6 ms·

10.1 inch Notion Ink Tablet - $375

98 points by tomeast 16y ago

jmcqk6 16y ago
I'll be getting the Pixel Qi version, if the reviews hold up. I'm slightly skeptical that the device will meet expectations, but I've already put money back to buy the device as soon as it's available. The Pixel Qi screen alone places it above an iPad.
- mquander 16y ago
  Likewise; I think that this will get a huge amount of preorders from people that have just been waiting for any Pixel Qi tablet at all. I can't imagine how they could screw this device up badly enough to warrant me not paying $500 for it. (And they may not screw it up at all; it sounds pretty open, with good specs.) I'm really happy to see that this is evidently not vaporware.
- jessriedel 16y ago
  So I hadn't hear about the Pixel Qi screen. Wikipedia just says >The company [Pixel Qi] designs liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that can be manufactured using the same fabrication machinery as conventional LCDs. However the Pixel Qi displays are also able to turn off the backlight to save energy, and switch to a low-power black and white reflective mode which can function in ambient light. Is it correct to describe these as LCD's with a Kindle-style e-ink screen sandwiched on top? Am I wrong in assuming that it has two distinct modes: back-lit color (which is hard to read in bright light) and e-ink B&W (which only works in good light)? Sounds pretty great.
  - yesbabyyes 16y ago
    Yes. The Pixel Qi screen was developed for the OLPC and it works really well. It's also got fast screen redrawing in "e-ink" mode, albeit grayscale.
    - niels_olson 16y ago
      I have to OLPC XOs. The resolution of that Pixel Qi is impressive, but . . . it looks funny. Like the fine quartz sand on Pensacola Beach.
  - elliottcarlson 16y ago
    From what I understand that is exactly what the Notion Ink is aiming for - standard LCD with an Electronic Paper view mode. I will wait until it's been vetted by my peers before laying out money on it, but I do have high hopes for this one.
    - runinit 16y ago
      FYI: You can actually purchase those screens already from PixelQi http://www.pixelqi.com/where_to_buy http://www.pixelqi.com/where_to_buy Not sure if anyone has written up a review on the quality of the screen though. I've seen a few videos of the screen and it seems acceptable. http://www.display-solution.com/en/products/tft_displays/pixelQI.html http://www.display-solution.com/en/products/tft_displays/pix... (video there)
  - jmcqk6 16y ago
    Actually, it can just turn the backlight off. The B&W mode isn't e-ink at all, it's still basically an LCD screen that can be illuminated by external light. So the effect should be the same, but this is the reason I want to wait for reviews to come out before I purchase it. It seems like a perfect compromise to me between e-ink and LCD screens. Sometimes, I want a backlight. If I'm reading, though, I probably don't want it activated.
    - ubercore 16y ago
      It doesn't have the same energy-saving properties as e-ink (no power to display, only on page changes). E-Ink also looks different at the pixel level: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/pictures-kindle-and-ipad-screens-under-microscope/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/pictures-kindle-and-i...
    - jessriedel 16y ago
      >Actually, it can just turn the backlight off. There has to be more to it than that, right? It would be trivial to allow LCD screens to turn off the back light. Their blog (pixelqi.com) suggests that it has to do with some sort of reflective properties of their special LCD. I still don't get it.
      - jonhendry 16y ago
        Perhaps there is a partially-reflective film on the back of the LCD, but in front of the backlight diffusor, that lets the backlight through (with some attentuation).
      - gvb 16y ago
