7 ms·

Ask HN: Why E-Ink Phones?

46 points by HotPopTart 5y ago

I'm considering an E ink phone, like the Mudita Pure. Does any one have experience with an E ink mobile device? What are your thoughts? Pros? Cons?

ainar-g 5y ago
Alec of the YouTube channel Technology Connections has a video[1] about his experience with an E-Ink device on his second channel. He wanted to see if this would improve his productivity, so it's not exactly the same as your question, but it's still worth a watch, imho. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfX0vlCa4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfX0vlCa4k
- pjerem 5y ago
  Off topic but this YouTube channel is truly a gem. Interesting, clever, and entertaining. With a lot of personality.
  - krallja 5y ago
    And he doesn’t swear, so you can show it to curious kids without worrying about expanding their vocabulary in ways you didn’t intend.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Watching that now. Alec is describing the earlier version of the Onyx BOOX Lumi, I've got the next-generation version (Max Lumi), and there's since been an update to that. Some of the issues (display mode toggling, manual display refresh) are addressed, some remain. The "Navigation Ball" seems to be a new feature of my device not present in Alec's walkthrough, and puts numerous controls closer-to-hand. In particular there's an ability to tune contrast and display modes for each individual application (for most, "Speed" or "A2" mode is preferable to "Normal"). I get used to switching these for specific tasks / reasons (that is, within the same app). It's a quirk of the device. Otherwise, quite a useful walkthrough, and fair as to device features and faults.
  - andrei_says_ 5y ago
    Have you found any drawing apps that work well with the eink screen - apart from the boox one?
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      No. I'm a horrible guide for that as I'm really not an artist. The BOOX notes app (which doubles largely as a paint app) is pretty good, however. The principle issues with third-party drawing and handwriting apps, from what I understand, are: - Input lag for Android-native as opposed to BOOX/e-ink optimised is much greater. - Android apps tend to presume colour and animation, both of which are poorly supported by e-ink. (Though there are in fact colour e-ink devics, including from BOOX.)
newacc9 5y ago
HiSense A5 is a dual-screen, something to consider.
tluyben2 5y ago
I live in places where the sun always shines; it's almost impossible to work normally outside (which is my preferred office) without eInk. I wish there were more laptops because it works fine for coding (I have Boox devices which I use sometimes to write code). Phone same thing. Of course with the great extra of having very long battery life. My wife writes/reads books on eInk devices and I do reading, browsing and shell/coding. It works really well.
- hinkley 5y ago
  One Laptop Per Child had a transflective display, and I wish they'd managed to license that tech to someone else to help fund the project. IIRC, with the backlight on you got full color. With the backlight off you got greyscale.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Together with the Pixel Qi you make reference to, there are a number of display technologies available or partially developed for outdoors use. And some are relatively old: has nobody here ever worked with, eg., a Palm Tungsten with transflective display?
    - bebna 5y ago
      N900 had a transreflective screen, officially as a selling point. I think my Surface Go first gen also has it, even when not advertised as such, because I can switch to white themes and almost work with back-light off in the direct sun.
  - culopatin 5y ago
    I always wondered why we couldn’t have either a lens at the top edge of a laptop display, or a translucent case to let the sun shine in behind the screen. Maybe the colors wouldn’t be perfect but you’d get more light behind the screen no?
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
pseingatl 5y ago
Great battery life, light.Great for ebooks. I wish there was a laptop option as well, like HP's old Omnibook. Color is not required for many applications.
- huachimingo 5y ago
  Or like the Gameboy Color's screen, you NEEDED external light to see it.
  - krallja 5y ago
    There are now cheap backlight+better LCD mods for the GBC, though. Backlight LCD >>>> ambient light LCD.
dredmorbius 5y ago
E-ink is excellent for daylight use. I still have some issue with diffuse overhead lighting (e.g., fluorescent lighting). Detail is high, battery usage is generally low. Frontlight gives excellent indoor / dark ambient legibility. The way I describe it: persistence is free, pixels are cheap, paints are slow, colour is (mostly) nonexistent. I find the interface far less distracting than emissive displays. My own leaning is toward the dumbest phone I can find (though an e-ink display would be excellent), an e-book tablet, and a good laptop. Tablets are excellent for reading in ways that neither a smaller phone nor landscape laptop are.
Sosh101 5y ago
