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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.)
/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.)
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.
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Screen-maker-Samsung is not the same company as cellphone-maker-Samsung though they have the same owner.
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.)
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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.
You can buy their screens for yourself.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
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.
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.
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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.
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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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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.)
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.
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 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.