Color e-Ink

Color E-Ink Timeline

While black and white e-Ink have been around since 2007 under a variety of names (Vizplex, Pearl, Carta), color e-Ink technology is relatively new, as you can see from the Color eInk time line that I’ve compiled for you. Color eInk was only available for the consumer market in 2021, so it’s a very young technology.

As of this writing, there are two competing color e-Ink made for consumers: ACeP (under the Gallery 3 branding) and Kaleido, both were created by the E Ink Corporation.

Both have their pros and cons… while Gallery 3 appears to be the superior color visually with 32,000 colors, it is very slow to write and display on screen. I wish I had a device to test out ghosting problems or just how suffering slow it is… but if you want to view comic books and magazines in true-ish color, I feel the future has to be with Gallery 3 (right now).

Kaleido 3 is inferior to displaying color, but what it makes up is in speed. Rendering color images are much faster… however color images suffer from half resolution (150dpi) and black and white looks dark (because of the color filter layer).

 

I bought the Onyx’s BOOX Note Air 3 C, which uses the Kaleido 3 technology, and I’m not impressed by the muddy color. I even removed the preinstalled screen, but the display is still not very good. It’s also very reflective without the screen protector, as you can see from the photo I took.

What I am hoping for is that Apple or Amazon enter this color eInk market. Amazon has already been successful at black & white eInk with their Kindle eReaders, so they can bring in their know-how and create a usable color Kindle. They can even call it the Kolor Kindle.

Knowing Apple, they can probably invent their own version of color eInk (something that can display accurate true colors), and they can probably call it Apple Color Ink.

Where color eInk can really work are for comic book or magazine reader or large electronic photo frames. Just think having a photo frame that runs on double A batteries. If the batteries died, it won’t matter because the image will still stay on the display!

Or for Apple, they can incorporate it in their Apple Watches. Since eInk uses very little electricity, imagine having an Apple Watch that you don’t have to charge for a month! That would be pretty amazing.

I see so much potential in this display technology… but unfortunately, as far as I know, no major US companies are working on any consumer products.

While we wait for Gallery 3 devices to come out in the market (at a reasonable price), I am really contemplating on buying the Kindle Scribe, as it’s currently on sale. The scribe is not in color, but having it to read black & white comic books, such as manga, it’s very compelling.

Yours,

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