        The screen is described on the OLPC site: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display As I understand it, it is a standard(?) trans-reflective (like half silvered mirror - it reflects front lighting, but also can be back-lit) black & white LCD. In color (backlight) mode, the backlight shines strips of color, so the pixels gate the colored light rather than having a white backlight and color filters on the pixels. In B/W mode, the backlight is turned off (saving quite a bit of power) and the LCD uses the reflective qualities of the LCD to reflect the front light for the lighting source. The interesting thing is that front lighting will overwhelm and wash out the color from the backlighting as the front lighting gets stronger. I have an OLPC, which is the predecessor display, and it works quite well. My opinion of the display is that the compromise was visible but not bad: the color definitely isn't as vibrant as a traditional color LCD or OLED, but the daylight view-ability was very good vs. a traditional backlit LCD that becomes poor or unreadable in bright sunlight. There are some pictures on the Groklaw article, although I was focusing on size rather than the display when I took the pictures. In retrospect, I should have focused on the display more than the size. :-/ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080128171935946 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080128171935946
  - blahedo 16y ago
    > Is it correct to describe these as LCD's with a Kindle-style e-ink screen sandwiched on top? Not quite. E-ink is a different technology[0]; this really is a form of LCD [1], albeit one that has somewhat different reflective properties. That said, I've got an OLPC laptop and was stunned at how legible they were in full sunlight---very impressively different from your typical laptop screen. (E-ink is still better; it has much more of a "writing on paper" feel. But it's slower.) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi, although it's clear that the parent already saw this
    - jessriedel 16y ago
      Wow, thanks, this is the answer I was looking for. So do the colors still look mostly the same in bright sunlight, or does the screen become more B&W?
      - object404 16y ago
        I have one of the OLPC XO-1 units in my hands. When the backlight is on, it's still readable under very bright light such as sunlight and will look like the kindle's black & white. When you turn the backlight to zero, it switches to ultra-lowpower hi-res black & white sunlight readable mode. It's pretty neat and something I hope to see in all future devices.
padmanabhan01 16y ago
"It’s great day, possibly deserving an entry into the history books about how we all came together and started a revolution. Adam, as we love to call it, is not a tablet, it’s a dream come true for many of us. We have pushed the limits of current technology and raised the expectations from other devices as well, especially the fact that it’s not just hardware or software, but it’s both. Android on Adam is no longer a phone OS; it’s Eden, a new play ground for big touch screen devices." Wow, that's some word play..
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  Adam? http://oldcomputers.net/adam.html http://oldcomputers.net/adam.html
  - mih 16y ago
    This line was ominous: "By the time they got the Adam fixed and were shipping again, people believed that it was an unreliable system, and shyed away from it." Hoping that NotionInk does not make the mistake Coleco did. One thing that stands apart though is that the blog posts have been made by an engineer and not a marketing guy. Having witnessed first hand how marketing guys can spit-shine a product, I must say there is some hope but only time will tell.
shrikant 16y ago
One of the commenters there raises valid points. Are you people seriously going to buy this thing with: 1) No video of the device 2) No video of the UI 3) No estimate on shipping 4) Mystery Devices 5) No details on Support*
- acangiano 16y ago
  It looks like they are intentionally trying to fuck the marketing part up. (Quite typical of companies run by engineers with no marketing background.) If the product isn't ready to be shown to the public, it isn't ready to be sold.
  - chwahoo 16y ago
    It's strange: On one hand, Notion Ink's marketing---consisting of Rohan's blog posts and leaks to slashgear.com---has seemed unprofessional and odd. On the other hand, he's come across as genuine and enthusiastic and has managed to spread that enthusiasm to a growing group of rabid potential customers. If the Adam succeeds, I'll be extremely impressed with Notion Ink's marketing strategy. Nonetheless, I agree that, when you ask users to pony up $500 to pre-order your product, buzz-generating is not enough: It's time to put up or shut up. I think they need to provide all the information that the quoted commenter has requested.
- borism 16y ago
  not after WakeMate (YC S09) fiasco.
  - nonrecursive 16y ago
    Did those ever ship?
    - borism 16y ago
      not. yet.
- tzury 16y ago
ryandvm 16y ago
