4 ms·

Maybe this is just way too niche, but I've been wondering why there hasn't been any e-ink based laptops with a powerful enough of a processor (e.g. 10th/11th ge

by mikeho1999 6y ago

Maybe this is just way too niche, but I've been wondering why there hasn't been any e-ink based laptops with a powerful enough of a processor (e.g. 10th/11th gen core i7 would be great) and ability to put enough RAM (e.g. 16GB) to run a development environment. Something like that would be oh so light and great/easy to carry around. And something purely used for dev doesn't need to have the ability to play videos, etc. (that would just be distracting anyway, right? =) I know there have been a few tablet/reader-based devices that use e-ink and have the ability to run Linux, but of the ones I've seen, none of them seem to have powerful enough of a CPU (and definitely not enough RAM).

PurpleFoxy 6y ago
Because programming on e paper would be horrible. You can’t scroll text properly. You would be limited to page up/down. And then it takes a second or few to do that. And then the e paper panel costs a bunch so what would be a $1000 laptop becomes $4000 and is strictly worse for the vast majority of users.
- fouc 6y ago
  There are e-ink displays with higher refresh rates where scrolling is possible, like Dasung's new e-ink monitor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY
  - marvindanig 6y ago
    e-ink screens are objectively worse for our eyes than an IPS panel screen. I mean, this is besides the fact that e-paper screens are also more expensive and less capable than the standard iridescent screen that we spend 24 hours on daily.
    - fouc 6y ago
      > e-ink screens are objectively worse for our eyes than an IPS panel screen. That's not actually true. I have glasses explicitly to prevent eye-strain for when I'm working on the computer, even when it is an IPS/retina display with 2X pixel scaling. However I don't need glasses at all when reading books on a kindle or kobo.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Karsteski 6y ago
        Which glasses are these? I'm finding that my eyes are pretty much permanently strained while I'm staring at my computer screen...
        RMPR 6y ago
        Not OP, but I ordered one of these[0] recently. Really a game changer. P.S I'm not affiliated in any way 0: gmg-performance.com
        BossingAround 6y ago
        Weren't blue-light filtering glasses proved to be with no known benefits? E.g. [1]. Personally, I'm very sensitive to light and get frequent debilitating headaches. Blue light filter changes very little for me. Making the whole screen just red with something like flux (together with my glasses that also block blue light) might help around 5-10%, but the migraine still comes full force (maybe 10-15m later). [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkJY9bgLyBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkJY9bgLyBE
        ghusbands 6y ago
        I think your experience with migraines can hardly inform a typical person's experience with blue-light filters and a random hidden camera exposé is not really going to "prove" anything. Also, flux is aimed at sleep regulation, where blue-light filtering is aimed at claimed damage reduction and increased acuity. However, there do seem to be no studies proving efficacy, indeed.
        BossingAround 6y ago
        > I think your experience with migraines can hardly inform a typical person's experience with blue-light filters I would guess it's the opposite--because I'm extremely sensitive to light in general, I'd think if blue-light filters were effective, they'd be even more effective on me, which they aren't. > Also, flux is aimed at sleep regulation People seem to equate "less blue light" with "better" and yet when I make my screen dark orange/red, it does nothing. Also note that I said something like Flux. Last but not least, my glasses also have blue-light filter in them. So I'm reducing blue light with both HW and SW and it has very minuscule effect on me, personally. Of course, it's anecdotal experience and nothing more. But I get an eye twitch when I see stuff like "blue filter is a game changer". Sounds like placebo to me.
    - pmontra 6y ago
      Is an IPS screen displaying static content better than a properly illuminated sheet of paper? I hardly believe that. Of course I remember how difficult was to properly illuminate my notebooks when I was a kid. I guess I'd end up with two lamps on my sides and they are difficult to move as easily as a laptop. For dynamic content, eg ls -la, scrolling through a file, watching to a video, doing a video call, it's no contest.
      - marvindanig 6y ago
