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E-ink's contrast ratio is quite poor, typically around 8:1 and with even marketing claims topping out around 12:1. For comparison, a baseline gallery-quality in

E-ink's contrast ratio is quite poor, typically around 8:1 and with even marketing claims topping out around 12:1. For comparison, a baseline gallery-quality inkjet with good glossy photo paper can easily exceed 200:1, and professional repro methods do better still. So, emulating newsprint is a good e-ink use case, since newsprint's contrast sucks too. But black and white photos, which depend critically on effective use of contrast for a lot of their effect, will not look good on an e-ink display, any more than they would on a Game Boy.

m463 7y ago
But you can read it outside.
- throwanem 7y ago
  Presumably taking it off the wall, first? I don't claim that e-ink has no use case, only that it's bad at displaying photographs. If you mean to argue otherwise, please do so with respect to statements I've made, rather than to ones I have not.
  - m463 7y ago
    I was addressing the contrast ratio, which people seem to sort of measure inadequately in sunlight. There are two comparisons between LCD displays that should properly be referencing S/N ratio instead of contrast. With a glossy display, whatever is behind you STRONGLY affects your S/N ratio, especially in black. In sunlight even a very bright LCD is washed out almost to unreadability (though I am surprised how well recent phones still manage to still function)
Roritharr 7y ago
For the quoted 1500$ for the display I could buy a printer and print the page for quite some time...
- throwanem 7y ago
  A large-format printer, yet. A Pixma Pro 1000 that can do excellent 17x22-inch prints - and color! - only runs about a grand, so you'd even have a bit left over for some good Hahnemuhle photo paper.
  - mrmanner 7y ago
    While the format is an important point, I don’t understand why one would print a newspaper front page on good paper?
    - throwanem 7y ago
      Beats me, but that's not really my point anyway. Displaying photographs was cited as a good use case for an e-ink display, and as a photographer who puts considerable effort into producing high-quality display prints of their work, I felt it worth explaining why that's a terrible use case for e-ink. (Anyway, why do people frame newspaper front pages? Given the total lack of archival quality in newsprint, I could see scanning and printing to frame in a way that'd hold up better over time.)
      - tjoff 7y ago
        I don't think those use-cases are in collision with one another. I'd be happy to take an e-ink display for photographs. But also buy high-quality prints as well. Even though both will end up on the wall they are totally different use-cases.
        throwanem 7y ago
        Are they? I don't see how. Where's the use in displaying a photograph, at whatever size, as a muddy, contrastless mess?
        tjoff 7y ago
        Family vacation? The LCD picture frames are popular and can be described just like that. Even the kindle grayscale images could be decent as decoration. (I'm guessing e-ink would look best in grayscale, but I haven't seen one in color) Maybe not the living-room centerpiece, but still.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> For comparison, a baseline gallery-quality inkjet with good glossy photo paper can easily exceed 200:1, and professional repro methods do better still. That's only for glossy though, right? That comes with glare, which is annoying for reading.
- throwanem 7y ago
  Matte is "only" around 50:1, which still beats e-ink by a lot. Newsprint struggles to approach even that because the inks are formulated to be inexpensive, thus not heavily saturated, so the "black" is really a dark gray, and the paper is cheap pulp that probably couldn't be bleached really white without disintegrating anyway.

m463 7y ago

But you can read it outside.

throwanem 7y ago
Presumably taking it off the wall, first? I don't claim that e-ink has no use case, only that it's bad at displaying photographs. If you mean to argue otherwise, please do so with respect to statements I've made, rather than to ones I have not.
- m463 7y ago
  I was addressing the contrast ratio, which people seem to sort of measure inadequately in sunlight. There are two comparisons between LCD displays that should properly be referencing S/N ratio instead of contrast. With a glossy display, whatever is behind you STRONGLY affects your S/N ratio, especially in black. In sunlight even a very bright LCD is washed out almost to unreadability (though I am surprised how well recent phones still manage to still function)

Roritharr 7y ago

For the quoted 1500$ for the display I could buy a printer and print the page for quite some time...

throwanem 7y ago
A large-format printer, yet. A Pixma Pro 1000 that can do excellent 17x22-inch prints - and color! - only runs about a grand, so you'd even have a bit left over for some good Hahnemuhle photo paper.
- mrmanner 7y ago
  While the format is an important point, I don’t understand why one would print a newspaper front page on good paper?
  - throwanem 7y ago
    Beats me, but that's not really my point anyway. Displaying photographs was cited as a good use case for an e-ink display, and as a photographer who puts considerable effort into producing high-quality display prints of their work, I felt it worth explaining why that's a terrible use case for e-ink. (Anyway, why do people frame newspaper front pages? Given the total lack of archival quality in newsprint, I could see scanning and printing to frame in a way that'd hold up better over time.)
    - tjoff 7y ago
      I don't think those use-cases are in collision with one another. I'd be happy to take an e-ink display for photographs. But also buy high-quality prints as well. Even though both will end up on the wall they are totally different use-cases.
      - throwanem 7y ago
        Are they? I don't see how. Where's the use in displaying a photograph, at whatever size, as a muddy, contrastless mess?
        tjoff 7y ago
        Family vacation? The LCD picture frames are popular and can be described just like that. Even the kindle grayscale images could be decent as decoration. (I'm guessing e-ink would look best in grayscale, but I haven't seen one in color) Maybe not the living-room centerpiece, but still.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

> For comparison, a baseline gallery-quality inkjet with good glossy photo paper can easily exceed 200:1, and professional repro methods do better still. That's only for glossy though, right? That comes with glare, which is annoying for reading.

throwanem 7y ago
Matte is "only" around 50:1, which still beats e-ink by a lot. Newsprint struggles to approach even that because the inks are formulated to be inexpensive, thus not heavily saturated, so the "black" is really a dark gray, and the paper is cheap pulp that probably couldn't be bleached really white without disintegrating anyway.