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Pixel Qi Demos 10" 1280x800 Pixel Screens
Compared to their dumber e-ink cousins, tablets with LCD screens suffer at least two notable disadvantages: their batteries last hours or days, rather than weeks (or months), and they're notoriously hard to read in the sunshine. Neither of these problems are likely to be licked soon, but the gap may be shrinking: Mary Lou Jepsen's OLPC spinoff Pixel Qi has now shown off a 10", 1280x800 panel. Pixel Qi's screens are well-known, though not currently widely adopted, for their ability to run in a high-contrast, low-power greyscale mode as well as a still-frugal color mode. Though the company is currently showing prototypes rather than a shipping version of the new high-resolution screens, it's reason to renew hope for a long-lived color-screen tablet that's comfortable in the sunlight.
I realise people don't read the article, but try the summary, at least. These screens don't offer a solution in terms of energy demands.
Dear PixelQi guys:
Please make a screen suitable for smartphones. There is a lot more need to use a smartphone than there is to use a laptop, as you can't control when you get incoming calls.
Thanks,
Ender Stonebender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
Or 640x400, at the rate that laptop resolution is going.
No, the story here is a panel that switches between RGB backlit LCD and monochrome reflective LCD instantly. The summary makes it pretty clear this isn't e-ink, so I have no clue where you got that rubbish.
The reflective mode is not eink; it won't persist an image with no power, but OTOH it's instant-updating (usable for video, etc.). It's like a transflective LCD, but instead of using absorbing color filters on the front of the screen to generate RGB, it generates the RGB in the backlight (using a diffraction grating to separate out white light). Not only is this more efficient in terms of backlight power, but it also means that the reflective path has no filter losses (vs ~75% loss in a typical transflective) -- the penalty for this is no color in reflective mode. However, the display is designed so programs can take advantage of the monochrome mode; the screen uses square subpixels (instead of ~3:1 aspect in a standard RGB LCD), so you can get nearly double the resolution, which is nice for high-quality text rendering.
I didn't understand it either, 1280x800 10" screen? My touchscreen laptop is 1280x768 and only 8.9", what's the big deal? Then I saw this video comparing the Pixel Qi to an iPad outdoors.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Or 2560 x 400, at least screens are getting wider.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Pixel Qi's screens are well-known, though not currently widely adopted, for their ability to run in a high-contrast, low-power greyscale mode
No, they're not.
I own a Notion Ink Adam - one of the few devices on the market today which ships with a Pixel Qi screen. And I can tell you this - the contrast in that low-power mode is horrible. If you expected something like modern eInk readers - say, Kindle 3 or the recent Nook - forget about it. It's actually worse than my first eInk reader that I bought back in 2007!
The contrast is low enough that reading from Adam inside during the day with no light source shining directly at the screen is impossible. Outside, it's okayish... except still not particularly bright, and glossy screen kills the image. Either way, it's nothing to boast about - sure, it's better in the sun than TFT, but still... And the technology is not free - in "normal TFT" mode, its contrast and colors are less than average TN panel.
Frankly, after seeing it for myself, I understood why there isn't a long list of devices announced to use the tech despite it currently being in production. Right now it's a pretty huge trade-off that probably doesn't make sense for most users.
Here is a video where you can see some comparisons, and there are plenty more on YouTube. See for yourself.
Really once you see one of these, you will never want to see one again.
This is a two mode screen and both modes are mediocre.
1: E-Ink mode: This is what all the hoopla is about, but it is terrible compared to a Kindle, it NEEDs sunlight to be visibly, you aren't going to use this mode indoors, so it is a very part time outdoor sunny mode. Most of the time you will be using:
2: Color LCD mode: Which is worse than the cheapest LCD on the market. Colors are weak and viewing angles are terrible.
This just combines two of the worse displays on the market into one. Figure out what you actually need a display to do and get a one mode display that does an excellent job (Color LCD or E-ink) at that, instead of a display that will at best always be second rate.
There's no confusion here. When I say "low contrast", that's precisely what I mean - the difference between white (it's really more like goldish in this mode) and black. It's way lower than on Kindle given identical light conditions (obviously, the absolute value would depend on how much you shine on the screen in the first place)
The reason why Adam is hard to use in the sun is because of its insanely glossy screen (one of the many original promises on which they reneged was to have a matte screen).
I've talked to a laptop OEM about them (they're going into production in a few months with Pixel Qi screens). There are two problems:
The first is the size. The Pixel Qi screens are slightly thicker than normal LCDs, which means that you can't use the same case design for TFT and Pixel Qi models.
The second one is the price. These screens cost $65, while a 10" TFT costs something around $20. When you consider that ARM-based laptops retail in the $100-200 range, this is quite a significant difference.
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