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Pixel Qi Says Next-Gen Displays Meet or Beat iPad 3 Screen Quality
New submitter seb42 writes "Pixel Qi announces new screens that can match or exceed the image quality of the screen in the iPad3, with a very low power mode that runs at a full 100X power reduction from the peak power consumed by the iPad3 screen. Hope the Google tablet has this tech." The claims are pretty bold, and specific: "We have a new architecture that matches the resolution of the ipad3 screen, and its full image quality including matching or exceeding contrast, color saturation, the viewing angle and so forth with massive power savings."
What's their refresh rate? Is the 100x power saving only in direct sunlight with the backlight turned off?
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exclusivity contract with Apple for the iPad/iPhone.
Get some nice margins in before it becomes just another commodity component on the electronic marketplace.
The original screens were in no way vaporware. I have three and love them all. (No, the picture quality is not on par with a normal screen, but the power savings and daylight use far far far outweigh that (minor) drawback.)
So... something that's not out yet is better than something that is? Shocking.
/me wants 24" or smaller desktop screen with 2048*1536 pixels or more.
Apple isn't using them because a) they're not out yet, b) they aren't mass-produced the way Apple needs them, and c) Apple has volume contracts for screens with its great friend Samsung.
(Yes, the irony is real -- they are suing Samsung while simultaneously buying tons from them.)
Is Apple the uncontested standard for screen specs? Its not exactly innovative if pixel qi picks their competitor's product and says hey we just beat them by an inch. Perhaps they should follow Apple's lead and set a different standard. The power savings issue is nice but not all that breathtaking like a retina display.
They've shipped 2.5 million to 3 million screens but they don't seem to have got the world beating product that shifts by the tens of millions out yet.
The problem is that Apple have a lead and by the time PixelQI get the product to market, Apple will be on the next generation of their product.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
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If only they had been in real, useable products instead of overhyped shite like the OLPCs...
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
Screen-maker-Samsung is not the same company as cellphone-maker-Samsung though they have the same owner.
This is the new Slashdot where they will post "Water: now wet!" if it can get some ad impressions.
How does the screen compare on price?
There are two other important reasons. Although the image quality is similar in terms of resolution and even colour the Pixel Qi screens are not glossy and ultra-bright like Samsung's are, so they don't fit with the Apple gleaming-white-shiny look. Actually most manufacturers prefer to have their screens set to brightness level 11 and glossy, but I'm sure someone will be willing to give the Pixel Qi panel a try.
The other reason is that the OS would need some modification to deal with the different requirements of this screen. I have no idea how easily iOS could do that.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I have a Pixel Qi screen in my Adam tablet, (Notion Ink). If I wanted to leave the screen off most the time, I'd have to pick a high-contrast theme for ICS, which I haven't really run into 'themes' at all. It works well for e-Reader apps if there is a lot of light, (outdoors on a sunny day) but everything else requires that I have the backlight on. The viewing angles are also not up to par.
However, this screen is a couple years old now, so maybe Pixel Qi have come up with some new magic.
(You do notice the battery savings with the screen turned off though.)
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
I am all for advancing display tech. But I'll believe it when I see it. Pixel Q has made a lot of headlines over the last few years with little to show. All they do in this release is say how much better it is than iPad 3 display --- over and over again. Trying to generate some hype maybe? They could have been a little more subtle with their hype and drawn comparisons from other screens on leading devices.
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Not glossy is a huge advantage if you ask me. I HATE glossy screens. Sure, they're sharp, but the reflections are annoying. In side-by-side comparisons at an Apple Store with glossy and non-glare screens, I found I can set the brightness lower on the non-glare screen, the glossy has to be brighter to overcome the reflections. So, that makes the non-glare not only visually preferable, but lower power in practice.
And, as someone with sensitive eyes, I don't want a screen at 500nits. 300+ is handy in bright sunlight, but indoors, my screen is usually around 150nits daytime, 60-80 nits nighttime. And with a good AR coating, you don't need extreme brightness even in sunlight.