I don't see the attraction of the Mudita Pure (other than a very nice aesthetic). It just seems like a (hugely) overpriced Nokia feature phone.
- rchaud 5y ago
  The Yota phone from 2013 had a regular LCD screen on the front, and an e-Ink screen on the back. I think there was even a Yota 2, but in terms of general adoption, it flopped hard.
- HotPopTart 5y ago
  Hmmm. I'm also looking at it as a way of supporting a startup that's trying to do something different. I'm annoyed with BIG TECH at the moment.
scottndecker 5y ago
I use the LightPhone. IMO, eInk takes things maybe a bit too far. The refresh rate is terrible and I have yet to seen an eInk phone that has a good texting experience. Most of the companies doing this are trying to get people off their smartphones (a goal I agree with). But making texting harder ironically leads to me using the phone longer than I would if I had an easy way to send a text. The battery life and visibility in the sun are both great features. I'm hoping the middle part of the spectrum between the eInk phones and the iPhone/Pixel starts to fill in. Something more along the lines of the Wise Phone (https://techless.com/ https://techless.com/).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- temp234 5y ago
  Yes. I actually tend to call people back when they text me if I'm on the Light Phone lol, the physical experience of typing is that frustrating. I find myself hoping nobody texts me when my SIM is in the Light Phone because then it's hard to keep track of what info is on what device, iPhone or Light Phone, because yeah, I had to keep both, while I love the Light Phone and regret nothing and it's helped me practice better habits, the lack of productivity tools means the Light Phone is mainly a hike phone or going on a date phone for me. I still would love an everyday phone that isn't an iPhone. Amazing rec for Wise Phone, has anyone tried it personally?
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  To be clear, the Light Phone does have an e-ink display. You're not happy with that? https://www.gq.com/story/light-phone-2-review https://www.gq.com/story/light-phone-2-review
  - scottndecker 5y ago
    Correct, it does have an e-ink display and I find it to be very limiting (beyond what's necessary to break bad smartphone habits).
nraynaud 5y ago
I really would like that for the map on my bike.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  You really want colour for maps. I have been there (GPS on E-Ink). Try a Kaleido E-Ink EPD display.
  - diggernet 5y ago
    I use a Pocketbook InkPad Color for USGS topo maps. They look pretty nice. Zooming is slow, because they are extremely complex vector PDFs on a low power device. I should probably try converting them to images to work around that problem. The screen is actually surprisingly tolerable for photos, too.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      Surely you should use bitmap tiles; you can either use a network server for unplanned locations or download tiles beforehand for planned ones. Orux Maps offers the option.
philips 5y ago
What are you using it for? I use a normal Android phone and a phone sized Android e-reader. IMO, doing anything beyond reading long form material on an Android eink device is too painful to replace a phone because most apps have animations and lots of color. https://www.cect-shop.com/en/xiaomi-moaan-inkpalm-5.html https://www.cect-shop.com/en/xiaomi-moaan-inkpalm-5.html https://github.com/philips/inkpalm-5-adb-english https://github.com/philips/inkpalm-5-adb-english
rchaud 5y ago
I have an E-ink tablet, Boox Note Air. Some thoughts: - Screen must be backlit. E-ink screens look great in perfect sunlight and fluorescent lights , but if you're used to a phone/tablet, you'd be surprised how dim e-ink can look just sitting on a couch in the evening, with a lamp a few meters away. Backlighting fixes that. - Web browsing on e-ink is not bad at all if you stick to text-heavy stuff. The low refresh rate actually discourages "endless scroll" behaviour. Get a browser like Kiwi that allows you to set the Vol. keys as PgUp/PgDn. That makes the lag a lot less perceptible.
- thylacine222 5y ago
  e-ink devices generally using frontlighting, not backlighting, which is way better on your eyes.
  - rchaud 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. Yes, it is a front light.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  An attached book light might also be an option. Some devices <coff>reMarkable<coff> don't have a frontlight.
axiologist 5y ago
I use a Hisense A5 since about two years and the battery runtime of over a week is just excellent. Being able to use it in plain sunlight is simply priceless. The grayscale display is good enough and i don't miss color at all. The only thing that somewhat bothers me is that it can't be equipped with some non-chinese alternate ROM like LineageOS. Nonetheless, as it turned out to be much better than expected i actually bought a second unit as a spare.
apricot13 5y ago
I'd like an e-ink 'monitor' that I can plug into my iphone and clip on the back of the device and have the same content displayed there as on the phone! best of both worlds!

