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Pixel Qi Introduces a DIY Kit
jones_supa writes "Pixel Qi has just revealed their DIY kit for netbooks, planned to be out near the end of Q2 — sounds like June. This makes it possible to retrofit a screen to one fully readable in direct sunlight. In her blog, Mary Lou Jepsen says: 'It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation.' She also talks about the 'laptop hospital,' a service depot started by kids in Africa."
Slashdotted before a first-post. That's unfortunate.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
i thought their stuff was only black&white? won't you need some pretty severe UI changes to get something useful out of a netbook like that?
weinersmith
No thanks, but I'll wait for when it can be done as a replacement for TN screens of larger sizes (14", 15", (17"?)) and proves to be better at quality than *-IPS panels.
Netbooks might be a proof-of-concept, but notebooks of larger sizes and higher quality would be a better application.
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A quick google search turned up the same story: http://www.buzzbox.com/news/2010-03-07/Pixel_Qi:Q2/
my mom posts on slashdot.
Yeah. To change a lightbulb you have to change five screws and a bezel. What's one more screw?
unhook
unplug
unlock
disconnect
Let's not pretend the rules make sense.
What about the problem of dust getting inside while changing the screen? Few people have the clean-rooms necessary to get factory-quality results. Sure, it'll take five minutes to change the screen, but it'll take three more hours of repeatedly taking the bezel off, spraying it with a can of air, and putting it back on to remove the inevitable particles getting in.
Now we can begin our own "How many netbook owners does it takes to change a lightbulb" jokes.
I think Yahoo has actually been slashdotted :o
Africa is in a terrible catch 22 situation. In order to have a stable economy, of any kind, they must have respect for law. In order to get that, they have to have a stable economy with sufficient wealth so that people can settle down and have a rule of law. One hopes that netbooks for Africa would help, but, I am not optimistic.
This is my sig.
This isn't a generic LCD display - that's not their market.
The big deals with the Pixel Qi display is that:
- It's totally usable in full sunlight
- It's full color and fast (OK for video)
- It has a reflective e-ink mode
- It's low power
It's really geared towards:
1) eBook readers that want color and video support
2) Laptops/netbooks intended to be used outside (which tends to mean smaller form factor)
They use the same production line as traditional LCDs though (there's lots of articles / videos on them if you Google), so they'll certainly be able to produce larger sizes if they want to.
I haven't seen any tests on this. I don't doubt it'll match a regular TN screen in all ways, but how do they compare to the better IPS, MVA, PVA technologies?
From what I understood about the PixelQI displays, they should be as easy to make as regular displays, so it ought to be possible to get them in high colour and viewing angle versions as well.
I think the website is down. Here is a cache version:
http://74.125.93.132/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fpixelqi.com%2Fblog1%2F2010%2F03%2F07%2Fdiy-pixel-qi-kits%2F&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
Seriously, their technology must be something all display manufacturers are after. So why have they to offer something like that which will be only of interest for geeks?
As far as I know there is nothing amiss with this displays. They are great, cheap, easy to produce and offer nothing but advantages. There's no reason they shouldn't be able to sell this technology to everyone building netbooks or notebooks or desktop displays. But there's not a *single* device you can buy with this display. What's going on here?
Not much apparently. If a five year old girl can do it, maybe you can too?! ;-)
Why notebooks in general don't come with transflective screen options is beyond me. It's an old and proven technology used on most PDAs and many smartphones now and the color gamut is actually pretty decent; perhaps not enough for color matching but excellent for gaming, movies, and the like (not to mention basic word processing, coding, etc. tasks). They are perfectly readable in all lighting conditions including direct sunlight, with full color reproduction. It is true that contrast and color gamut do suffer in direct sunlight but what does that matter, when you are looking at a screen that is incredible when backlight in normal viewing conditions, and very usable in sunlight?
I've seen only a couple of notebooks with that option over the years. I'd like to see some new higher-end notebooks with transflective screens.
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If you could manage to mount the new screen to the outside of the netbook with a touch screen mod and switch the connections between the internal and external screen. It might be able to create a netbook/tablet. I know i'd find that useful.
