink
| screen, such that various parts of the screen could be in
| color/motion mode (e-ink off, projector only), mixed mode
| (e-ink on, with color overlay for syntax highlighting or the
| like), or ink only (projector off). That seems like something
| that's doable with off-the shelf components and software, at
| least as a POC...
| burkaman wrote:
| I think the market for people who want to (and are able to)
| work exclusively in a very dark room is probably pretty small.
| I'm also not sure what features a work-focused projector would
| have that a normal projector wouldn't.
| zimventures wrote:
| ...but can it run Crysis?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| There is a guy who wrote a demoscene demo for a C64 disk drive:
| the drive itself contains a 6502 and the cable could transmit
| B/W video data. Audio amazingly obtained from mechanics.
|
| But I have never seen a demoscene demo from the electronics _of
| a monitor display_.
| al3mani wrote:
| What about f.lux (and others?) --> "Effects and extra colors" -->
| "Grayscale" ?
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Still doesn't fix the problem of rather bright light being
| emitted from the screen into your eyes. Think also about all
| the power wasted on backlighting where ambient light could be
| just fine.
|
| Also, I don't know if you have noticed, but you can't use f.lux
| and friends and grayscale simultaneously, because grayscale is
| applied after gamma change, making it pointless.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| This kind of thing needs Bluetooth. Then I could read outdoors
| with my laptop running in my backpack.
| dash2 wrote:
| The rival here is the Dasung 25.3" model, currently waiting for a
| new batch:
|
| https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/products/dasung-25-3-e-ink...
|
| I'd love to hear from anyone who's worked with a monitor like
| this.
| patagonicus wrote:
| 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.
| dash2 wrote:
| 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?
| patagonicus wrote:
| 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.
| aarongray wrote:
| I can't speak to e-ink but regarding screen time addiction,
| I used Gray-Switch (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta
| ils?id=com.vegardit.g...) to turn my phone display black
| and white, and immediately my phone use decreased by 66%.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| This is now built in to newer versions of Android (I
| think 11+, and AppleOS may also have it).
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| where would the settings for that be? accessibility?
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| On my phone it's Settings => Display => LiveDisplay =>
| Reading mode ("Grayscale mode for long-term reading"). I
| can also add a reading mode toggle button to the quick
| settings in the notification bar.
|
| The search box in Settings will probably find it if you
| search for gray or reading.
|
| This is on LineageOS 18 (Android 11), though I recall it
| being mentioned in some Google events/announcements so
| I'm 99% sure it's a core Android feature and not
| something specific to LOS.
| roughly wrote:
| I do this too on my iPhone - like all the really good
| iPhone settings, it's an accessibility option, under
| Display -> Color Filters. You can also set up the
| "accessibility shortcut" so triple-clicking the side
| button enables or disables it.
|
| It really reduces the intensity of the phone - you never
| realize just how garish the color choices are for almost
| every app out there until you see it in B&W.
| sktrdie wrote:
| Serious question: wouldn't just turning preferences of a normal
| monitor to black/white give you the same result? And is e-ink
| really better for eyes? Not sure I've seen research in this
| regard.
| lopis wrote:
| E-Ink doesn't emit light. There's lots of research that shows
| problems with looking at light-emitting screens all day.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Interesting question. Now, I'm curious myself. True that LCD
| panels need backlight and may not be true equivalent in black&
| white mode. However, we have many OLED panels now. Would OLED
| panels in black & white work for this case?
| avar wrote:
| It's not remotely the same thing.
|
| If you haven't looked at an E-Ink display try tearing a page
| from a magazine or newspaper and comparing that to reading the
| same size of font on your laptop or PC. E-Ink is practically
| indistinguishable from reading a physical piece of paper,
| whereas the backlight alone from an LCD eventually gets tiring
| to stare at.
|
| Another huge difference is being able to use E-Ink displays in
| direct sunlight.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| The main difference is that there is no backlight, so it's more
| comparable to a piece of paper (reflective light source) than a
| light bulb (direct light source)
| moritonal wrote:
| Interesting limitation listed on their site: "AMD GPUs are not
| supported for now."
| BBC-vs-neolibs wrote:
| Could it use Nvidia G-sync somehow?
| gawin wrote:
| How does this compare with the Dasung Paperlike 25.3? Looks like
| the same E-ink display, but perhaps different driver?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGblzUc_Z1I
|
| https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paperlike-253-the-first-2...
| aj_g wrote:
| Related, does anybody have any suggestions for a cheap/large/easy
| to look at monitor that could be used for a digital picture
| frame? I was thinking of getting a Raspberry Pi to rotate through
| my photos in my home, but the hardest part of the project would
| be choosing a good discrete/mountable display.
| [deleted]
| hajile wrote:
| They need OLED.
|
| Put the transparent OLED layer on top of the E-ink.
|
| Now you can use E-ink for your static content or the OLED when
| you need dynamic content.
|
| E-ink saves a lot of the OLED burn-in (which is at it's worst
| with white background) while OLED gives the ability to do
| more/better colors and fast response times.
| levpopov wrote:
| E-ink monitors are really cool (I've had a couple different ones
| for a while). However if your primary goal is reducing eye-
| strain, there are much better ways:
| https://twitter.com/levpopov/status/1466835595984977923
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