9 ms·

No one is going to sell a device that costs significantly more than any other for the same power to provide what 99% of users would consider a sub par/ unusable

No one is going to sell a device that costs significantly more than any other for the same power to provide what 99% of users would consider a sub par/ unusable display. Like seriously can you imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to watch any media, play any games and has the refresh rate / perceived performance of a 15 year old tablet. This stuff isn't ready to be a 'main' display yet.

JoelMcCracken 5y ago
how does this criticism not apply to monitors or tablets, which boox already makes?
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  Yeah, a lot of negative comments, from people coming up with all sorts of multimedia use cases, when there is clearly a market gap and plenty of people that want work houses without multimedia capability.
  - JoelMcCracken 5y ago
    I would LOVE a laptop that ran linux well and had an eink screen. I'd buy it today.
qaq 5y ago
1% is 1.6 million units per year that's a billion dollar company
- ako 5y ago
  I doubt an lcd display in a laptop costs a vendor more than $10. So that would make it a 16 million dollar company. If a E-Ink display costs $100, it would still only be a 160 million dollar company...
  - qaq 5y ago
    a good display is several hundred dollars. Market valuation does not equal to annual sales. A niche notebook like this can be sold at higher premium. The idea would be to offer notebook not the display.
DoingIsLearning 5y ago
> imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to - watch any kind of media - looks 'laggy' Imagine thinking that the consumer market is only for media consumers. There is a whole market of enterprise products out there, and there is certainly a use case for a _work_ laptop which needs no multimedia support. I wouldn't argue that someone buying this machine would only use only this machine. But I know I am not alone in saying that this would be my daily driver when focus is required.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Not much of a market, I have to do media based training all the time, even though my 95% case is text based.
- xuki 5y ago
  Manufacturers need to do this at scale. It’ll be so expensive if they only make a few thousand units.
- bregma 5y ago
  No manager would consider signing off on devices that don't make their PowerPoint deck look great. Without the corporate or consumer market you're going to struggle to find revenue.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    Managers! What a bunch of bozos who only care about how their PowerPoints look, amirite?
- avar 5y ago
  I'm as much of a fan of the potentials of this technology as anyone, but it really look like it's terrible to use as a main display even for non-multimedia applications. I.e. try setting your mouse or keyboard to have even 50-100ms of lag, a lot of people would find that very distracting to use even for just using a terminal Emacs/Vim & for writing plain-text. There's a reason these things are being marketed as "secondary displays", which makes perfect sense. In terms of cost I really don't see why anyone would want to do it differently anyway. A 20" LCD is dirt-cheap these days, so if you're already spending 5x or 10x that on the same size of E-Ink display why not get both?
LoveMortuus 5y ago
What if they made the display modular, so that you could swap it with a regular display for when you want to do gaming and other stuff like that? I personally would buy an e-ink laptop, but then again I'm very much into e-ink, I have a Kindle and ReMarkable 2, years ago I also bought DPT-S1 but I returned it because it was too expensive. Also colour e-ink displays have been getting better and better too! So I'm sure that in time, it'll be amazing!
- synapse26 5y ago
  The modularity of the Framework laptop comes to mind, maybe one day, we’ll see.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  > so that you could swap it with a regular display You may just want to lay an EPD tablet on the original screen and link the two. Check: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=173025&stc=1&id=1566157578 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmenti... Issues? Yes. HDMI does not allow for the touchscreen, and you may want that. And the hardware system must optimize battery life, which can be awful on the HDMI connection. What you really want is an optimized data connection and screen mirroring to the tablet. Or, an EPD tablet with the ability to use more than Android...
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    > Or, an EPD tablet with the ability to use more than Android... This is my hope with the future PineNote running a Linux distro.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      Mind you, Android can be pretty effective on the tablet for some tasks. But when you will want to use a complete Office Automation suite, instead of the more toyish mobile alternatives... What I finally did, this June, was: I coded my own word processor for Android. A dual boot system (Android vs Linux Desktop) would be the best solution.
netcan 5y ago
So... An eInk laptop wouldn't be for media. It'd be a different product with different pros/cons. Easier on the eyes. Better in sunlight. Easier on battery. Quite usable for reading, emails, code and any "mostly text" use. To the OP's original point "why doesn't this just exist..." IMO, it could, but it would need to be a different product class. Just sticking the monitor onto a windows machine isn't good enough. It needs its apps/etc. The market is probably much smaller than the phone/tablet and laptop/desktop markets. Perhaps potential vendors don't think it's big enough to support the necessary OS, apps & such.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  > It needs its apps Out of experience: not really.
  - em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
    The thing it doesn't needs is apps.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  It needs to be significantly cheaper than current monitors to make business sense. Remember, it's not about the objective value of the device. It's the perceived value that matters.
- jjguy 5y ago
  My view, you are describing the Kindle. Amazon sees the same potential - and risk - and has been quietly iterating for over a decade in the segment. If you want to go seriously explore it as a product, I’d start with a deep dive study there and develop a few theories how you think you could be different enough to blow it wide open.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Perhaps this might be relevant: https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
Not ready for primetime? Is it the button on the side of the display so that a user can manually refresh it?
ranit 5y ago
And these days: if it cannot make video calls it is not a computer for work.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  A YouTube search for "Hisense A5 pro cc video call" did not return precise results, but some can be suggestive of the possibilities. See for example Title: Hisense A5Pro CC Review 3- Battery, Videos & Games | Eink Kaleido 1 handling fast scenes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqASRsIWVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqASRsIWVw Some would find those results jawdropping. I presume that Video Calls using E-Ink displays are now much more than possible.
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    Possible but lackluster
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  If you get enough shoulder-taps, a device that can't take video calls might be the best one for work.
  - ranit 5y ago
    Ideally, yes ... but in large orgs with different internal agendas and politics it might be problematic to get through :)
- zepto 5y ago
  My work computer can’t take video calls. It is better that way. I have an iPad for that.
gonzo 5y ago
> Like seriously can you imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to watch any media, play any games and has the refresh rate / perceived performance of a 15 year old tablet. In a word: yes. But I was 10 or 11 years old before we had a color TV.

