5 ms·

I would be all over an eInk smartphone. I would gladly accept all of the disadvantages of eInk for that battery life.

UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
Someone was showing off this really incredible concept phone where the screen was BOTH eInk AND a regular LCD screen in one. Basically the eink display would constantly show your notifications, and you could turn it on (LCD) to get full apps, web-browsing, etc. Unfortunately it was a concept by a really small company, so I don't know if we'll ever see it come to market.
- hepek 13y ago
  http://www.yotaphone.com/#/en/ http://www.yotaphone.com/#/en/
DanBC 13y ago
Motorola had an eink dumb phone in 2006. (http://betanews.com/2006/11/28/motorola-unveils-9mm-entry-level-phone-with-e-ink-display/ http://betanews.com/2006/11/28/motorola-unveils-9mm-entry-le...) Samsung had, er, this thing in 2009. (http://gizmodo.com/5251232/samsung-alias-2-e+ink-flip-phone-review http://gizmodo.com/5251232/samsung-alias-2-e+ink-flip-phone-...) People complain about input lag - see some of the comments about the Mozilla firefox phone. I guess they'd hate the refresh rate of the eink. And isn't a lot of the power going to WIFI or 3G, rather than the screen? How much advantage is there?
- smackfu 13y ago
  The big problem with that Moto phone was that it was using a segmented e-ink display, like a e-ink calculator screen. So it could display phone numbers well, contacts poorly, and texting was a joke.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Just from personal experience, Android always reports my display as consuming the majority (around 60%-70% usually) of my battery, anytime I've cared to check. That's for general usage as a phone/music player.
  - Someone 13y ago
    In other news, the light bulb in my refrigerator is always on, anytime I've cared to check. In other words: chances are that you only check power use when your display is on. If the display is off 80% of the time and all other components stay on full time, that would sink the power use of the display to around 25%-30%.
    - aquark 13y ago
      The usage report is cumulative, not instantaneous. The act of checking probably isn't a significant fraction of their phone usage. So if for a given usage pattern the screen does consume 60+% (which is what I often see) then keeping it off all the time certainly helps ... but also makes the phone a lot less useful!
    - bmelton 13y ago
      Your comparison is flawed. The Android power meter shows the power consumption that has happened over a period of time, not just what is consuming the power the most right when you look at it. If I disable WiFi, then check the power consumption, WiFi still appears to be consuming approximately 4% of the batter compared to 42% by the screen, which is the top listed item, and dwarfs the number 2 item, Android OS at 9%. If I run without WiFi for a period of 24 hours or so, then presumably the WiFi battery consumption would drop to 0%, or at least begin approaching 0%, but either way, this is a far different test than just seeing if the refrigerator light is on.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      Those other components don't take much power. My phone lasts a week idle, and the hours it lasts with the screen on would go up tremendously with e-ink, especially outdoors. The backlight takes an overwhelming majority of power for such activities.
zeckalpha 13y ago
I wish this was still on the market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_%28mobile_Internet_device%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_%28mobile_Internet_device...
ddeck 13y ago
Onyx are "apparently" releasing one shortly (this quarter). https://onyx-boox.com/coming-soon-e-ink-news/e-ink-smartphone/ https://onyx-boox.com/coming-soon-e-ink-news/e-ink-smartphon... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420952,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420952,00.asp EDIT: updated link

Someone was showing off this really incredible concept phone where the screen was BOTH eInk AND a regular LCD screen in one. Basically the eink display would constantly show your notifications, and you could turn it on (LCD) to get full apps, web-browsing, etc. Unfortunately it was a concept by a really small company, so I don't know if we'll ever see it come to market.

hepek 13y ago
http://www.yotaphone.com/#/en/ http://www.yotaphone.com/#/en/

DanBC 13y ago

Motorola had an eink dumb phone in 2006. (http://betanews.com/2006/11/28/motorola-unveils-9mm-entry-level-phone-with-e-ink-display/ http://betanews.com/2006/11/28/motorola-unveils-9mm-entry-le...) Samsung had, er, this thing in 2009. (http://gizmodo.com/5251232/samsung-alias-2-e+ink-flip-phone-review http://gizmodo.com/5251232/samsung-alias-2-e+ink-flip-phone-...) People complain about input lag - see some of the comments about the Mozilla firefox phone. I guess they'd hate the refresh rate of the eink. And isn't a lot of the power going to WIFI or 3G, rather than the screen? How much advantage is there?

smackfu 13y ago
The big problem with that Moto phone was that it was using a segmented e-ink display, like a e-ink calculator screen. So it could display phone numbers well, contacts poorly, and texting was a joke.
MichaelGG 13y ago
Just from personal experience, Android always reports my display as consuming the majority (around 60%-70% usually) of my battery, anytime I've cared to check. That's for general usage as a phone/music player.
- Someone 13y ago
  In other news, the light bulb in my refrigerator is always on, anytime I've cared to check. In other words: chances are that you only check power use when your display is on. If the display is off 80% of the time and all other components stay on full time, that would sink the power use of the display to around 25%-30%.
  - aquark 13y ago
    The usage report is cumulative, not instantaneous. The act of checking probably isn't a significant fraction of their phone usage. So if for a given usage pattern the screen does consume 60+% (which is what I often see) then keeping it off all the time certainly helps ... but also makes the phone a lot less useful!
  - bmelton 13y ago
    Your comparison is flawed. The Android power meter shows the power consumption that has happened over a period of time, not just what is consuming the power the most right when you look at it. If I disable WiFi, then check the power consumption, WiFi still appears to be consuming approximately 4% of the batter compared to 42% by the screen, which is the top listed item, and dwarfs the number 2 item, Android OS at 9%. If I run without WiFi for a period of 24 hours or so, then presumably the WiFi battery consumption would drop to 0%, or at least begin approaching 0%, but either way, this is a far different test than just seeing if the refrigerator light is on.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    Those other components don't take much power. My phone lasts a week idle, and the hours it lasts with the screen on would go up tremendously with e-ink, especially outdoors. The backlight takes an overwhelming majority of power for such activities.

zeckalpha 13y ago

I wish this was still on the market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_%28mobile_Internet_device%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_%28mobile_Internet_device...

ddeck 13y ago

Onyx are "apparently" releasing one shortly (this quarter). https://onyx-boox.com/coming-soon-e-ink-news/e-ink-smartphone/ https://onyx-boox.com/coming-soon-e-ink-news/e-ink-smartphon... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420952,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420952,00.asp EDIT: updated link