Pixel Qi - LCD display switchable to reflective display...

[Silent_Buddha]

http://www.pixelqi.com/home

Interesting stuff. You can apparently buy it now to replace certain netbook displays.

It's a traditional LCD (even made on traditional LCD lines) that has the ability to switch to a black and white reflective mode (similar to E-ink, but with continuous power consumption, 80% of normal) and a semi-reflective color mode.

Apparently even the B&W reflective mode similar to E-ink is fast enough to display motion video (although in B&W). So a trade off of fast response versus virtually no power useage.

I'd LOVE to see one of the upcoming Win7 Slate PC's come with this display. If it did, I could mostly stop using dedicated E-Readers. Battery life wouldn't be as great, but if it can manage at least 8-12 hours (versus 1-2 weeks for E-Readers) that would be good enough for most uses, except possibly trans-oceanic flight. And I'd only have to carry one device rather than my tablet PC + e-reader.

Regards,
SB

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Yeah, it looks really promising.

There are a couple of tablets coming out with it, most interesting imo is Notion Inks Adam. Pixel Qi and Tegra T20 looks nice!
Just hoping it turns out not to be vapor ware. Initially they aimed for a June release, now they are just saying before November on their blog.

 

[Grall]

Buddha, do you mean the display uses 80% LESS power in "e-ink" mode? Coz otherwise the saving is actually quite small...

I do lament MS killing off their book-like PDA thingy. I liked the foldout form factor, it looked as if it could have had great potential. Boo on them for being so conservative and afraid of taking risks.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes 80% less. I didn't word that very well did I? Oooops.

Damn the Adam uses an ARM CPU so it won't be Win7 based. The ExoPC (http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/30/exopc-slate-hands-on/ ) is currently the tablet I'm most looking forward to, unfortunately it just uses a conventional display. But since the display seems to be a common size, I'm hoping Pixel Qi will make a replacement display for it.

Edit - Home site for it http://www.exopc.com/en/exopc-slate.php

Edit2 - Their forums are actually pretty active. And something that amuses me, why do people always clamour for 1080p playback when devices in that class (using Atom CPUs) gerenally have 720p displays at best?

Regards,
SB

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Ah yes, if you want Win 7, the Adam is not for you.
I'm more interested in the capabilities and battery life, which the Adam wins if it comes anywhere near their current claims

• Uncompromised Web experience, including low power Flash 10.1 acceleration , HD video playback, unmatched battery life, 140 hrs of Audio and over 16 hrs of HD video playback
• Ebook Client, Now all major ebook formats supported.

With that battery life, and Pixel Qi it should cover all my ebooks needs, as well as working as a third screen to view articles&papers, twitter and private surfing at work


Back to Qi, I really look forward to when this is implemented in notebooks as well!
Imagine a light 13" notebook with nvidia Optimus tech and a Qi screen, allowing for hours upon hours of coding, then switching over to LCD and nvidia chip to test, then go back to coding. This with Qi (and linux support) would be really sweet!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Hmmm, if that's cheap enough, that might make a decent ebook replacement, although I'd once again be left with 2 devices to take on extended trips, something I'm hoping to avoid at some point.

Yeah, the only bummer with the Win7 tablets so far is the battery life. They all seem to come with just a 2 cell battery with ~3 hours of battery life. Not exactly stellar, but with all of them attempting to get their devices as thin as possible, it doesn't seem likely they'll get larger batteries.

That's where I'm hoping a Pixel Qi replacement display when in reflective or trans-reflective mode can extend that a fair bit.

Regards,
SB

 

[Grall]

Yes 80% less.

That makes it a substantial saving. How is the contrast in "e-ink" mode? Aren't e-ink displays rather crap as far as contrast goes?

Damn the Adam uses an ARM CPU so it won't be Win7 based.

Is that really much of an issue in this class of device though?

Most Win software isn't designed for touch; either using the keyboard a lot or multiple mouse buttons (which a touchscreen can't emulate in a natural manner), and games typically require far more memory and processing horsepower than is available in a slate formfactor.

If all you want to use it for are things that don't require much keyboard or mouse input (such as surfing the web, reading ebooks, music and video playback etc) then an Arm device could do that just as well, and with lower power consumption and processor overhead than an Atom/Win7 device could manage.

And something that amuses me, why do people always clamour for 1080p playback when devices in that class (using Atom CPUs) gerenally have 720p displays at best?

Because they're silly?

It's sort of an epeen thing I believe. Like cars that go 2-3x the legal speed limit, to some people more pixels are simply better even if you can't make out any difference in resolution on such a tiny display...

