Comments on: Dedicated eReaders, multiple mode Screens, multiple purpose Devices

By: Dave Marney

Dave Marney — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:17:29 +0000

The first generation of this screen has been available for a couple of years now in the XO-1 laptop from One Laptop Per Child. If you haven’t seen one, go to a local OLPC meetup or find a friend who owns one.

I own an XO-1, and use it for note-taking (using Zim, an excellent personal wiki/outlining tool), web browsing, email reading, and e-book reading. The screen is highly readable, very bright and crisp. The colors are not very vibrant, true, but I actually don’t notice it day-to-day, because the screen is very legible. Most screens where lack of vibrancy is bothersome is because the ENTIRE screen is washed out and hard to read. Here, everything’s very crisp, just not as intensely colored.

I usually dim the backlight to 20% indoors, which creates a paper-like, low-contrast effect. The XO-1 really can’t be used indoors with the backlight completely off, although the new 3Qi model can. Outdoors, however, the reflective LCD is fabulous. The brighter the light, the better. The B&W screen is 200dpi, and once you get used to how sharp it looks, going back to color, with its much more standard 96dpi is actually a bit of a disappointment.

I’m really looking forward to the 3qi. The first generation of the screen is so impressive, I can’t wait to see the next. Bring it on, Mary Lou!

By: switch11

switch11 — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:30:12 +0000

Well, fair enough. I don’t really work with Photoshop so didn’t notice that distinction – will edit that out.

By: Al

Al — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:17:33 +0000

I observe that the color mode is very pastel looking, sort of the way my pictures show up on the Kindle, very low key. They don’t have the snap that an active LCD screen has. This might be OK for kiddies but I think the comment that one could work on Photoshop is pretty weak.

By: Will Amazon offer Kindles with Pixel Qi or mirasol displays (given its interest in mags and newspapers, as well as video)? | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:20:24 +0000

[...] Kindle Review, one of the most gung-ho K-boosters, has discoveried the possibilities of Pixel Qi—perhaps nudged along by the fact that the first hardware company with a firm commitment to [...]

By: Tom Farrell

Tom Farrell — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:27:54 +0000

Clearly you don’t remember the days of reflective LCD screens in laptops in the 90′s. Everyone HATED the reflective LCDs, despite their much better battery life, and when the active LCD screens came out people clamored for those, and then for the color ones, to the point that any model featuring them was sold out for months after its release despite poor battery life.

The whole POINT of e-ink is to make a reflective screen that’s pleasant to read, the opposite of those darned reflective LCD screens.