Qualcomm Mirasol display video hands-on in glorious 1080p
By Paul Miller 
posted January 9th 2010 1:21PM
posted January 9th 2010 1:21PM
- The display could be paired with a capacitive or resistive touchscreen, though it would impair visibility slightly (just as it's been accused of doing with E-ink). A best case scenario is apparently optical touch (like we've see on some all-in-one PCs recently), which has less of an impact.
- There are edge-lighting methods that would allow the display to be illuminated from lights built into the device that could provide even lighting across the display.
- The first display to the market will indeed be this very 5.7-inch, XGA version, which is 240ppi pixel density and a 6x power advantage over E-ink in a typical usage scenario (despite the fact that it's doing full color video).
- Our Qualcomm rep personally views dedicated e-readers as merely a "head fake," and that the category isn't going to be around for long -- which seems to imply that he sees Mirasol being used for a lot more than thumbing through a virtual novel or magazine.
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That would make me want to buy an e-reader. I've been holding out for color. Textbooks with diagrams suck in B/W.
Wow, great tech, the ereader market is moving so fast!
Now THAT'S what I'm talking about...way to go Qalcomm, you just powned the current marketplace.
Engadget: Your bandwidth costs are going to be insane if everyone downloads your 45 mb 1080p MOV file...
@Chaosdivine The video is stored on AOL's podcast server, that server is designed for large amounts of bandwidth
@lareeth
I wish I had one of those (high bandwidth media server)...
Thanks for the reply...
Whats the refresh rate of this and more importantly, how does it work? 6x less power than e-ink under which conditions I wonder...
@tinytom Im not sure what the video speed is, but the tech is like e-ink where if nothing is moving the image stays and no power is needed to hold it in place.
@Peteo you can grab more info about it here:
http://www.betanews.com/article/The-science-behind-Qualcomms-mirasol-color-ebook-displays/1263015723
@Peteo
Not exactly true... Whether a subpixel is "on" or "off", a voltage is required to maintain it's state. Also, even with a static image, the polarity of the pixel must be continually switched to prevent charge build up, which will cause a pixel to stick.
I've said it before mostly out of principle, but now I see the technology catching up:
In ten years, most displays will use reflected light. It's just more natural and easier on our eyes.
@Vance
So the original GameBoy Advance was way ahead of it's time?
I think maybe a combination of both reflecting natural light and using it's own light source would be ideal, that way you could use it both outdoors in the bright sun and indoors in a dark basement.
@Vance
that's too bad cause i like to work in the dark
@reallynotnick
natural + a tad of blue light would be perfect...
that should make it whiter.
@reallynotnick
Enough with the GBA comparisons! Sure it had a reflective color display (LCD in that case), but the contrast was lousy by today's standards. As was the resolution. And properly scaled up that screen would have used considerably more power than this one.
MY HEAD A SPLODE
Pure want, covered in want-sauce
Want. I'd take it with the yellow tint, even.
@Yoda
I'd have to agree with you, I like the tint.
I think it gives this new medium character.
I wonder if the tint is intentional?
It may turn out to be easier on the eyes for long duration skimming.
SLIGHT yellow tint?
Really?
Any details on how it works?
Sepiatone goodness. Imagine watching old Deadwood episodes on that.
Paul Miller in 1080p..... Yummy
A magazine at 300 or 600 dpi? C'mon, give me a break, that would actually be anywhere between 1200 and 2500 dpi for anything that isn't rasterized, that is type and line art. Colour and grey-scale pictures such as photos would be between 130 and 200 lpi at 4 colour print, so yes, there would be a lot of difference, as displays are RGB and don't need to rasterize images for CMYK ...
@eviltwin Paul is confusing DPI and PPI. You can't really compare newspaper print density (in DPI) to digital display density (PPI).
However, digital photos for newspaper print are (from my limited experience) printed at around 200 PPI, while standard magazine photos are at 300 PPI, so this device falls somewhere between newspaper and magazine quality -- which is quite good.
I hope they don't have as much trouble scaling this up to a sheet-of-paper-sized screen as seems to be happening with eink. I am really extremely excited about this technology... give me a 14" tablet (roughly 8.5x11/A4-sized) which is nearly edge-to-edge, maybe running a real OS (Windows 7 or Linux)... hell yes!