After seeing the Honeycomb sneak peek from Rubin the other day, I am pretty well convinced that Android has legs as a tablet platform. But seriously, who is buying these things without even a decent "hands on" report from the technorati?
AndrewDucker 16y ago
So it's running a customized version of Android? How's that going to work with standard Android apps? Because if I can't use stock Android apps then I'm not interested - I'd like an app ecosystem that already exists, rather than relying on developers to produce versions specifically for this device.
- sandipc 16y ago
  looks more like a substantial HTC Sense-like UI overlaid on top of stock Android
- wccrawford 16y ago
  You can actually customize Android quite a lot without interfering with apps on the App Market. The phone companies are really getting into swing with that. Luckily, Android is designed to enable that and still keep compatibility.
- ydant 16y ago
  Yes, but no Android market. I've been waiting for this for a while, but without the market place I'm not sure if I'll jump on it. They screwed up getting me a reasonable expectation of when it'd ship long enough. I made the plunge. I bought an iPad. And, you know what, I like it. I really wanted Android, Pixel Qi, etc. But Notion has been (possibly for reasons out of their control) doing a horrible job setting expectations. http://androidandme.com/2010/11/news/notion-ink-adam-sets-a-date-for-december-9th-but-for-what/ http://androidandme.com/2010/11/news/notion-ink-adam-sets-a-...
subbu 16y ago
Not to discourage Notion Ink guys. They have done a fabulous job. But its not a well written post. None of what he wants to say is clearly stated. He is revealing his rates. Compare that with the simple rates table Steve Jobs showed in his iPad announcement. I am guessing IST means Indian Standard Time. How will a normal consumer know this? Why not state this clearly? I think this post would have been much better if a sales/marketing guy had written it.
- unoti 16y ago
  Agreed. However, I bet Indian Standard Time will become a lot more of a common term over the next decade.
- ininin 16y ago
  re:IST -- . . I think some of it is the Indian-ness of the product. They're not trying to blend in, they're trying to be themselves. If that makes it different, and if it costs them customers, that's ok too! It's the price of a personality. Unlike companies that try to hide their non-US image by using stock pictures and VOIP contact numbers, NotionInk's message (to me, at least) seems quite clear: "We're a small but ambitious company in India. This is what we're building!" . And I like that.
  - subbu 16y ago
    I was surely not pointing at their pride or natural tendency to use the timezone they live in. I was talking from the point of view of target customers as it's pitched at a larger audience. The same reason why they used USD for the price.
boredguy8 16y ago
That blog post is super schitzophrenic. What's with the parenthetical comments that are a different color weight? I thought they were links at first, but not so much. And the "Is Oprah Gay?" ranking, a micro-rant on currency markets...mostly I'm confused.
- middlegeek 16y ago
  They were just showing that their blog post was the second most popular on WordPress and it so happened that the Oprah post was number 1.
klochner 16y ago
Did anyone find the dimensions/weight?
- sorbus 16y ago
  Size+Weight: Thickness: ~14 mm Width: 191 mm Length: 269 mm Weight: ~1.6 pounds http://www.notionink.com/techspecs.php http://www.notionink.com/techspecs.php
axiomotion 16y ago
I've been holding off on a tablet because of this but can their blog post be more confusing? How do I pre-order?
blahedo 16y ago
Huh, an Adam computer---aren't they going to run into trademark issues there?[0] Who owns the Coleco properties these days? [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Computer
mikecane 16y ago
I don't understand the big price difference between LCD WiFi and Pixel Qi WiFi. Pixel Qi trumpeted the fact their screens can use existing fabs without retooling. Such a big price difference is no way to entice a mass market into buying. I've also wondered why others haven't adopted Pixel Qi's screen in the meantime. [typo edit]
ramanujam 16y ago
The preordering is now live on the site http://notionink.com/ http://notionink.com/ The site says the product ships in 6 to 8 weeks and there is a flat $50 shipping fee!(Irrespective of location i guess) Also, if you are curious to know about the warranty/service/return terms hit proceed to buy on the order form. Don't care to fill it, there is no validation in place!