So, while I have yet to see a Pixel Qi screen in person, I am very much looking forward to seeing their technology.
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... I won't believe it until I see it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Make a shipping product or it doesn't really exist.
eehhh NO... From a jurisdiction point of view, no. Let's say that I own corporation A, and corporation A has a controlling stake in corporation B. Then A is entitled to all of its profits, but not its liabilities since corporation B is its own legal entity. Let's twist this even further shall we...
Let's say corporation A, owns controlling stakes in both B and C. Along comes a company and sues C, but buys from B. Since each of these corporations are independent, and B or C have zero legal ties to each other then suing C and buying from B is in fact two separate corporations...
Welcome to the world of conglomerates!
THUS... they are not the same company.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
You can buy their screens for yourself.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
It's officially "iPad, third generation", a.k.a. iPad 3.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
glossy is nice if you're in a totally dark room wearing a gimp suit, otherwise it's crap.
and from what I gather from pixel qi is that it's not exactly just the resolution of their screens they need to get up, but production lines and affordability, same thing with mirasol. nice tech but so what if it's not on the screens I could buy.
a perfect screen when it's black would eat up all the light that goes to it.. that's sort of obvious. I find that even matte(marketed as such, and definitely not as glossy as tv's which are really glossy) tv's reflect too much(sure the reflection is smudged, but it still reflects somewhat, noticiable with bright lights in the room).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I was going to write a fake headline for this, making fun of the idea that of course a next generation product will meet or exceed a current product. That's how technology works, for chrissake. Then I realized that was the real headline. Doesn't this story belong in the "Duh" section of slashdot?
So Slashdot shouldn't post any articles on new and more advanced products? Does that mean when Intel comes out with the Haswell, or AMD with the Trinity, Slashdot shouldn't have articles on those either? After all, "of course" as next generation products they will be better than the current generation. (Well, hopefully - the Bulldozer was inferior to Llano and even Phenom II in some ways.)
There are a few examples of this screen out there but I think the reason it's so hard to get a hold of is that the current Pixel Qi screen, well, kind of sucks. The color saturation, contrast, etc just aren't that great. Turns out the screen isn't that good at any of the things it was hyped to be: good color inside, good b&w outside.
c) Apple has volume contracts for screens with its great friend Samsung.
Start bringing the penalties for monopoly powers to Apple (which would kill this practice PDQ), expand the monopoly definition to include Apple's characteristics (no, successful is not one of them), or otherwise make blocking competitors by volume a non-starter(perhaps by stating that such products must be equally available to all at a given price - which would also apply to Apple).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
That's a display that can be viewed with reflected light (light from the front) or with a backlight (light from the back).
You've probably owned at least one. Blackberries and iPods used to have them.
The problem is that they don't have good contrast ratios. This is because when you make the display reflective, it reflects room lighting. This raises the black level (darkest a pixel can be), and so the contrast ratio (which is brightest to darkest pixel) drops.
So displays went to transmissive only to increase contrast. That's why you can't see the display on your portable device if the backlight is off anymore.
It's rather unlikely Pixel Qi has overcome this issue. More likely they just use testing environments that make it look like their displays are better than they actually are in normal use. That's de rigeur in the LCD (or displays in general) business anyway.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
No, it doesn't. That's not how huge multinational conglomerates work. They are basically semi-autonomous companies under an umbrella company but they most likely interact very indirectly at best. This is why it's also silly to try to conflate Sony BMI with the division that makes Playstations when they are very far removed from each other.
1997.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
The latest iPad is called "The New iPad." Why do the Slashdot editors have so much hate against Apple?
