New Color E-Reader Tech To Challenge E-Ink Dominance

Technology Review reports from the Consumer Elecronics Show in Las Vegas that potential e-reader competitors to E-Ink are everywhere. The current market leader in e-book displays is greyscale-only, and it takes a long time to change the display ("turn the page"), so video applications are not possible. E-Ink says they will have a color display shipping by late next year, but it will be dimmer than the current greyscale and its response time will still be too slow for video. The wannabe competitors — Pixel Qi, Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Liquavista, and Kent Displays — all do color and some of them can do video (Pixel Qi, Qualcomm, Liquavista), and some of them (Pixel Qi, Kent) are shipping now.

Comments

Power?

[chill]

The big draw of E-Ink is that it only uses power when doing a page change. Do the color versions mentioned in TFA do that as well? If so, welcome. If not, nice try but fail.

Re:Power?

[PCM2]

The big draw of E-Ink is that it only uses power when doing a page change.

This was my understanding as well. So maybe someone who owns a Kindle or a Nook can answer me something that has bugged me for a while: Why on earth do these things appear to have screensavers? By changing the image when the machine is idle, doesn't a screensaver actually drain the battery where normally there would be no drain at all? Does an e-ink screen really need to be "saved" (i.e. will it burn out/burn in)?

As for the competitors, they are all designed to use very little power. At least one functions in a dual mode, where it can either be an e-ink type monochrome screen or a backlit color screen.

Here's another article, from The Economist.

Re:Power?

[theblondebrunette]

If you did RTFA, on the first page you'd see:
"Switching from the backlit mode, to the reflective one drops the display's power consumption from 2.5 Watts to 0.5 Watts. This is for a refresh rate of 60 Hz--fast enough to display video. Pixel Qi claims that using software to put the display into an e-reader mode--suitable for reading text, where the screen might only update ten times a second--could drop the power consumption to as low as 100 milliwatts."

For the IMOD:
"The height of the air gap between the plates determines the color of light that is reflected from the IMOD. When a voltage is applied, the plates are drawn together by electrostatic forces and the element goes black. When the voltage is removed, the plates separate and color is reflected off the IMOD. A single pixel is made up of several IMODs; adjusting the height of each affects the overall color of the pixel. The plates stay in place, using almost no energy, until the color needs to change again. A plate only has to move a few hundred nanometers to change color and can do it in tens of microseconds--fast enough to show video."

Liquavista:
"The LCD devices are based on a technique called electrowetting, in which a voltage is used to modify the surface tension of colored oil on a solid substrate. In the absence of a voltage, the oil forms a film over the substrate and is visible to the viewer. When a voltage is applied, the pixel becomes transparent. By controlling the voltage of each pixel independently, a picture can be displayed. Unlike E Ink's technology, electrowetting pixels can be switched in a few milliseconds, making them suitable for showing video."

What the article doesn't say, which is easiest on the eyes. My bets are still on e-ink.
Recently I tried this "Libre" LCD-based e-reader, and my eyes were bleeding, it was that horrible, or maybe I'm spoiled by real e-ink, and no, it's not Kindle.

Re:Power?

[seanadams.com]

Why on earth do these things appear to have screensavers?

Kindle does not have an animated screensaver, it just displays some static artwork such as a photograph of a famous author. It's only one refresh when it goes to sleep and one more when you wake it up.

Re:Power?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The display in the OLPC XO-1 is the predecessor of Pixel Qi's current products. I'd say that the comparison between that screen and the e-ink implementation of the kindle is as follows:

Color/video/refresh: The LCD, hands down. E-ink doesn't even rate.

Monochrome/text/reading: Both are a little "greyer" than one would like. E-ink has worse blacks; but a somewhat brighter background(under standard illuminated room conditions). LCD has nicer blacks; but a slightly darker background unless the ambient light is quite bright.

I'd say that E-ink was modestly better in medium light, by virtue of its brighter background; but worse in low light since there is no way to backlight it just a bit. In full sunlight, either was highly readable; but E-ink suffered from its usual slow refresh issues.

Re:Power?

[Idbar]

A couple of years ago, I had the chance of going to a talk from the guys of E-ink. They showed the B&W and Color displays before the e-readers came out. I was amazed at the picture frame prototype they had, and always wonder what happened to it.

I'm curious about the reason they are holding back the release of color screens and waited for a punch from the competitors. I had it in my hands, so I know it existed way longer than the first Sony reader came to the market.

This is before they took that off of their website

Re:Power?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

No, it cannot be disabled. I wish it could be, but it's not a big deal.

Do not want.

[binaryspiral]

The beauty of grayscale eink is that it's very close to paper - making it easy to read for long periods of time. However, the transition time on the Kindle or other grayscale eink devices is long enough to be annoying. Making these transitions longer will decrease my satisfaction in them, making the display dimmer will make them worthless to me.

If I wanted color, I'd hit an iPod touch, tablet PC, or laptop.

Keep It Simple Stupid.

Don't limit the perception of those screens!

[sznupi]

We see in the summary "e-reader", "e-book"...ignoring that those screens (well, at least Pixel Qi one, that I'm sure of) are great also as replacements for screens in netbooks (remember commercials of those depicting them on the beach, in the park or bright cafe?); generally any highly portable device.

Those are the screens which were supposed to be in place all along. Finally we can have them. Who cares about e-book readers?

I love my kindle

[LlamaZorz]

I have a Kindle2 becasue it enables me to read more than I normally would. Certain things I would only read online like periodicals and hack tutorials were not being read due to eye strain. I didnt want to print these as it would become expensive and wasteful fast. My kindle has really long battery life and I actually get less eye strain with it than with real paper books given the grey background. I love the thing, any gloss or color will just make the device cause more strain and that's now what I wanted.

I'd prefer higher contrast

[JakeD409]

A color eBook reader is something that will really appeal to my girlfriend (who has many art books and comic books). I, on the other hand, use my Kindle to read novels and programming books. There might be a little colored syntax highlighting in my programming books, but that's the extent that color would affect my eBook-reading experience. I'd much prefer a higher-contrast greyscale eBook reader. Currently, the contrast on my Kindle (and, from what I understand, the Nook and the Sony readers) is about the same as that of a dirty newspaper (about 8:1 I believe). It doesn't bother me, but I'd buy one that has paperback book contrast (about 50:1) in a heartbeat.

Real book page turn times

[Mr. Freeman]

I don't understand these complaints about the response times for the screens on e-readers. They're designed to be easy to read for the purpose of replacing paper books, not replacing LCD TVs or computer monitors. A real book doesn't have instant page turn times and there's a bit of "flicker" as the page flips up and over the current page. I've used a kindle before and it takes longer to turn a real page than for the kindle to refresh so I don't see a problem here.

Seems like people are really bitching that e-readers can't be used for video. My question is why did you buy an e-READER if you wanted to watch VIDEO? You should have bought a laptop.

Re:Real book page turn times

[QuantumG]

You just expressed a view that is completely lost of marketing fools who see features features features as the only way to sell units. This is why every ebook reader also has an mp3 player in it.

Sunlight laptop

[jones_supa]

I don't care that much about e-readers, but hey, getting a laptop that could be viewed under full sunlight is just revolutionary for me.