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Yeah because grammar skills are exactly the same as electronics skills! Also, your interpreter seems to be buggy, since you mistook an undefined identifier for a language grammar error. ;) ;)
If I would judge the technical skills of the Slashdot crowd by its social skills and manners, I would assume that they all use AOL.
P.S.: I know someone will find an error in the grammar of this sentence. If you do so, go ahead, and answer me in my own native language: Luxemburgish! Good luck with that! ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
This group of girls armed with screwdrivers starting taking apart the laptops and reseating the cables. Sometimes they'd change out a screen, or a speaker. They learned about the hardware of their laptops. They got to see what was inside. They got better and better at fixing things by learning as they went.
5-11 years old. Not told by anything to do so but in their own interest. Sorry, but that’s humanity at its finest. :)
If I learned one thing about our abilities, it’s to simply assume you can do it. I see so many people who say and think that they can’t do this and can’t do that.
We all are incredibly intelligent. Everyone can fix electronics. Everyone can write software. Everyone can learn quantum physics!
It’s just a matter of allowing oneself to assume that one is able to do it. And then do it.
That one rule, worked for me my whole life.
Ministers of Education had a tough time believing that these girls could fix the hardware, so they would visit - to see it with their own eyes - and start thinking differently about maintenance of hardware.
And here we see that exact mindset of “we can’t”. Just as most people here would assume a 5 year old girl couldn’t fix a computer. Let alone one from a 3rd world rural area. :)
Turns out that’s bullshit!
Man, if everyone could just see the tiny box of social conditioned pointless rules that he is caught in... “You can’t do that! Only rich good looking men get girls! Obey! Buy, buy, consume and buy! You are ugly! There is another side, that is against you! Believe! You must do this, and must not do that! ... ”
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
It's Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch), you insensitive clod! (spelling, not grammar :-)
But don't let anyone nag you about your language skills - or your spelling skills. You should see some of my misplaced accents in my written French. It's like "I didn't really write that, did I?"
See. There is already an error in it: I wanted to say: “...in the grammar of this comment”.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
unconcerting, noun: The disconcerting tendency of musicians to abandon a live performance based livelihood towards the practice of recording an album every other year and expecting it to feed their agents for a hundred years. See also: Frivolous, Middle-man
With you on this - mostly because I don't have a netbook.
What? You want to replace a TN-quality display with something that's better than the best on the market? And that's stand-alone display market - there are NO laptops on the market today, that has an IPS-display. There aren't even any that have MVA/PVA displays. Why the hell not settle for replacing it with something that's better than TN-quality?
I've heard claims that 15.4" and 17" MacBook Pros have IPS displays.
Also, ThinkPad X201 Tablets have PVA displays.
Okay, so when will people be able to buy these things for their own netbooks, and how much will they cost?
Will the screens be compatible in all netbooks? (I know there is a resolution standard but unsure if there is a standard panel size.)
How would you switch between the 3 screen modes? You'd need a dedicated switch that your netbook doesn't have, or a special driver (hopefully there would be a Linux version) to select your mode.
I'd love to have one of these screens to replace the glossy display in my current netbook. It's completely unusable in direct sunlight. Hell, I'd love to see this kind of tech eventually be offered as an option in ALL laptop screens.
I purchased four XO-1s when they originally came out a couple years ago. I gave away two, boxed one for posterity, and am still using one for browsing (Opera) and note-taking (Zim) when I'm at conferences. I still get heads-turns and kids inching over to take a look over my shoulder everywhere I go.
The XO-1 has an early version of the Pixel Qi screen, and it is extremely functional. I'm still amazed every time I'm reading an ebook on the subway, and walk from the deep darkness of the subway tunnel into blinding, direct sunlight, and the XO-1 display is still completely readable.
The XO-1's processor, however, is quite slow, and that becomes a pain in the neck for browsing. A decently-performing netbook doesn't cost very much these days, but the screens are a disappointment. I'm really looking forward to snagging a Pixel Qi DIY kit, buying a cheap netbook, and fixing up my ride.