Why does Apple have so much hatred for names that make sense? You can choose to buy into their marketing tricks, or just call it iPad 3. Everyone will understand you either way.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Look for "Samsung" on the stock exchange. No, not NYSE or NASDAQ; they are only traded in Korea. And there's only one of them on KOSPI (the Korean stock exchange), under the identifier "005930". The rest is all wholly owned subsidiaries, all of whom belong entirely to the same master corporation and report to the same single CEO and Board of Directors. It's one company. All major multinational corporations work this way, and a lot of smaller ones do too. For example, most power companies work like this...there'll be a company that handles fossil-based (aka, coal oil and gas) power generation, another for nuclear generation (if applicable), another still for transmission and distribution...but they all roll up under the main organization.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Touch screens may complicate things for Pixel Qi, their screens have always relied on AR coatings. Touch screens need a capacitive (better) or resistive layer over the screen, and they need an oliophobic coating to resist finger prints. How will those affect the Pixel Qi screens?
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rant/
Alright, I'm getting figuratively sick and tired about seeing all these posts about the supposedly amazing "Pixel Qi screen" plastered all over tech news sites for at least 3 years now.
I have yet to see ONE SINGLE MAJOR MANUFACTURER include these screen by default in their products. It's driving me crazy!
Any tablets made by major brands such as Samsung, Sony, LG, or even Apple out there with this? No? Any computers with this? NO?!
WHY THE HECK DO TECH NEWS SITES KEEP GOING ON ABOUT THIS PRODUCT THAT ISN'T EVEN OUT ON THE *MAINSTREAM* MARKET YET???
Until I see some sort product that can be bought at a Best Buy, Fry's, or *insert favorite tech store here* with a Pixel Qi screen already installed, I can't regard Pixel Qi as a serious brand and type of screen.
And NO! I don't feel like taking the risk of cracking open my computer or tablet to exchange the OEM screen with the appropriately sized Pixel Qi screen, even with instructions on how to do it.
If I am a mainstream consumer, I want to buy it without doing any dirty work. Though most on the folks on /. probably get a serious kick out of getting the chance to crack open their laptop or tablet to put in a superior part. .../rant
*deep breath* Alright, I'm good now.
No matter it's 70% or 30% or even 90%, back-lighting itself wastes a lot of power
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Funny, I actually love glossy screens. They provide better contrast ratios and color depth. So crisp and clean. But that's ok, I know other people that hate them too. It all comes down to personal preference. Though it would be interesting to see the breakdown of that on the next slashdot poll.
Life is not for the lazy.
Actually, they don't have better contrast, or color depth, or gamut. What they do have is greater color saturation, sharper edges, and often higher brightness. They're also notorious for greater delta-E (color accuracy). The "sharper edges" isn't a major advantage. What most grabs people's attention about them is the higher brightness and greater saturation. It's like the difference between Kodak and Fuji film, Kodak was more realistic and "natural", but many people preferred the over-saturated colors of Fuji film. Higher brightness is an attention getter, but it can be an advantage or a disadvantage.
I also hate finger prints on my screen, and glossy screens make those more obvious.
However, after spending some time on a MBP with a glossy screen, I think I could tolerate it, but I definitely prefer an AR or matte screen. Glossy screens and dark/black backgrounds are not a good combination, but if you use bright backgrounds, they're not as bad. The only bad scenario for a matte screen is very bright ambient (e.g. sunlight) directly hitting the screen. If you can turn so the light must reflect off a non-mirrored surface, the matte screen will be great. True AR coatings are superior to frosted "matte" surfaces. They're somewhat more expensive, but they're the best option overall.
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Glass is required for the digitizer in current capacitive touch screens.
So like it or not, you're getting a glossy glass covered screen in a tablet (which this display is intended for it seems.)
Turns out the screen isn't that good at any of the things it was hyped to be: good color inside, good b&w outside.
Those are not the main qualities Pixel Qi displays are designed for. Their big thing is very good sunlight readability outdoors.
Assuming it's not vaporware, it's a little late to the party. I predict next year there'll be better screens yet. Look at me go.
Anyways, they're sticking it in golf stroke training systems and carwash controls, so maybe they'll find a niche. But as for tablets, wake me when one thrives for a couple of months in the market.
I'm as excited as anyone at the prospect of a better performing high-res screen and despite PixelQIs history of delivering, this doesn't actually exist until I'm looking at the teardown pictures.