JoelMcCracken 5y ago

how does this criticism not apply to monitors or tablets, which boox already makes?

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
Yeah, a lot of negative comments, from people coming up with all sorts of multimedia use cases, when there is clearly a market gap and plenty of people that want work houses without multimedia capability.
- JoelMcCracken 5y ago
  I would LOVE a laptop that ran linux well and had an eink screen. I'd buy it today.

qaq 5y ago

1% is 1.6 million units per year that's a billion dollar company

ako 5y ago
I doubt an lcd display in a laptop costs a vendor more than $10. So that would make it a 16 million dollar company. If a E-Ink display costs $100, it would still only be a 160 million dollar company...
- qaq 5y ago
  a good display is several hundred dollars. Market valuation does not equal to annual sales. A niche notebook like this can be sold at higher premium. The idea would be to offer notebook not the display.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago

> imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to - watch any kind of media - looks 'laggy' Imagine thinking that the consumer market is only for media consumers. There is a whole market of enterprise products out there, and there is certainly a use case for a _work_ laptop which needs no multimedia support. I wouldn't argue that someone buying this machine would only use only this machine. But I know I am not alone in saying that this would be my daily driver when focus is required.

bluGill 5y ago
Not much of a market, I have to do media based training all the time, even though my 95% case is text based.
xuki 5y ago
Manufacturers need to do this at scale. It’ll be so expensive if they only make a few thousand units.
bregma 5y ago
No manager would consider signing off on devices that don't make their PowerPoint deck look great. Without the corporate or consumer market you're going to struggle to find revenue.
- paulcole 5y ago
  Managers! What a bunch of bozos who only care about how their PowerPoints look, amirite?
avar 5y ago
I'm as much of a fan of the potentials of this technology as anyone, but it really look like it's terrible to use as a main display even for non-multimedia applications. I.e. try setting your mouse or keyboard to have even 50-100ms of lag, a lot of people would find that very distracting to use even for just using a terminal Emacs/Vim & for writing plain-text. There's a reason these things are being marketed as "secondary displays", which makes perfect sense. In terms of cost I really don't see why anyone would want to do it differently anyway. A 20" LCD is dirt-cheap these days, so if you're already spending 5x or 10x that on the same size of E-Ink display why not get both?