98 points by tomeast 16y ago

I'll be getting the Pixel Qi version, if the reviews hold up. I'm slightly skeptical that the device will meet expectations, but I've already put money back to buy the device as soon as it's available. The Pixel Qi screen alone places it above an iPad.

mquander 16y ago
Likewise; I think that this will get a huge amount of preorders from people that have just been waiting for any Pixel Qi tablet at all. I can't imagine how they could screw this device up badly enough to warrant me not paying $500 for it. (And they may not screw it up at all; it sounds pretty open, with good specs.) I'm really happy to see that this is evidently not vaporware.
jessriedel 16y ago
So I hadn't hear about the Pixel Qi screen. Wikipedia just says >The company [Pixel Qi] designs liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that can be manufactured using the same fabrication machinery as conventional LCDs. However the Pixel Qi displays are also able to turn off the backlight to save energy, and switch to a low-power black and white reflective mode which can function in ambient light. Is it correct to describe these as LCD's with a Kindle-style e-ink screen sandwiched on top? Am I wrong in assuming that it has two distinct modes: back-lit color (which is hard to read in bright light) and e-ink B&W (which only works in good light)? Sounds pretty great.
- yesbabyyes 16y ago
  Yes. The Pixel Qi screen was developed for the OLPC and it works really well. It's also got fast screen redrawing in "e-ink" mode, albeit grayscale.
  - niels_olson 16y ago
    I have to OLPC XOs. The resolution of that Pixel Qi is impressive, but . . . it looks funny. Like the fine quartz sand on Pensacola Beach.
- elliottcarlson 16y ago
  From what I understand that is exactly what the Notion Ink is aiming for - standard LCD with an Electronic Paper view mode. I will wait until it's been vetted by my peers before laying out money on it, but I do have high hopes for this one.
  - runinit 16y ago
    FYI: You can actually purchase those screens already from PixelQi http://www.pixelqi.com/where_to_buy http://www.pixelqi.com/where_to_buy Not sure if anyone has written up a review on the quality of the screen though. I've seen a few videos of the screen and it seems acceptable. http://www.display-solution.com/en/products/tft_displays/pixelQI.html http://www.display-solution.com/en/products/tft_displays/pix... (video there)
- jmcqk6 16y ago
  Actually, it can just turn the backlight off. The B&W mode isn't e-ink at all, it's still basically an LCD screen that can be illuminated by external light. So the effect should be the same, but this is the reason I want to wait for reviews to come out before I purchase it. It seems like a perfect compromise to me between e-ink and LCD screens. Sometimes, I want a backlight. If I'm reading, though, I probably don't want it activated.
  - ubercore 16y ago
    It doesn't have the same energy-saving properties as e-ink (no power to display, only on page changes). E-Ink also looks different at the pixel level: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/pictures-kindle-and-ipad-screens-under-microscope/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/pictures-kindle-and-i...
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    >Actually, it can just turn the backlight off. There has to be more to it than that, right? It would be trivial to allow LCD screens to turn off the back light. Their blog (pixelqi.com) suggests that it has to do with some sort of reflective properties of their special LCD. I still don't get it.
    - jonhendry 16y ago
      Perhaps there is a partially-reflective film on the back of the LCD, but in front of the backlight diffusor, that lets the backlight through (with some attentuation).
    - gvb 16y ago
      The screen is described on the OLPC site: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display As I understand it, it is a standard(?) trans-reflective (like half silvered mirror - it reflects front lighting, but also can be back-lit) black & white LCD. In color (backlight) mode, the backlight shines strips of color, so the pixels gate the colored light rather than having a white backlight and color filters on the pixels. In B/W mode, the backlight is turned off (saving quite a bit of power) and the LCD uses the reflective qualities of the LCD to reflect the front light for the lighting source. The interesting thing is that front lighting will overwhelm and wash out the color from the backlighting as the front lighting gets stronger. I have an OLPC, which is the predecessor display, and it works quite well. My opinion of the display is that the compromise was visible but not bad: the color definitely isn't as vibrant as a traditional color LCD or OLED, but the daylight view-ability was very good vs. a traditional backlit LCD that becomes poor or unreadable in bright sunlight. There are some pictures on the Groklaw article, although I was focusing on size rather than the display when I took the pictures. In retrospect, I should have focused on the display more than the size. :-/ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080128171935946 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080128171935946
- blahedo 16y ago
  > Is it correct to describe these as LCD's with a Kindle-style e-ink screen sandwiched on top? Not quite. E-ink is a different technology[0]; this really is a form of LCD [1], albeit one that has somewhat different reflective properties. That said, I've got an OLPC laptop and was stunned at how legible they were in full sunlight---very impressively different from your typical laptop screen. (E-ink is still better; it has much more of a "writing on paper" feel. But it's slower.) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi, although it's clear that the parent already saw this
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    Wow, thanks, this is the answer I was looking for. So do the colors still look mostly the same in bright sunlight, or does the screen become more B&W?
    - object404 16y ago
      I have one of the OLPC XO-1 units in my hands. When the backlight is on, it's still readable under very bright light such as sunlight and will look like the kindle's black & white. When you turn the backlight to zero, it switches to ultra-lowpower hi-res black & white sunlight readable mode. It's pretty neat and something I hope to see in all future devices.

