E-ink displays have an undeniable advantage over traditional monitors when it comes to a select few tasks. E-ink displays do not emit their own light, making them far easier on the eyes, especially for longer workloads. However, E-ink displays have always suffered from extremely slow refresh rates, which makes them borderline unusable for anything apart from reading. However, technology always catches up with expectations, and it appears that we will soon have 60 Hz E-Ink displays on the market. Prominent brand Dasung has already unveiled its offering with a 60 Hz panel, dubbed the Paperlike 103.

The 10.3-inch E-ink display sports a 4:3 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1,874 vs 1,404, and features a 60 Hz refresh rate. The panel can only display grayscale images, and boasts an integrated front light to allow usage in low-light conditions without any hassle. This is necessary for usability when an external light source is not available, because as previously mentioned, E-ink displays do not emit their own light. Of course, since E-ink displays have typically only offered less than half the refresh rate of the Paperlike 103, the display is expected to be far more power hungry. Like other E-ink displays, the paperlike 103 is impressively thin, at just 5 mm. The monitor is already available in China for a price of around $280, although an international launch is not in sight for now.

E-Ink aficionados have been on the rise in recent years, and for good reason. E-Ink displays, despite their undeniable downsides, are excellent for note-taking and reading without having to worry about eye-strain. The 13.3-inch BOOX Note Max is an excellent option for its targeted demographic, and is now available for purchase worldwide for a relatively affordable price of $649.

The Note Max sports Android support, specifically Android 13. Needless to say, this means that a plethora of apps and functionality can be installed separately. The 13.3-inch capacitive touch display with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity sports a resolution for 3200 x 2400, amounting to a commendable PPI value of 300. An octa-core 2.8 GHz CPU takes care of all the computing needs, paired with 6 GB of memory. Of course, the Note Max is not meant to be a powerhouse, but decent performance is always welcome.

Brands in the ePaper industry are shining like stars in the sky, and we are all working to make the ePaper category brighter. With our progress and the support of our users, we are honored to be awarded the Best Seller of E Ink Color Products of 2023 by E Ink Corporation. And this star is about to shine brighter, doing its best to spread the glow to more users.

We started to partner with E Ink since our establishment in 2008. And since then, we have been determined to become an innovative ePaper brand that will never settle for convention. With the introduction of breakthrough products and features during our growth, we finally saw the emergence of color ePaper. It was called Kaleido technology four years ago. Despite its youth, it had enormous potential. We couldn't wait to put it on our product and officially introduced it to our users in 2021—if you remember the Nova3 Color.

The VU1 was inspired by a hobbyist project called CAPS which used analogue dials to show network, RAM, CPU and GPU activity. The dials were incorporated into a Streacom DB4 which is what caught our attention and led us to reach out to Saša Karanović who developed the firmware, hardware and software for it. Needless to say, we shared a lot of common ideas and passion, all of which laid the foundation for this collaboration. Much like the original project, the initial concept was to use off-the-shelf gauge dials to display typical PC hardware information, but the question soon arose, what if someone wanted to show different information? How could we make it easier for people to customise what each dial was labelled?

The breakthrough happened with the idea of using an e-ink display to serve as the dial face. This transformed the singularly assigned display into a highly versatile one, capable of representing virtually any numeric information from any source via this retro analogue gauge format. Having this dynamic dial face also meant it was important for it to be an open platform with support for 3rd party applications, enabling it to be used in scenarios that are beyond our limited imagination. The VU1 was born, its name a reference to the standard "VU - Volume Unit" labelling on audio gauges and a phonetic play on the word "view" as it will be used to view real-time data.

Reading a mystery novel on an ePaper device, as tension grows, you start flipping through the pages faster and faster to uncover who the murderer is. Second to spoilers, what may bother you could be ghosting—faint traces of previously displayed text lingering on the screen. For most E Ink products, that's a tricky problem. However, after years of study, BOOX came out with a solution—BOOX Super Refresh (BSR) technology.

Challenges Facing the ePaper Industry
In the ePaper industry, the trade-off between display and responsiveness is a long-existing puzzle. And the issue mostly comes down to how electronic ink works. The content you see on the screen is created by up to millions of microcapsules, each roughly the diameter of human hair. Within these microcapsules are charged black and white particles. Depending on varying electrical fields, different particles change positions, becoming either visible or invisible on the top of the capsule, thus forming what you see on the screen.