It seems that history repeats itself. Apple invents and mass-produces a new technology. they release it into something perfectly usable that you can go down to your local shop and buy with real money. A matter of weeks/months/years later, everybody else starts claiming they've come up with something revolutionary and better without any physical proof that it exists.
Finally, after months/years of waiting, the competition finally comes up with something that was 20% of what was promised, 100% more expensive, and then oh, look, Apple has already released the next-gen product at my local Walmart and it creates yet another paradigm-shift in new technology.
tl;dr to Apple's competition: Shut up about your new product until it's deliverable.
I was going to write a fake headline for this, making fun of the idea that of course a next generation product will meet or exceed a current product. That's how technology works, for chrissake. Then I realized that was the real headline. Doesn't this story belong in the "Duh" section of slashdot?
That's not the point here. What makes the story interesting is that another rather small company is rivaling Apple's cutting edge technology.
This iPad vs. Pixel Qi comparison picture really shows the important difference. The Qi might not have the best colors, but for text and simple images it is good. The iPad and most other laptops and tablets are hard to use outdoors. See this demo image, too.
Though most on the folks on /. probably get a serious kick out of getting the chance to crack open their laptop or tablet to put in a superior part.
The screen that your laptop came with is *already* superior, unless you are in the 0.01% of people who use their laptop on a beach.
There certainly are valid applications for such screens. For example, outdoor hardware - for construction, surveying, military. It might be good even in a common car. A typical notebook isn't one of them.
I personally wouldn't be interested in a tablet or an ebook reader that works best under the sunlight. I just don't read in those conditions. I read in the evening, with external lights off.
my dad can beat up your dad!
In what way is Apple's contract with Samsung for screens "monopolistic"? Samsung can set prices with other customers however they see fit, and they are also free to spin up new plants to produce more screens for other customers - there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing that, and suggesting that it's some sort of "monopolistic" behavior that's stopping them is just plain foolish.
No. E.g. in order to make the various companies competitive, the cellphone-maker-Samsung does not get any preferential treatment from screen-maker-Samsung, but competes for the production on the same "level" as e.g. Apple. Likewise, screen-maker-Samsung does not automatically get the business of cellphone-maker-Samsung which can go to Sharp or whomever if they so desire.
They are both fully owned by an umbrella corporation, though. But I assume they keep the company boards separate to avoid insider knowledge from spreading.
Does it make sense? The iPad 2 does not say "iPad 2" anywhere, just "iPad". My MacBook Pro is not called the MacBook Pro 4 for being the fourth generation of that product. At work, my HP EliteBook probably has some five-digit number to differentiate it from its siblings, but I could not care less. If you buy a 2012 Ford Focus, it does not say "Ford Focus 25" or whichever model they are at now.
So the newest model is the 2012 release of the iPad.
But I do look forward to the jokes that will surround the Samsung Galaxy S IV. "What, are you supposed to plug it into your blood stream now? Haha!"
Great, so how do I swap the screen in my existing laptop with theirs? An external USB-attachable display isn't going to cut it, and a handful of no-name tablets and one obscure notebook isn't going to cut it, especially not internationally.
Unless Apple, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Sony etc. sell devices with their screens they might as well not exist...
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
My 20-year old Sony Trinitron beats iPad 3 Screen Quality. If I had a strange name like "Pixel Qi" or "Kim Dotcom" would this make a slashdot story ?
If you can show us a picture of you on the beach using your Sony Trinitron display, then I think you'd get into Slashdot :-)
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My experience come from owning a notion ink adam tablet with the pixelqi screen.
It is readable outside in sunlight.
BUT it is only readable when there is MUCH sunlight and it is NOT very good even under those optimal conditions.
The contrast is extremely bad, hence you get best results with most sunlight but they are still not optimal. Plus, even with most sunlight, the viewing angle is still extremely narrow and when you tilt the screen just a bit too much, the content becomes unreadable.