padmanabhan01 16y ago

"It’s great day, possibly deserving an entry into the history books about how we all came together and started a revolution. Adam, as we love to call it, is not a tablet, it’s a dream come true for many of us. We have pushed the limits of current technology and raised the expectations from other devices as well, especially the fact that it’s not just hardware or software, but it’s both. Android on Adam is no longer a phone OS; it’s Eden, a new play ground for big touch screen devices." Wow, that's some word play..

jamesbritt 16y ago
Adam? http://oldcomputers.net/adam.html http://oldcomputers.net/adam.html
- mih 16y ago
  This line was ominous: "By the time they got the Adam fixed and were shipping again, people believed that it was an unreliable system, and shyed away from it." Hoping that NotionInk does not make the mistake Coleco did. One thing that stands apart though is that the blog posts have been made by an engineer and not a marketing guy. Having witnessed first hand how marketing guys can spit-shine a product, I must say there is some hope but only time will tell.

shrikant 16y ago

One of the commenters there raises valid points. Are you people seriously going to buy this thing with: 1) No video of the device 2) No video of the UI 3) No estimate on shipping 4) Mystery Devices 5) No details on Support*

acangiano 16y ago
It looks like they are intentionally trying to fuck the marketing part up. (Quite typical of companies run by engineers with no marketing background.) If the product isn't ready to be shown to the public, it isn't ready to be sold.
- chwahoo 16y ago
  It's strange: On one hand, Notion Ink's marketing---consisting of Rohan's blog posts and leaks to slashgear.com---has seemed unprofessional and odd. On the other hand, he's come across as genuine and enthusiastic and has managed to spread that enthusiasm to a growing group of rabid potential customers. If the Adam succeeds, I'll be extremely impressed with Notion Ink's marketing strategy. Nonetheless, I agree that, when you ask users to pony up $500 to pre-order your product, buzz-generating is not enough: It's time to put up or shut up. I think they need to provide all the information that the quoted commenter has requested.
borism 16y ago
not after WakeMate (YC S09) fiasco.
- nonrecursive 16y ago
  Did those ever ship?
  - borism 16y ago
    not. yet.
tzury 16y ago

ryandvm 16y ago

After seeing the Honeycomb sneak peek from Rubin the other day, I am pretty well convinced that Android has legs as a tablet platform. But seriously, who is buying these things without even a decent "hands on" report from the technorati?