We are excited to announce the launch of Poke5, the new member of our 6" eReader lineup. Here you will learn more about the compact eReader with an optimized new design. Poke5 boasts an unparalleled screen-to-body ratio, thanks to its optimized internal construction. Its design prioritizes a refined experience with better grip and viewing comfort. Its 6" touchscreen features E Ink Carta technology with 300 PPI, which mimics the feel of reading on paper and reduces eye fatigue.

Even with the magnetic cover attached, the compact design fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. Additionally, the flush screen design makes the core component of the ePaper screen resistant to impact. The device offers ample storage space for all of your digital content with its upgraded configuration of 2 GB RAM + 32 GB ROM. It also provides expandable storage options through a microSD card or USB-C flash drive. Furthermore, every user can enjoy 10 GB of free cloud storage for Onyx cloud services upon registration.

We've seen all kinds of devices integrate E Ink technology over the years, ranging from USB flash drives to keyboards and of course eReaders. However, Philips decided it was a good idea to stick one next to a 1440p display in its forgetably named 24B1D5600 monitor. The 23.8-inch 2560 x 1440 monitor has the E Ink display attached to its right side and the E Ink display is attached on hinges and can be angled up to 45 degrees towards the main display. The E Ink display measures 13.3-inches and has a resolution of 1200 x 1600 pixels.

Although originally revealed at CES 2022, it seems to have taken Philips quite a while to bring it to market, although it appears to have been on sale in Asia for at least a couple of months by now. The main display features an IPS panel with a 75 Hz refresh rate and a brightness that tops up at a mere 250 cd/m². It has a typical IPS contrast ratio of 1000:1 and a grey to grey response time of 4 ms. However, it also doubles as a docking station for a notebook, as it has a USB-C input that supports USB PD 3.0 up to 90 W and it has a built-in Gigabit Ethernet port. It also sports a DP 1.2 input and a four port USB Type-A hub, plus an audio output. One quirky thing is that the E Ink display requires its own input which is via a USB-C port that supports DP Alt mode and that is capable of outputting 15 W of power to an attached device. The 24B1D5600 retails for around US$620 in Asia.

Boox is happy to introduce the Tab Ultra C: a 10.3" ePaper Tablet PC endowed with pastel colors. We are excited to announce the launch of Tab Ultra C, our latest color E Ink device in 2023, following the successful release of our iF Design Award winning Tab Ultra last year. In this article, you will discover the unique features that make Tab Ultra C a standout device for work and productivity.

State-of-the-art Color E Ink Screen
Tab Ultra C represents a significant milestone as our first device with the cutting-edge Kaleido 3 color E Ink screen technology, delivering a high resolution of 300 PPI for black and white, and 150 PPI for displaying an extensive palette of 4,096 colors. The screen also features the innovative E Ink ComfortGaze front light technology, designed to optimize viewing comfort during both daytime and nighttime use.

We first had our eyes on the Nemeio e-ink display keyboard at CES last year, with the French company grabbing eyes with their per-key customizable keyboard that implements an e-ink display under each keycap. This allows the 75% form factor keyboard to be easily adaptable across users who want to, say, type in one of the rarely supported languages (think Inuit, for example) by keyboards. By supporting native OS languages on both Windows and MacOS, as well as having software drivers to allow an unlimited number of layouts which can be associated with programs, and also up to four actions per key, the keyboard is finally seeing near-retail specifications in the feature set.

At their booth during CES 2020, the company showed off two versions of the keyboard that are being contemplated for the retail release later this year. These are both clearly more finished samples compared to the prototype from before, and come in a different ID with one going for the more traditional route of a logo and indicator LEDs at the top corners, and the other adding them to the left instead. If you have a preference on either, please vote on them and help the company finalize their plans. As it stands, they are looking to sell the entire unit, which has wireless Bluetooth connectivity and a ~20 hour battery life with lighting off (via LEDs to complement the e-ink) for under $400. Nemeio says they are still working to improve the typing experience, but this is a rare keyboard that will actually help cut down the learning curve associated with smaller form factor keyboards, while making customization easier than other solutions.