[translation] Hello, I was wondering if it would be interesting to develop a color electronic ink screen for the Framework Laptop 16. It would be more geared towards programming or text editing. I know that electronic ink screens have a very low refresh rate, but they have many advantages such as preserving our eyes, readability in bright sunlight, and low energy consumption. The downside is that the screen of the FW Laptop 16 is not hot-swappable. So, watching videos or other tasks requiring a higher refresh rate would be impossible. However, there might be external screens that can be connected to a computer to share the screen. If you are knowledgeable about this topic, it would be interesting to discuss it here.
This sounds very interesting! I am not yet familiar with e-ink display technology, but as I learn more, I would love to experiment with developing a Framework-compatible e-ink display.
2 Likes
[translation] I am also searching. For now, I’ve found that there are color e-ink computer screens available. Unfortunately, they are a bit expensive. I believe the technology itself is easier to manufacture, but the market is still too small to benefit from mass production prices. If the Fw laptop 16 included such a screen, it would make sense as it saves energy, preserves the eyes, and remains readable in bright light. You would then need an external traditional screen for watching videos. Or even be able to connect the screen to a smartphone for temporary use.
I’d still want access to a regular display, but I’d love to somehow make use of an eink display while on a workload than can benefit from the readability and power savings. As an engineer though, I have no idea how that’d work.
1 Like
We may wait out a generation or 2, there is apparently some much better stuff in the pipeline now that the original e-inc patent expired. Like color e-inc that doesn’t make you want to claw your eyes out or relatively fast refreshing ones.
Won’t replace a regular screen anytime soon but may be an interresting thing for an auxiliary screen (maybe in the palmrest).
The real bigbrain move would be a transparent oled over an e-inc so you could use them where appropriate but the software for that would likely be complex as all hell (oh and of course it would probably cost a fortune).
3 Likes
That’s a surprisingly intuitive solution. The more I think about it, the more I really like it. Maybe that’s how those “fake color eink” displays operated.
1 Like
Yeah, I don’t know how many colours you can currently get in an e-ink display, but for many people I would think that 16 bit, or even 12 bit, colour would be sufficient for many things where picture content is not being manipulated. That would work for many text editors that programmers use for context highlighting.
1 Like
It’s a great idea. Transparent OLED lacks contrast due to its transparency, but here, the e-ink screen behind it would turn black, eliminating any contrast issues.
In terms of pricing, I believe transparent OLED will decrease significantly once real uses are found. However, when it comes to the pricing of color e-ink screens, I have no idea how the prices might evolve.
From what I’ve seen so far, color e-ink screens don’t seem to have real resolution problems. We find 3K screens of 25.3 inches. In terms of color, they seem a bit pale, apparently displaying 4096 colors. The biggest issue remains the refresh rate. It’s impossible to find real figures. Manufacturers say it’s fast, press reviews say it’s below 60 Hz, visually, it seems to be around 12 Hz. The video rendering looks like a stop-motion animation. So anything that requires good contrast and/or a high refresh rate is currently impossible (and probably always will be unless the technology is coupled with another) on an e-ink screen.
Price isn’t the only issue with it, due to it needing smaller pixels doing to same brightness it is likely going to have massively worse burn-in issues. Would be a cool tech demo though.
Honestly just let the einc guys cook a few more generations. Now that there isn’t only one manufacturer anymore and there is actual competition there may be some pretty nice (or at least innovative) stuff in the pipeline.
I have seen second gen color einc on someones e-reader in person before and it was pretty underwhelming.
2 Likes