AndrewDucker 16y ago

So it's running a customized version of Android? How's that going to work with standard Android apps? Because if I can't use stock Android apps then I'm not interested - I'd like an app ecosystem that already exists, rather than relying on developers to produce versions specifically for this device.

sandipc 16y ago
looks more like a substantial HTC Sense-like UI overlaid on top of stock Android
wccrawford 16y ago
You can actually customize Android quite a lot without interfering with apps on the App Market. The phone companies are really getting into swing with that. Luckily, Android is designed to enable that and still keep compatibility.
ydant 16y ago
Yes, but no Android market. I've been waiting for this for a while, but without the market place I'm not sure if I'll jump on it. They screwed up getting me a reasonable expectation of when it'd ship long enough. I made the plunge. I bought an iPad. And, you know what, I like it. I really wanted Android, Pixel Qi, etc. But Notion has been (possibly for reasons out of their control) doing a horrible job setting expectations. http://androidandme.com/2010/11/news/notion-ink-adam-sets-a-date-for-december-9th-but-for-what/ http://androidandme.com/2010/11/news/notion-ink-adam-sets-a-...

subbu 16y ago

Not to discourage Notion Ink guys. They have done a fabulous job. But its not a well written post. None of what he wants to say is clearly stated. He is revealing his rates. Compare that with the simple rates table Steve Jobs showed in his iPad announcement. I am guessing IST means Indian Standard Time. How will a normal consumer know this? Why not state this clearly? I think this post would have been much better if a sales/marketing guy had written it.

unoti 16y ago
Agreed. However, I bet Indian Standard Time will become a lot more of a common term over the next decade.
ininin 16y ago
re:IST -- . . I think some of it is the Indian-ness of the product. They're not trying to blend in, they're trying to be themselves. If that makes it different, and if it costs them customers, that's ok too! It's the price of a personality. Unlike companies that try to hide their non-US image by using stock pictures and VOIP contact numbers, NotionInk's message (to me, at least) seems quite clear: "We're a small but ambitious company in India. This is what we're building!" . And I like that.
- subbu 16y ago
  I was surely not pointing at their pride or natural tendency to use the timezone they live in. I was talking from the point of view of target customers as it's pitched at a larger audience. The same reason why they used USD for the price.

boredguy8 16y ago

That blog post is super schitzophrenic. What's with the parenthetical comments that are a different color weight? I thought they were links at first, but not so much. And the "Is Oprah Gay?" ranking, a micro-rant on currency markets...mostly I'm confused.

middlegeek 16y ago
They were just showing that their blog post was the second most popular on WordPress and it so happened that the Oprah post was number 1.

klochner 16y ago

Did anyone find the dimensions/weight?

sorbus 16y ago
Size+Weight: Thickness: ~14 mm Width: 191 mm Length: 269 mm Weight: ~1.6 pounds http://www.notionink.com/techspecs.php http://www.notionink.com/techspecs.php

axiomotion 16y ago

I've been holding off on a tablet because of this but can their blog post be more confusing? How do I pre-order?

blahedo 16y ago

Huh, an Adam computer---aren't they going to run into trademark issues there?[0] Who owns the Coleco properties these days? [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Computer

mikecane 16y ago

I don't understand the big price difference between LCD WiFi and Pixel Qi WiFi. Pixel Qi trumpeted the fact their screens can use existing fabs without retooling. Such a big price difference is no way to entice a mass market into buying. I've also wondered why others haven't adopted Pixel Qi's screen in the meantime. [typo edit]

ramanujam 16y ago

The preordering is now live on the site http://notionink.com/ http://notionink.com/ The site says the product ships in 6 to 8 weeks and there is a flat $50 shipping fee!(Irrespective of location i guess) Also, if you are curious to know about the warranty/service/return terms hit proceed to buy on the order form. Don't care to fill it, there is no validation in place!