Bring it, Mary Lou!
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The OLPC must be built substantially different from every laptop that I've worked on (Acer Aspire One, Almost every recent Dell, Thinkpad, HP, or Toshiba). Almost all of them have the LVDS connector on the motherboard and fed through the hinge, requiring disassembling the base to some degree to get the cable out, then about 6 screws to open the bezel, then several more to get the screen module out, then several more to get the frame off the screen. I suppose you could re-use the LVDS cable to avoid opening the base, but it's usually fragile.
Mind that the iPad has IPS, proving that small IPS panels can be built profitably. The iPad might be a non-general-purpose device, but it puts Lenovo's arguments against it to shame.
As for the Thinkpad (X201/etc.) panels, is that just for tablet models, or is it for all of them?
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Nobody ever thought to tell them they couldn't succeed at that.... so they just did it!
Bravo!
At my house the dining room light needs 4 screws and a glass cover removed to change the 2 bulbs in it.
The iPad doesn't qualify as a netbook/notebook. You said it yourself. And to be honest, I really want an IPS display on a notebook, but for some reason all manufacturers have seemingly decided "fuck it, we'll do cheap over good", which is completely stupid. There IS a market for expensive laptops in the business segment.
You can't do proper image manipulation on a TN-display - the colours are all wrong. That means you can't sell that laptop to people who do photo-work, be it professionally or in their spare time. You also can't sell the laptop to people who needs to change their working position constantly, because you constantly need to readjust the display. And before you ask, that'd be as a desktop replacement.
Quite a lot of photographers are yearning for the iPad. Not because it's an Apple product. Not because it's "fancy". Because it has an IPS display.
Yet, most people are scared to change their laptop screen. It's only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbuld: it's basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That's it. It's a 5 minute operation.
Most people are scared to change their laptop screen because its so easy to break the bezek, which has strange little hooks and may be glued on at points so that it cracks and breaks.
I've taken apart laptops and I think they do things just to make us break it. Frankly I'm surprised my current thinkpad has the audio jacks on a daughter board that can be replaced (although you have to take apart the whole base part of the laptop to get it off.
The OLPC has the motherboard mounted behind the LCD. The bottom half just has the battery and keyboard. It's kind of an odd configuration, since it makes it rather top-heavy, but it makes disassembly relatively simple.
That's correct, the OLPC is built substantially differently from every laptop you've worked with. :')
Seriously, the CPU and the screen are on the same side of the hinge. The only wires that go through the hinge are a connector for the keyboard and the connections for the battery. It's full of win, except for the choice to use OpenFirmware instead of LinuxBIOS.
I'm sure changing the screen on an OLPC is nice and easy. Problem is, TFA states you should do this to your netbook. For every laptop I've changed a screen on, it's been a fairly complex operation with significant risk of breaking something - levering off the bezel without snapping anything, taking the keyboard and rest of the top plastics off to get at the video connector on the motherboard, threading the resulting ribbon cable back through the hinge, and removing the screen from the lid. It's non trivial. Unless it turns out most common Netbooks are constructed otherwise, I can't see this being all that easy. Also, the ribbon connector to the motherboard isn't a standard, it varies and so again, unless all netbooks use the same interface (and I guess given the majority are Intel/Atom chipset this is more likely) I don't think one screen would fit all.
I'd do it to my own if I owned a netbook (they should do one with a touchscreen built in!) but I wouldn't recommend someone not used to dismantling laptops tried it.
It takes more than this display to make a machine as power-friendly as the XO. XO's wifi is provided by an external module with its own power management, and its processor is less power-hungry than any x86 on the market today. I still know of no one producing a product today based on the Marvell meshing AP in the XO, though if I am lucky enough to be wrong, I'd certainly like to know who is doing it. The processor situation will rectify itself shortly, and anyway, the XO is slow. I don't think I'm alone in wishing for an OMAP4-based Linux netbook.
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Incorrect. It's TFS that does.
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And you know, I'd be happy with that, if it was a decent album, and not two good songs and 18 duds?
Mods on crack again. Parent is correct - RTFA.