        I know, counter-intuitive it was for me too! Professor Michael Young, Michael Rosbash and Jeffrey C. Hall won a Nobel Prize for research in this area in 2017. [1] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2017/press-release/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2017/press-releas... [2] https://bubblin.io/blog/daylight-energy-fatigue https://bubblin.io/blog/daylight-energy-fatigue
        pmontra 6y ago
        Conclusion of [2] "If you are a night owl, you might be better off with a tablet, but if you are a daytime reader who prefers reading outside in the Sun, then a reflective e-reader or a physical book is a better option. Other than that, there is no difference between the two screens."
  - linspace 6y ago
    That's amazing. It's so retro... One is tempted to build with it some kind of steam punk computer.
- stewbrew 6y ago
  cough Back then in the old days you used page down/up because the computer was too slow to make scrolling line by line useful. You can live without scrolling.
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    And a function should not take up more space than a screen anyway!
- drdebug 6y ago
  I purchased a Boox Max2 and got the version with HDMI to code. What I had not realized is that I would miss source code highlighting with color coding so much. Everything else can be more or less worked around, scrolling did not bother me.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  >And then the e paper panel costs a bunch so what would be a $1000 laptop becomes $4000 and is strictly worse for the vast majority of users. IMO, this is fundamentally a niche object. But that nicheness means that if it did exist, it would have several options without worrying about pissing off the mainstream. #1 on that list is that you don't need to seamlessly emulate an LCD screen with an e-ink screen - instead of having a single multiplexed screen, have 2-3 80-char-wide separate e-ink screens and have text on each of them. This has two advantages: one, it's cheaper because e-ink screen costs scale geometrically with size, not linearly. And two, AIUI partial-refresh doesn't work well when you're literally refreshing a third or half of your screen, but two completely independent screens can obviously refresh independently of each other. I'm assuming partial refreshes are faster due to taking a smaller absolute number of pixels, and not due to being a smaller proportion of the screen, so e.g. a quarter of a 4" screen will refresh the same speed as a full 2" screen refresh but faster than a full 4" screen refresh. Ideally, you'd want to split the e-ink screen into as many smaller screens as possible anywhere it makes sense (and design the UI in hardware), simply to reduce costs. Sadly, large cheap single screens have made the concept of software controlled UIs so obvious that people don't even consider the alternative.
- namibj 6y ago
  My Eink tablet does ~15 fps in monochrome operation. It can very much scroll, though you are right, one would typically use page up/down functionality. But you'd not really have to wait.
MengerSponge 6y ago
I'm guessing the BOM cost of the display would be far too high. Dasung's 13" external e-ink display costs $1200. Boox's 10" e-reader costs $500. I can't imagine there are enough people willing to trade color and syntax highlighting for that crisp e-paper goodness on their $3000 13" development machine.
wpm 6y ago
Just get an old passive matrix LCD and pretend.
teleforce 6y ago
Check this ThinkBook Plus by Lenovo (2nd Gen)[1]. The latest version has an updated e-ink secondary screen with bigger and higher resolution to match the main conventional screen. [1]https://www.engadget.com/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-2-i-e-ink-screen-laptop-170048754.html https://www.engadget.com/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-2-i-e-ink...
tyler109 6y ago
combine this project (DIY eink screen): https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/ljq262/epdiy_eink_pc_monitor_work_in_progress/ https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/ljq262/epdiy_eink_pc_... with this latest release (Raspberry PI alternative board which supports eink): https://www.makeuseof.com/quartz64-e-ink-sbc/ https://www.makeuseof.com/quartz64-e-ink-sbc/ and this solar powered, power first open source (eink) laptop project: https://hackaday.io/project/177716-the-open-source-autarkic-laptop https://hackaday.io/project/177716-the-open-source-autarkic-... Vola!
awiesenhofer 6y ago
You can try the impromptu DIY version of such a device by just setting any android-based ereader in front of your laptop display and use VNC/RDP or similar to mirror your screen on the eink reader. I personally went a step further and used my boox nova 3 and a BT keyboard [1] directly to ssh into my workstation for a while. Though I agree, an eink based laptop in a X1 or MBA form factor would be amazing, just for the battery life alone. [1] Logitech K480, comes with integrated tablet holder

