Colored E-Ink Displays on Their Way to Actual Products in 2020
Last updated December 20, 2019
- We will soon be able to enjoy e-paper devices that can reproduce several colors.
- This opens up the door to the education sector, smartwatches, and enjoying mags and comics on e-readers.
- The new tech is going to be a revolution for E-Ink, as a heavy handicap is about to be lifted.
E-Ink (electronic ink) displays have revolutionized the field of e-book readers in the past decade, thanks to the rich set of advantages that they brought over regular LCD displays. Due to the way they work, by shifting the electric charge on micro-capsules which contain oppositely charged ink pigments of black and white particles, they consume very little energy. Thanks to this, one could enjoy reading books for years before having to change the e-book reader's battery. Moreover, and because they emit no light, they cause no tiredness to the eye and that’s why they are also called “e-paper”.
One of the most popular products that employed E-Ink technology was Amazon’s Kindle series of e-readers, on which people enjoyed reading books, newspapers, magazines, and all types of written content. In 2011, Amazon announced that they were selling more digital books than printed ones, and part of this commercial explosion was thanks to the Kindle’s display technology. However, one key drawback of the E-Ink remained the inability to display/produce colors. Many people simply couldn’t get over the fact that they could not enjoy colorful images on books, so illustration and art magazines, comics, and children's books were out of the question.
E-Ink is finally about to lift that disadvantage with a new color e-paper technology that is soon to enter the market of e-book readers as well as other devices such as smartwatches. According to the company’s estimations, the new technology is planned to enter mass production in Q2 2020, and the first products to deploy it will hit the market by Q3 2020. In the video below, the colored E-Ink display is demonstrated extensively, and while the tones may not be jaw-droppingly vivid and the display is still characteristically slow, but the new tech is still nothing less than awesome.
The new display will feature the same benefits as the black and white counterpart, without any new drawbacks. This means that it will remain shatterproof, easy on the eye, suitable for use during sunny days, thin, and light. The company hopes that it will achieve a dynamic entrance by conquering the education field, as this is where technologies like this are needed the most. Other use cases include displays in retail stores, where the owner could turn the device off and the message on the display would remain for as long as needed.
Are you excited about colored E-Ink, and do you plan to buy an e-book reader when the first colored ones become available? Let us know in the comments down below, or on our socials, on Facebook and Twitter.
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