46 points by HotPopTart 5y ago

I'm considering an E ink phone, like the Mudita Pure. Does any one have experience with an E ink mobile device? What are your thoughts? Pros? Cons?

ainar-g 5y ago

Alec of the YouTube channel Technology Connections has a video[1] about his experience with an E-Ink device on his second channel. He wanted to see if this would improve his productivity, so it's not exactly the same as your question, but it's still worth a watch, imho. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfX0vlCa4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfX0vlCa4k

pjerem 5y ago
Off topic but this YouTube channel is truly a gem. Interesting, clever, and entertaining. With a lot of personality.
- krallja 5y ago
  And he doesn’t swear, so you can show it to curious kids without worrying about expanding their vocabulary in ways you didn’t intend.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Watching that now. Alec is describing the earlier version of the Onyx BOOX Lumi, I've got the next-generation version (Max Lumi), and there's since been an update to that. Some of the issues (display mode toggling, manual display refresh) are addressed, some remain. The "Navigation Ball" seems to be a new feature of my device not present in Alec's walkthrough, and puts numerous controls closer-to-hand. In particular there's an ability to tune contrast and display modes for each individual application (for most, "Speed" or "A2" mode is preferable to "Normal"). I get used to switching these for specific tasks / reasons (that is, within the same app). It's a quirk of the device. Otherwise, quite a useful walkthrough, and fair as to device features and faults.
- andrei_says_ 5y ago
  Have you found any drawing apps that work well with the eink screen - apart from the boox one?
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    No. I'm a horrible guide for that as I'm really not an artist. The BOOX notes app (which doubles largely as a paint app) is pretty good, however. The principle issues with third-party drawing and handwriting apps, from what I understand, are: - Input lag for Android-native as opposed to BOOX/e-ink optimised is much greater. - Android apps tend to presume colour and animation, both of which are poorly supported by e-ink. (Though there are in fact colour e-ink devics, including from BOOX.)

newacc9 5y ago

HiSense A5 is a dual-screen, something to consider.

tluyben2 5y ago

I live in places where the sun always shines; it's almost impossible to work normally outside (which is my preferred office) without eInk. I wish there were more laptops because it works fine for coding (I have Boox devices which I use sometimes to write code). Phone same thing. Of course with the great extra of having very long battery life. My wife writes/reads books on eInk devices and I do reading, browsing and shell/coding. It works really well.

hinkley 5y ago
One Laptop Per Child had a transflective display, and I wish they'd managed to license that tech to someone else to help fund the project. IIRC, with the backlight on you got full color. With the backlight off you got greyscale.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Together with the Pixel Qi you make reference to, there are a number of display technologies available or partially developed for outdoors use. And some are relatively old: has nobody here ever worked with, eg., a Palm Tungsten with transflective display?
  - bebna 5y ago
    N900 had a transreflective screen, officially as a selling point. I think my Surface Go first gen also has it, even when not advertised as such, because I can switch to white themes and almost work with back-light off in the direct sun.
- culopatin 5y ago
  I always wondered why we couldn’t have either a lens at the top edge of a laptop display, or a translucent case to let the sun shine in behind the screen. Maybe the colors wouldn’t be perfect but you’d get more light behind the screen no?
  - dredmorbius 5y ago

pseingatl 5y ago

Great battery life, light.Great for ebooks. I wish there was a laptop option as well, like HP's old Omnibook. Color is not required for many applications.

huachimingo 5y ago
Or like the Gameboy Color's screen, you NEEDED external light to see it.
- krallja 5y ago
  There are now cheap backlight+better LCD mods for the GBC, though. Backlight LCD >>>> ambient light LCD.

dredmorbius 5y ago

E-ink is excellent for daylight use. I still have some issue with diffuse overhead lighting (e.g., fluorescent lighting). Detail is high, battery usage is generally low. Frontlight gives excellent indoor / dark ambient legibility. The way I describe it: persistence is free, pixels are cheap, paints are slow, colour is (mostly) nonexistent. I find the interface far less distracting than emissive displays. My own leaning is toward the dumbest phone I can find (though an e-ink display would be excellent), an e-book tablet, and a good laptop. Tablets are excellent for reading in ways that neither a smaller phone nor landscape laptop are.