LoveMortuus 5y ago

What if they made the display modular, so that you could swap it with a regular display for when you want to do gaming and other stuff like that? I personally would buy an e-ink laptop, but then again I'm very much into e-ink, I have a Kindle and ReMarkable 2, years ago I also bought DPT-S1 but I returned it because it was too expensive. Also colour e-ink displays have been getting better and better too! So I'm sure that in time, it'll be amazing!

synapse26 5y ago
The modularity of the Framework laptop comes to mind, maybe one day, we’ll see.
mdp2021 5y ago
> so that you could swap it with a regular display You may just want to lay an EPD tablet on the original screen and link the two. Check: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=173025&stc=1&id=1566157578 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmenti... Issues? Yes. HDMI does not allow for the touchscreen, and you may want that. And the hardware system must optimize battery life, which can be awful on the HDMI connection. What you really want is an optimized data connection and screen mirroring to the tablet. Or, an EPD tablet with the ability to use more than Android...
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  > Or, an EPD tablet with the ability to use more than Android... This is my hope with the future PineNote running a Linux distro.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Mind you, Android can be pretty effective on the tablet for some tasks. But when you will want to use a complete Office Automation suite, instead of the more toyish mobile alternatives... What I finally did, this June, was: I coded my own word processor for Android. A dual boot system (Android vs Linux Desktop) would be the best solution.

netcan 5y ago

So... An eInk laptop wouldn't be for media. It'd be a different product with different pros/cons. Easier on the eyes. Better in sunlight. Easier on battery. Quite usable for reading, emails, code and any "mostly text" use. To the OP's original point "why doesn't this just exist..." IMO, it could, but it would need to be a different product class. Just sticking the monitor onto a windows machine isn't good enough. It needs its apps/etc. The market is probably much smaller than the phone/tablet and laptop/desktop markets. Perhaps potential vendors don't think it's big enough to support the necessary OS, apps & such.

mdp2021 5y ago
> It needs its apps Out of experience: not really.
- em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
  The thing it doesn't needs is apps.
arvinsim 5y ago
It needs to be significantly cheaper than current monitors to make business sense. Remember, it's not about the objective value of the device. It's the perceived value that matters.
jjguy 5y ago
My view, you are describing the Kindle. Amazon sees the same potential - and risk - and has been quietly iterating for over a decade in the segment. If you want to go seriously explore it as a product, I’d start with a deep dive study there and develop a few theories how you think you could be different enough to blow it wide open.
fsflover 5y ago
Perhaps this might be relevant: https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

Not ready for primetime? Is it the button on the side of the display so that a user can manually refresh it?

ranit 5y ago

And these days: if it cannot make video calls it is not a computer for work.

mdp2021 5y ago
A YouTube search for "Hisense A5 pro cc video call" did not return precise results, but some can be suggestive of the possibilities. See for example Title: Hisense A5Pro CC Review 3- Battery, Videos & Games | Eink Kaleido 1 handling fast scenes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqASRsIWVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqASRsIWVw Some would find those results jawdropping. I presume that Video Calls using E-Ink displays are now much more than possible.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  Possible but lackluster
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
If you get enough shoulder-taps, a device that can't take video calls might be the best one for work.
- ranit 5y ago
  Ideally, yes ... but in large orgs with different internal agendas and politics it might be problematic to get through :)
zepto 5y ago
My work computer can’t take video calls. It is better that way. I have an iPad for that.

gonzo 5y ago

> Like seriously can you imagine trying to sell a laptop that is unable to watch any media, play any games and has the refresh rate / perceived performance of a 15 year old tablet. In a word: yes. But I was 10 or 11 years old before we had a color TV.