More than a decade after the first color electronic paper screens emerged at CES 2010, the technology’s lead innovator, E Ink, has built a color panel capable of powering eReaders, smartphones, retail signage displays, and now even computer monitors. to provide power.
This week, Chinese electronics manufacturer Dasung revealed its name The world’s first E Ink monitor with a 25.3-in Kaleido 3-color E Ink display. Based on details in the company’s Indiegogo funding campaign, the 25.3-inch display will support 4,096 colors and a resolution of up to 3,200 x 1,800. That sounds good, but it should be noted that the number is likely based on Kaleido 3’s 300ppi rating. Essentially, it’s the same resolution you’ll find on your best Amazon Kindle reader. On the other hand, that ppi is better than Apple’s Studio Display, which has a resolution of 5,120 x 2,880 and 218 pixels per inch.
Dasung promises turbo refresh rates along with the company’s “Dasung X-color Filter” tech that should improve contrast, vibrancy, text darkness, and other on-screen effects. It’s not clear if any of this improves on or replaces E Ink’s proprietary Kaleido 3 rendering enhancement technologies.
The appearance of color E Ink
In the promotional video it is clear that the slightly curved screen is quite thin and you can switch from landscape to portrait mode. However, the screen also looks, well, a bit dull. Like most E Ink displays, the reflective technology is well equipped for use in well-lit environments (there’s also a front light to reduce the impact of blue light), but since there’s no backlight to shine through the colors, you’ll see the screen image looks flat and almost a bit gray.
Despite Dasung’s promises of “incredible refresh rate on Color E Ink”, in the video it looks like the screen refresh rate could fall somewhere below 60Hz. Some of the best cheap monitors, meanwhile, promise refresh rates of 120Hz or higher, and most reports have E Ink’s Kaleido 3 with a 350ms response time (so it’s definitely not the best gaming monitor). That means you shouldn’t expect the same kind of visual response you’d get from one of the best monitors on the market.
What you get is a cool-working, nice-looking, ultra-low power consumption that, we suspect, could be the talk of your office, home office, or student setup. We don’t know how much such a display will cost you. Dasung’s campaign doesn’t include price or details on when the color E Ink display will ship to consumers, aside from the tempting “soon.”