Two days ago E-ink has announced its new panel electronic ink, in which color takes center stage and the truth is that it was not expected that it could present a technology that surpasses the color quality of a printer.
But the reality is that, after seeing the first images and a video of the screens, it can be said that this new panel will make many look for this technology due to the quality it offers, although not everything is so nice as it seems.
Slashgear has been able to get very close to E-ink's new Advanced Color ePaper (ACeP). This new epaper distances itself from the color filter required in previous screens of this type and, instead, displays a full range of colors, which includes the primary colors by using the colored pigments in each pixel.
What this means is that the new ACeP screen does not only have black and white pigment capsules in each pixel, as it does with standard E-ink screens. Instead, the new screen has eight sets of pigment capsules in a single pixel. Although E-ink has not named them, you can tell that these colors are white, black, red, purple, blue, green, yellow and orange.
The reality is that it all sounds great, but the use of all those color pigments come at a cost as shown in the video. The flash that you can see is due to how the screen prepares for the activation of another color. Which means that thanks to those 8 color pigments, the refresh rate is very low, and that is why we will not see these panels in an eReader.
E-ink has focused on this type of screens for the signage market. They have created 20-inch panels with 1600 x 2500 resolutions at 1500ppi, and this technology is expected to go into commercial production within the next two years.
Color electronic ink has a curse that makes you laugh at Tutankhamun's.
Is that a market segment such as e-readers is apparently very small, let me explain:
The vast majority of ePubs, mobis and equivalents, are monochromatic (if we do not take their covers into account), the exception being illustrated books or with photographs, the former generally for children and the latter for art.
Lavishly illustrated books, comics and magazines belong to the realm of PDFs, which are a curse for e-readers and instead handle reasonably well on tablets larger than 8 inches.
That is why I suspect that our area of interest is the one that least worries the manufacturers of this product.
I imagine that they will reach e-readers before passing through PC monitors and tablets
Well, we already have other news that in two years we will have this technology, so very good!
The future market is not going for e-books, but for digital signage, the total replacement of paper at all points of sale and in advertising environments.