4 ms·

> price depends on many factors Price depends on volume. There's negligible chance of you realistic hitting less than 1k for a functional EINK laptop unless

> price depends on many factors Price depends on volume. There's negligible chance of you realistic hitting less than 1k for a functional EINK laptop unless this thing is yet another kickstarter/indiegogo scam trying to exploit the desperation of those of us with sensitive eyes.

999900000999 5y ago
This is a good reminder to only buy hardware retail, let someone else take the gamble of the product never coming out. You seem to have some expertise in this space, is an e-ink laptop even possible? Possible? My assumption is someone like Amazon would have done this already.
- robinsoh 5y ago
  Subjective. In my opinion, the physics of electrophoretics imposes a minimum latency that no body will be able to surpass unless they change to new yet-to-be-invented materials or create new laws of physics. 700ms for a clean greyscale update in 2006 has remained 660ms in 2022. Sure, there's various tricks degrading to 1-bit dither like A2 with Dasung but it the core apple to apple comparison proves physics remains the unsurmountable bottleneck. Some users can tolerate that kind of latency for some purposes. Document editing is a good example. 700ms is fine for that. Such a "laptop" is possible. But a general purpose laptop? A basic proof, add a usleep(700*1000) to foo.flip() and see how your user interface feels. If you can tolerate it, then such a laptop could be available for you.
  - phil294 5y ago
    Aren't you leaving out partial refreshes here? Several e-ink tablets have achieved near-instant feedback for writing and typing. Full refresh times don't matter near as much for text processing, so I think you are overdramatizing. Still, general purpose computing is indeed questionable. But why wouldn't it be possible to manufacture and sell such a device at < $1000? 13.3'' displays are at $370 [1], and the remaining specs are inexpensive [2] (given there is no ssd included). Solely depends on ones profit margin, it seems. By the way, I appreciate your steady fight against malicious patent usage claims of e-ink corp by many users on HN. No idea if you are right, but it is admirable that you rightfully keep insisting on proof as there seems to be none. [1] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/13.3inch-e-Paper.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/13.3inch-... [2] https://github.com/Modos-Labs/Lancer https://github.com/Modos-Labs/Lancer
    - robinsoh 5y ago
      The term partial refreshes leaves much to be desired. I'd call it unclean refreshes. Perhaps I'm overdramatizing. > But why wouldn't it be possible to manufacture and sell such a device at < $1000? 13.3'' displays are at $370 [1], and the remaining specs are inexpensive [2] (given there is no ssd included). Solely depends on ones profit margin, it seems. Notice what I wrote was different. I wrote "There's negligible chance of you realistic hitting less than 1k for a functional EINK laptop ". "You" being Alex. That's because I saw a Spartan FPGA in there just as a display controller. That alone tells me the claim they'll be able hit 1k for a laptop device is seriously scammy.

999900000999 5y ago

This is a good reminder to only buy hardware retail, let someone else take the gamble of the product never coming out. You seem to have some expertise in this space, is an e-ink laptop even possible? Possible? My assumption is someone like Amazon would have done this already.

robinsoh 5y ago
Subjective. In my opinion, the physics of electrophoretics imposes a minimum latency that no body will be able to surpass unless they change to new yet-to-be-invented materials or create new laws of physics. 700ms for a clean greyscale update in 2006 has remained 660ms in 2022. Sure, there's various tricks degrading to 1-bit dither like A2 with Dasung but it the core apple to apple comparison proves physics remains the unsurmountable bottleneck. Some users can tolerate that kind of latency for some purposes. Document editing is a good example. 700ms is fine for that. Such a "laptop" is possible. But a general purpose laptop? A basic proof, add a usleep(700*1000) to foo.flip() and see how your user interface feels. If you can tolerate it, then such a laptop could be available for you.
- phil294 5y ago
  Aren't you leaving out partial refreshes here? Several e-ink tablets have achieved near-instant feedback for writing and typing. Full refresh times don't matter near as much for text processing, so I think you are overdramatizing. Still, general purpose computing is indeed questionable. But why wouldn't it be possible to manufacture and sell such a device at < $1000? 13.3'' displays are at $370 [1], and the remaining specs are inexpensive [2] (given there is no ssd included). Solely depends on ones profit margin, it seems. By the way, I appreciate your steady fight against malicious patent usage claims of e-ink corp by many users on HN. No idea if you are right, but it is admirable that you rightfully keep insisting on proof as there seems to be none. [1] https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/13.3inch-e-Paper.htm https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/13.3inch-... [2] https://github.com/Modos-Labs/Lancer https://github.com/Modos-Labs/Lancer
  - robinsoh 5y ago
    The term partial refreshes leaves much to be desired. I'd call it unclean refreshes. Perhaps I'm overdramatizing. > But why wouldn't it be possible to manufacture and sell such a device at < $1000? 13.3'' displays are at $370 [1], and the remaining specs are inexpensive [2] (given there is no ssd included). Solely depends on ones profit margin, it seems. Notice what I wrote was different. I wrote "There's negligible chance of you realistic hitting less than 1k for a functional EINK laptop ". "You" being Alex. That's because I saw a Spartan FPGA in there just as a display controller. That alone tells me the claim they'll be able hit 1k for a laptop device is seriously scammy.