PurpleFoxy 6y ago

Because programming on e paper would be horrible. You can’t scroll text properly. You would be limited to page up/down. And then it takes a second or few to do that. And then the e paper panel costs a bunch so what would be a $1000 laptop becomes $4000 and is strictly worse for the vast majority of users.

fouc 6y ago
There are e-ink displays with higher refresh rates where scrolling is possible, like Dasung's new e-ink monitor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9qrURPAtnY
- marvindanig 6y ago
  e-ink screens are objectively worse for our eyes than an IPS panel screen. I mean, this is besides the fact that e-paper screens are also more expensive and less capable than the standard iridescent screen that we spend 24 hours on daily.
  - fouc 6y ago
    > e-ink screens are objectively worse for our eyes than an IPS panel screen. That's not actually true. I have glasses explicitly to prevent eye-strain for when I'm working on the computer, even when it is an IPS/retina display with 2X pixel scaling. However I don't need glasses at all when reading books on a kindle or kobo.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Karsteski 6y ago
      Which glasses are these? I'm finding that my eyes are pretty much permanently strained while I'm staring at my computer screen...
      - RMPR 6y ago
        Not OP, but I ordered one of these[0] recently. Really a game changer. P.S I'm not affiliated in any way 0: gmg-performance.com
        BossingAround 6y ago
        Weren't blue-light filtering glasses proved to be with no known benefits? E.g. [1]. Personally, I'm very sensitive to light and get frequent debilitating headaches. Blue light filter changes very little for me. Making the whole screen just red with something like flux (together with my glasses that also block blue light) might help around 5-10%, but the migraine still comes full force (maybe 10-15m later). [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkJY9bgLyBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkJY9bgLyBE
        ghusbands 6y ago
        I think your experience with migraines can hardly inform a typical person's experience with blue-light filters and a random hidden camera exposé is not really going to "prove" anything. Also, flux is aimed at sleep regulation, where blue-light filtering is aimed at claimed damage reduction and increased acuity. However, there do seem to be no studies proving efficacy, indeed.
        BossingAround 6y ago
        > I think your experience with migraines can hardly inform a typical person's experience with blue-light filters I would guess it's the opposite--because I'm extremely sensitive to light in general, I'd think if blue-light filters were effective, they'd be even more effective on me, which they aren't. > Also, flux is aimed at sleep regulation People seem to equate "less blue light" with "better" and yet when I make my screen dark orange/red, it does nothing. Also note that I said something like Flux. Last but not least, my glasses also have blue-light filter in them. So I'm reducing blue light with both HW and SW and it has very minuscule effect on me, personally. Of course, it's anecdotal experience and nothing more. But I get an eye twitch when I see stuff like "blue filter is a game changer". Sounds like placebo to me.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    Is an IPS screen displaying static content better than a properly illuminated sheet of paper? I hardly believe that. Of course I remember how difficult was to properly illuminate my notebooks when I was a kid. I guess I'd end up with two lamps on my sides and they are difficult to move as easily as a laptop. For dynamic content, eg ls -la, scrolling through a file, watching to a video, doing a video call, it's no contest.
    - marvindanig 6y ago
      I know, counter-intuitive it was for me too! Professor Michael Young, Michael Rosbash and Jeffrey C. Hall won a Nobel Prize for research in this area in 2017. [1] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2017/press-release/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2017/press-releas... [2] https://bubblin.io/blog/daylight-energy-fatigue https://bubblin.io/blog/daylight-energy-fatigue
      - pmontra 6y ago
        Conclusion of [2] "If you are a night owl, you might be better off with a tablet, but if you are a daytime reader who prefers reading outside in the Sun, then a reflective e-reader or a physical book is a better option. Other than that, there is no difference between the two screens."
- linspace 6y ago
  That's amazing. It's so retro... One is tempted to build with it some kind of steam punk computer.
stewbrew 6y ago
cough Back then in the old days you used page down/up because the computer was too slow to make scrolling line by line useful. You can live without scrolling.
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  And a function should not take up more space than a screen anyway!
drdebug 6y ago
I purchased a Boox Max2 and got the version with HDMI to code. What I had not realized is that I would miss source code highlighting with color coding so much. Everything else can be more or less worked around, scrolling did not bother me.
Qwertious 6y ago
>And then the e paper panel costs a bunch so what would be a $1000 laptop becomes $4000 and is strictly worse for the vast majority of users. IMO, this is fundamentally a niche object. But that nicheness means that if it did exist, it would have several options without worrying about pissing off the mainstream. #1 on that list is that you don't need to seamlessly emulate an LCD screen with an e-ink screen - instead of having a single multiplexed screen, have 2-3 80-char-wide separate e-ink screens and have text on each of them. This has two advantages: one, it's cheaper because e-ink screen costs scale geometrically with size, not linearly. And two, AIUI partial-refresh doesn't work well when you're literally refreshing a third or half of your screen, but two completely independent screens can obviously refresh independently of each other. I'm assuming partial refreshes are faster due to taking a smaller absolute number of pixels, and not due to being a smaller proportion of the screen, so e.g. a quarter of a 4" screen will refresh the same speed as a full 2" screen refresh but faster than a full 4" screen refresh. Ideally, you'd want to split the e-ink screen into as many smaller screens as possible anywhere it makes sense (and design the UI in hardware), simply to reduce costs. Sadly, large cheap single screens have made the concept of software controlled UIs so obvious that people don't even consider the alternative.
namibj 6y ago
My Eink tablet does ~15 fps in monochrome operation. It can very much scroll, though you are right, one would typically use page up/down functionality. But you'd not really have to wait.