Sosh101 5y ago

I don't see the attraction of the Mudita Pure (other than a very nice aesthetic). It just seems like a (hugely) overpriced Nokia feature phone.

rchaud 5y ago
The Yota phone from 2013 had a regular LCD screen on the front, and an e-Ink screen on the back. I think there was even a Yota 2, but in terms of general adoption, it flopped hard.
HotPopTart 5y ago
Hmmm. I'm also looking at it as a way of supporting a startup that's trying to do something different. I'm annoyed with BIG TECH at the moment.

scottndecker 5y ago

I use the LightPhone. IMO, eInk takes things maybe a bit too far. The refresh rate is terrible and I have yet to seen an eInk phone that has a good texting experience. Most of the companies doing this are trying to get people off their smartphones (a goal I agree with). But making texting harder ironically leads to me using the phone longer than I would if I had an easy way to send a text. The battery life and visibility in the sun are both great features. I'm hoping the middle part of the spectrum between the eInk phones and the iPhone/Pixel starts to fill in. Something more along the lines of the Wise Phone (https://techless.com/ https://techless.com/).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
temp234 5y ago
Yes. I actually tend to call people back when they text me if I'm on the Light Phone lol, the physical experience of typing is that frustrating. I find myself hoping nobody texts me when my SIM is in the Light Phone because then it's hard to keep track of what info is on what device, iPhone or Light Phone, because yeah, I had to keep both, while I love the Light Phone and regret nothing and it's helped me practice better habits, the lack of productivity tools means the Light Phone is mainly a hike phone or going on a date phone for me. I still would love an everyday phone that isn't an iPhone. Amazing rec for Wise Phone, has anyone tried it personally?
dredmorbius 5y ago
To be clear, the Light Phone does have an e-ink display. You're not happy with that? https://www.gq.com/story/light-phone-2-review https://www.gq.com/story/light-phone-2-review
- scottndecker 5y ago
  Correct, it does have an e-ink display and I find it to be very limiting (beyond what's necessary to break bad smartphone habits).

nraynaud 5y ago

I really would like that for the map on my bike.

mdp2021 5y ago
You really want colour for maps. I have been there (GPS on E-Ink). Try a Kaleido E-Ink EPD display.
- diggernet 5y ago
  I use a Pocketbook InkPad Color for USGS topo maps. They look pretty nice. Zooming is slow, because they are extremely complex vector PDFs on a low power device. I should probably try converting them to images to work around that problem. The screen is actually surprisingly tolerable for photos, too.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Surely you should use bitmap tiles; you can either use a network server for unplanned locations or download tiles beforehand for planned ones. Orux Maps offers the option.

philips 5y ago

What are you using it for? I use a normal Android phone and a phone sized Android e-reader. IMO, doing anything beyond reading long form material on an Android eink device is too painful to replace a phone because most apps have animations and lots of color. https://www.cect-shop.com/en/xiaomi-moaan-inkpalm-5.html https://www.cect-shop.com/en/xiaomi-moaan-inkpalm-5.html https://github.com/philips/inkpalm-5-adb-english https://github.com/philips/inkpalm-5-adb-english

rchaud 5y ago

I have an E-ink tablet, Boox Note Air. Some thoughts: - Screen must be backlit. E-ink screens look great in perfect sunlight and fluorescent lights , but if you're used to a phone/tablet, you'd be surprised how dim e-ink can look just sitting on a couch in the evening, with a lamp a few meters away. Backlighting fixes that. - Web browsing on e-ink is not bad at all if you stick to text-heavy stuff. The low refresh rate actually discourages "endless scroll" behaviour. Get a browser like Kiwi that allows you to set the Vol. keys as PgUp/PgDn. That makes the lag a lot less perceptible.

thylacine222 5y ago
e-ink devices generally using frontlighting, not backlighting, which is way better on your eyes.
- rchaud 5y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. Yes, it is a front light.
dredmorbius 5y ago
An attached book light might also be an option. Some devices <coff>reMarkable<coff> don't have a frontlight.

axiologist 5y ago

I use a Hisense A5 since about two years and the battery runtime of over a week is just excellent. Being able to use it in plain sunlight is simply priceless. The grayscale display is good enough and i don't miss color at all. The only thing that somewhat bothers me is that it can't be equipped with some non-chinese alternate ROM like LineageOS. Nonetheless, as it turned out to be much better than expected i actually bought a second unit as a spare.

apricot13 5y ago

I'd like an e-ink 'monitor' that I can plug into my iphone and clip on the back of the device and have the same content displayed there as on the phone! best of both worlds!