Wow, I hadn't been impressed by Mirasol in the first information I saw about it, but this video looks nice. Now if we could only see how it looks on a demo that wasn't specifically prepared in advance for the screen.
Wow. How does the contrast ratio of B&W text compare to the kindle?
There's also Pixel Qi which also supports the ability to enable backlighting as described here:
http://armdevices.net/2010/01/08/charbax-tests-pixel-qi-at-ces-2010/
The drawback to Pixel Qi though is that it's only B&W (or more accurately 6-bit grayscale) in its reflective state. That backlight needs to be on (and visible) for color.
I think it looks like step 1. If I bought it I would love it...at first...then the yellow tint would start to grate on me. But a real exciting direction for e-readers to be sure
Might be worth noting that their comparison of Mirasol to E-Ink involves comparing both pushed to video speeds. You are not going to get weeks of video on a Mirasol Kindle device, just as you would not get weeks of video on an EPD Kindle device. They tend to be intentionally vague about their comparison, which tends to confuse buyers into thinking they're going to get all the same battery life as an EPD Kindle but with video simultaneously. In reality, that's not true, and video will drive the battery life way down. In static images, yes it's effectively "bistable" (they do market it actively as such), even though it requires a constant hold voltage regardless of state, and will have good battery life. No doubt, this stuff is neat.
But video will drain the battery life, obviously. Do not let vague marketing lead you to think otherwise.
@BubbaJ
Your analysis makes no sense. Go to their website and give on of the like 17 whitepapers they have there to see their very up-front power comparisons. It's actually the most thorough stuff I've seen from anyone claiming low power displays. The usage models are exactly the same. Yes, any display drains power more quickly when running video, and obviously it's not bistable when running video - that's the definition of bistable! only taking power when active, duh! Anyway, kindle consumes a crapload of energy just to change the image, they say theirs is way more efficient (its a liquid vs. mechanical thing). And removing the backlight from the equation automatically gives it permanent power advantages over LCD or OLED. Whatever the usage scenario, they are saying this technology is WAY more efficient than eink, lcd, and all the others.
I want to see that kind of DPI in an LCD screen.. THAT would be awesome.
@iFargle
Droid, NexusOne, and other ~4" WVGA phones have a similar or higher ppi on their LCDs/OLEDs.
@good grief
One thing worth noting here is that format should be included with ppi. this XGA is 240ppi, he said, at 5.7". That's pretty dense, so each pixel must be smaller than the typical LCD, which would make sense as each is a little mirror.
I don't mind charging any device once a week or once every few days. The fact that I can take it on an overnight trip out of town and still have juice when I get back speaks volumes.
I picked up a kindle a couple of weeks ago for the wife. Maybe we should consider returning it since I'm not all that thrilled with it, and a dozen or so ebooks have risen from CES.
It's about time Qualcomm showed a demo like this. I've been patiently watching this tech from before Qualcomm bought Iridigm hoping it would live up to the potential and it looks like it finally is.
Seeing as this is a reflective display, I assume the yellow tint is caused by the room lighting. They should use a light sensor to adjust colour hue depending on the ambient light. I imagine it would look amazing outdoors.
RIM, are you watching? Reflective displays making a comeback!
Oi! Can you guys compare the Mirasol screen to the PixelQi? To late? How about a table with all the bi-stable screen technologies, including pertinent information...such as viewing angle, power consumption, contrast ratio, number of colors (16K?). Please?
These are Acer Timeline models, not Aspire. I own one of these. It is a great laptop.
I called Acer technical support, and they will ship out a replacement wire for me. I will wait to see how it is fixed
Paul seems like a very nice guy.
washed out colors on a sepia background?
and this is cool? because?
I DONT GET IT
@(Unverified)
...because the tech is very impressive and unique compared to other e-ink like solutions. Is it that hard to get? Let me know if you need help understanding anything else that's clearly obvious.
@(Unverified)
Because it's the most promising bistable display technology out there right now. Of course it has to improve over time, but for a prototype it looks very good (e-ink looked way worse in its early years). Could be mainstream for video-enabled full-color readers/tablets in 3-5 years.
Slight yellow? Looks almost brown to me! Interesting product nonetheless. I think I'd prefer an LCD screen that I have to charge daily though.
Can't wait!