I am not surprised why we do not see these "magical" displays in more hardware.
Times hundred reduction, means devide by hundred. Go back to highschool.
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They are not just claiming better visibility but substantial power savings. That would be a boon to any laptop, provided the screen met or exceeded specs in other areas.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Are you an ODM? If not, then you're complaining to the wrong people. Pixel Qi has been shipping devices to anyone who places an order with them, including a couple of large consumer device manufacturers and has even been selling replacement netbook screens to consumers for a couple of years. I've not owned one, but I played with one at FOSDEM a year ago and they seemed pretty nice. Contrast isn't great in the low power mode, but it's a lot more visible in direct sunlight than any laptop screen I've ever owned...
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Not glossy is a huge advantage if you ask me.
Unfortunately, it's only an advantage to the person buying the screen, not the person selling it. There was an article on Slashdot a few years ago with a test in a shop with glossy and non-glossy screens on otherwise identical laptops. The glossy one outsold the matte one about 2:1, yet when interviewed a month later the people buying the matte one were all happier with their purchase. In a bright shop environment, the glossy screens look better, it's only in normal use where they're worse. This is especially relevant for a company like Apple that sells a lot of computers and tablets based on demo units in stores...
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Actually, wouldn't Samsung need to be the one to be punished? In order for there to be an antitrust concern re Apple, it would have to involve a competitor to Apple. It's Samsung's competitors that are being blocked, not Apple's. After all, Apple doesn't care where it gets the parts they need; they only care about price (and quality of course).
Apple's competitors are being blocked from Samsung product for a long enough time to cause harm - not the other way around. What I am suggesting is to expand the criteria to include Apple or its practices - with the result of them being legislatively incentivized to stop.
Volume pricing is a cornerstone of business; what you're describing is essentially government mandated price fixing, something which is illegal.
Buying out the first year to exclude competitors isn't a cornerstone of business. Nor is my solution price fixing - it is guaranteeing same-day availability to more than just Apple and favored clients of Apple.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
(Yes, the irony is real -- they are suing Samsung while simultaneously buying tons from them.)
How the heck is THAT irony?
I mean you don't call it ironic when someone sleeps with their ex do you, and that arrangement is a lot more black and white than the relations between huge companies.
I personally wouldn't be interested in a tablet or an ebook reader that works best under the sunlight. I just don't read in those conditions. I read in the evening, with external lights off.
Because you are used to do it like this. If I had a laptop with a screen perfectly readable in sunlight, you can bet your ass off that I'd be working on a bench in the park below my office instead of in my office.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I have a retrofitted PixelQi display in my netbook, and it extends my PC usage by about 25%. This really surprised me; I didn't think being able to read in sunlight would matter so much. Actually, "sunlight readable" doesn't quite capture it: the more light you throw at it, the BETTER it reads.
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Well, they bloody well should! - I mean iPad 3 is being sold in stores and has a current generation display.
If all else fails, pull the plug and get out...
The Life is out there...
There are ways to get glass to be non-reflective too.
Personally, I've got matte screen protector films on my Ipad and Iphone instead. Makes the screens much, much more enjoyable.
The biggest problem it that, since the diffusing layer is so far from the actual screen due to the thickness of the digitizer/glass in front of the screen, it gets a bit "sparkly" and fuzzy.
A small price to pay to get a matte screen though...
If there was a good smartphone or tablet on the market with a matte screen as standard, I would switch the same day it was released.
At work I got rid of my 27" Imac and switched to a HP desktop with two matte 21.5" IPS-screens instead, just to get rid of the horrible reflective screen.
Looked into getting a 27" matte film to put on the screen first, but they where ridiculously expensive and the "sparkle"-effect is apparently really bad with those.
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Sharp has come up with panels which uses IGZO oxide semiconductors and UV2A x 3 photo-alignment technology giving out a whooping 1280 x 800 pixel resolution on a 7-inch screen. They also claim to have a 90% power reduction from standard LCD panels. Well with that, I don't see any point in what Pixel Qi is doing.