MengerSponge 6y ago

I'm guessing the BOM cost of the display would be far too high. Dasung's 13" external e-ink display costs $1200. Boox's 10" e-reader costs $500. I can't imagine there are enough people willing to trade color and syntax highlighting for that crisp e-paper goodness on their $3000 13" development machine.

wpm 6y ago

Just get an old passive matrix LCD and pretend.

teleforce 6y ago

Check this ThinkBook Plus by Lenovo (2nd Gen)[1]. The latest version has an updated e-ink secondary screen with bigger and higher resolution to match the main conventional screen. [1]https://www.engadget.com/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-2-i-e-ink-screen-laptop-170048754.html https://www.engadget.com/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-2-i-e-ink...

tyler109 6y ago

combine this project (DIY eink screen): https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/ljq262/epdiy_eink_pc_monitor_work_in_progress/ https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/ljq262/epdiy_eink_pc_... with this latest release (Raspberry PI alternative board which supports eink): https://www.makeuseof.com/quartz64-e-ink-sbc/ https://www.makeuseof.com/quartz64-e-ink-sbc/ and this solar powered, power first open source (eink) laptop project: https://hackaday.io/project/177716-the-open-source-autarkic-laptop https://hackaday.io/project/177716-the-open-source-autarkic-... Vola!

awiesenhofer 6y ago

You can try the impromptu DIY version of such a device by just setting any android-based ereader in front of your laptop display and use VNC/RDP or similar to mirror your screen on the eink reader. I personally went a step further and used my boox nova 3 and a BT keyboard [1] directly to ssh into my workstation for a while. Though I agree, an eink based laptop in a X1 or MBA form factor would be amazing, just for the battery life alone. [1] Logitech K480, comes with integrated tablet holder