E Ink Upgrades the Display in Most Color E-Readers
Today E Ink unveiled the next generation of its Kaleido color e-paper display technology, which brings several improvements. E Ink's existing Kaleido 3 displays are found in e-readers and tablets from companies such as Kobo, PocketBook, and Boox, while Amazon's Kindle Colorsoft uses a customized version for improved performance. The new Kaleido 4 technology […]
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The company's new Kaleido 4 color e-paper technology is being unveiled in a new note-taking tablet launched in China.
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is a senior reporter covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and technology since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since childhood.
E Ink today announced the next generation of its Kaleido color e-paper display technology, which brings several improvements. The company's existing Kaleido 3 displays can be found in e-readers and tablets from companies like Kobo, PocketBook and Boox, while Amazon's Kindle Colorsoft uses a version customized to improve performance. The new Kaleido 4 technology addresses some of the shortcomings of the Kaleido 3 with better color reproduction, better contrast and faster screen refresh.
Other E Ink technologies, such as the Gallery 3 display found in the Remarkable Paper Pro, use color pigments that move to create full-color images, but the Kaleido 3 uses a color filter on a sheet of e-paper with only black and white pigments. This approach results in color e-paper screens with fast refresh rates, but produces lower-resolution color images with a limited palette that makes them appear desaturated. The extra color filter also makes plain text darker than e-readers with only a black and white E Ink screen.
E Ink claims the Kaleido 4's new display technology doubles the "color volume" of its predecessor, which should improve the appearance of color images. However, the technology is still limited to producing only 4,096 colors (modern LCD and OLED displays can produce millions of colors) and, like the Kaleido 3, displays lower resolution than black-and-white text. But Kaleido 4 boosts white reflectance by 15 percent and contrast by 50 percent, so plain text potentially looks less muddy than Kaleido 3.
The reason why E Ink Gallery 3's seemingly superior technology hasn't been used in more devices is because these displays have such a low refresh rate that it can often be frustrating to use. The Kaleido 3 refreshes much faster, and thanks to its TFT oxide back panel (which sounds similar to what the Kindle Colorsoft uses), the Kaleido 4's performance is even faster, with a refresh rate of up to 18 frames per second, enabling screens to stream video.
The likes of Amazon and Kobo have yet to announce any new devices featuring the Kaleido 4 display, but Hanvon Technology is the first to incorporate the new technology into its upcoming M10C II tablet. The phone will only be available in China, but the M10C II features a Kaleido 4 display with a micro-etched tempered glass surface designed to reduce glare while providing a more authentic paper-like feel. Take notes using its battery-free stylus.
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