Comment by drum55
3 days ago
It's a very minor distinction, but they aren't a epaper display (low refresh rate, zero power to maintain an image), rather the technology is a sharp memory LCD (ludicrously low power, but high refresh rate). They're extremely neat and don't suffer from the washed out color and ghosting that epaper does, at the cost of needing ever so slightly above no power to keep an image displayed. I much, much prefer them even though Sharp doesn't really advertise them anymore.
Isn’t e-paper the general category of low power displays? I understand that “e-ink” are a trademarked subset of the broader e-paper category, which also includes memory-in-pixel LCD displays which other watches like Garmin (and probably pebble) have. E-ink displays are only manufactured by eink corp, and are popularly found on e-readers, shelf price tags in some stores etc.
I may be mixing terms in my brain, though. Happy to be corrected.
I haven't really heard it being used like that, always heard e-paper being used as the specific e-ink displays and never anything else. The only time I've seen the (in my mind) confused messaging is on Pebble's own website, I still have my original Pebble Time somewhere, and that's a good part just down to how much I love those displays. I don't think I'd have used one for years if they were epaper.
> The only time I've seen the (in my mind) confused messaging is on Pebble's own website
Yeah, other wearable manufacturers who use the same display technology usually call it MIP instead. Pebble are pretty much the only ones who call it e-paper, which has led some to think theirs is a distinct thing, but it's just MIP.
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> Isn’t e-paper the general category of low power displays?
Yes, or more precisely: reflective displays without backlight. There were many such display technologies a while ago (when the Kindle took off and various companies tried to compete with E Ink), but most have since been abandoned.
Pretty much all colored e-paper screens have much lower contrast than color printing on paper, since they mix colors by using can conventional RGB sub-pixels and darkening them individually, just like regular lit screens, which reduces the amount of reflected light.
> Pretty much all colored e-paper screens have much lower contrast than color printing on paper, since they mix colors by using can conventional RGB sub-pixels and darkening them individually, just like regular lit screens, which reduces the amount of reflected light.
Isn't that how color images printed paper works, too? We use inks (often in CMYK coloration, but a galaxy of other options exist) to subtract light from what would otherwise be reflected by a plain white paper.
What makes e-paper screens worse in this way?
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