That said however, it's important the device can play 1080p material at full bitrate however even if it's scaled down to say 720p for display, since then you don't need to go through the extra step of transcoding your stuff just to watch it on your slate...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That makes it a substantial saving. How is the contrast in "e-ink" mode? Aren't e-ink displays rather crap as far as contrast goes?

In reflective mode, contrast isn't such a big deal as there is also no "brightness." Black for example is just black. If you want to get an idea of what an e-ink/reflective display is like just pick up a book or a newspaper. It's pretty much just like that. E-ink deliberately avoids pure white, preferring to go with a more natural paper media look. It's easier to read and easier on the eyes in a variety of lighting solutions. For example outside in the bright sun...

Also Reflective mode is basically black and white (with shades of grey). Transreflective can show color but uses more power (closer to regular mode as the backlight is used).

Regards,
SB

 

[hoom]

Possibly better?

http://www.mirasoldisplays.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_modulator_display

Seems to be low power like eInk but able to do colour & with reasonable refresh rate.
Not sure I get how it adjusts brightness though?

 

[MfA]

I have my doubts about mirasol's power consumption.

The problem is that it's bi-stable ... which means that for pure colours it will be great, but you don't get nice anti-aliased fonts that way. For grayscale and non pure colours it will have to use PWM ... at around 600 Hz (just like plasma TVs). Which I just don't think is going to be great for power consumption.

I've said it before, Liquavista looks the most promising of the colour e-paper displays.

 

[Mintmaster]

In reflective mode, contrast isn't such a big deal as there is also no "brightness." Black for example is just black.

It would be great if that was the case, but it isn't. Even the inkiest black material you can find will still reflect a bit of light, and e-Ink doesn't even come close to the black of, say, laser toner.

LCD is better than plasma in this regard due to the polarizers. That's why LCDs look blacker than plasmas in a bright room.

These new reflective technologies look promising for low power outdoor application, but I'm pretty sure that we're going to have to settle for 10:1 contrast ratios when they first come out. That's a lot better than a transmissive device outdoors, but it'll look subpar indoors.

 

[mboeller]

here is a third alternative display solution:

http://www.liquavista.com/

and here is a fourth one (but they are not near serial production like the other ones):

www.unipixel.com


As far as I have followed the mirasol display tech, they seem to have problems displaying certain colors. It could be a problem of their early display (as shown this year) or a problem of the technology.

 

[Mintmaster]

here is a third alternative display solution:

http://www.liquavista.com/

MfA mentioned that two posts above yours.

and here is a fourth one (but they are not near serial production like the other ones):

www.unipixel.com

Interesting, but it will suffer the rainbow effect of single-chip DLP. I don't think these can switch faster than DLP micromirrors. Also, when you have such a large surface, reliability and longevity could be a problem. Using frustrated TIR in this way is probably not the best way get low black levels, either.

We'll see what happens, but it's so hard to displace entrenched technologies. I remember talking to a professor at MIT who was telling me amazed he was at the way LCD just exploded as a display tech and how cost plummeted when the industry got behind it, as the base technology is awful compared to others. Think about how many square inches of a cleanroom processed device you need, and compare that to DLP, computer chips, etc. 50" LCD/Plasma screens way under $1000 is shocking.

 

[MfA]

Unipixel is still a purely emissive display, so it's not e-paper. Also I have my doubts about reliability, making and breaking solid to solid contacts at 3x75 Hz ...

 

[MfA]

Completely missed Pixtronix, this does look interesting ... only grayscale in reflective mode though (also again, works with PWM in grayscale mode ... which can't be good for power consumption).

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20018618-64.html

Looks pretty complex to manufacture, strange it's coming to market first.

 

[mboeller]

MfA mentioned that two posts above yours.

Upps!

Unipixel is still a purely emissive display, so it's not e-paper. Also I have my doubts about reliability, making and breaking solid to solid contacts at 3x75 Hz ...

I thought they switch much faster than 3 x 75Hz. At least thats the impression I got from the few papers they have online.

 

[MfA]

You're right they use PWM too ... so x8. I was assuming they were using something like a leaky capacitor to control the duration of opening.

 

[MfA]

Damn, I had this exact same idea :/

http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/...rightness-and-low-cost-manufacturing-2010106/

Still, looks nice.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's interesting. I wonder how close they are to introducing it to market? I wouldn't mind a proper reflective E-reader that could do greyscale motion video.

Regards,
SB

 

[MfA]

Unfortunately the switching time still necessitates a TFT backplane even though it's (bi-) stable ... the promise of truly cheap e-paper is still unfulfilled (organic semiconductor transistors have proven a huge disappointment).