PVI's color E-Ink displays are a perfect match for Kindles
By Thomas Ricker 
posted March 19th 2010 4:57AM
posted March 19th 2010 4:57AM
You know who makes the E-Ink displays on the Kindle? PVI. The Taiwanese company is also the EPD provider for several other tier-1 eReader device makers including Sony. So take a good look at that color E-Ink prototype display currently sitting in a PVI booth at a Shenzhen tradeshow 'cause that's what you'll see packed in color eReaders near the end of the year and into 2011. PVI is showing off both 6- and 9.7-inch color prototypes set to hit the manufacturing lines in Q4 (and sampling now), just right for the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX should Amazon choose to keep things simple and just swap out the display (and a minimum of componentry) within its existing device lineup. It's worth noting that the extra layer of color filtering glass will impact battery life a bit, but certainly not enough to lose its edge on LCDs. And while PVI was demonstrating a color animation running on its new displays, they can't do video worth a damn due to the slow frame refresh. And don't expect to see the color EPDs sporting a contrast or color vibrancy anywhere close to what you'll get from a traditional LCD either. Regardless, people seem smitten by the USA Today's use of color so we're sure these color E-Ink displays will find their niche as well.
I am all for low-power competitive alternatives to LCDs, but those images are pretty grainy for me to pull out extra money. Even if it isn't "LCD quality," at least find a way to up the contrast and make the colored images slightly less ugly.
@Dante of the Inferno
In Engadget history, that is proly the longest time for a comment to go up from the time the post went up to the time the comment went up, also proly the longest time a second comment went up after the first.
@abedinthehouse No it isn't funny.
I much prefer the mirasol displays they look much more impressive and can manage video.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/922/0.633
http://tv.slashgear.com/qualcomm-mirasol-video-demo-725/
@petebob796
Yup... Mirasol for the win.
How long till they actually do something about the damn refresh rate?
@abedinthehouse
About the time engadget do something about there comment system
yea like put a spell and grammar checker in it to teach people the difference between 'there' and 'their'
High refresh rates and [true] bi-stability are two properties that, so far, don't really work together.
E-ink is no longer the leader, there are other liquid colour ink devices coming out at the end of the year without silly colour filters & proper refresh rate.
Come on E-Paper photo frames.
Color E-ink and 8.5 x 11 please. I'll buy 2.
@Mightydh Then you could place a hinge in the middle and...never mind.
I use my Kindle daily and I have to say that I'd rather they focus on better b&w contrast rather than worry about color. A true black-on-white (rather than dark gray on light gray) display for reading novels perfects the Kindle for its niche, while this focus on color, at least for the moment, neglects the device's purpose and relegates eInk to second-class status with respect to LCD.
@ZomZom Many more consumers would use the Kindle on a daily basis if it had better support for periodicals and newspapers. Color is an obvious component in that. I use my Kindle for newspaper reading much more than books, and a USA Today kind of moderate color experience would be big improvement.
am I supposed to be impressed by those washed out colors on what appears to be a dead or dying monitor? ... and I would be expected to actually pay good money for that? dont think soooooo
Well it looks like they are trying to give it the newspaper look to those pictures.
Ugh! Thats horrible, I'm more impressed with the current B&W on my kindle 2, this stuff just looks cheap...
PVI doesn't just make E-Ink displays. They ARE E-Ink!
As I'm sure Engadget reported, PVI purchased E-Ink last summer.
To clarify, this uses more battery life than the non-color version because it needs four times the number of subpixels to render a color pixel compared to one subpixel for monochrome. Think Red, Green, and Blue and the remaining pixel could be clear to enhance whites. What this means is that if they are keeping the effective resolution the same, then a 6" monochrome screen with 600x800 pixels will be replaced with a 6" color screen with 1200x1600 pixels.
Sigh. Jumping from mediocre grayscale to mediocre color. You'd think they'd put an intermediary better grayscale in there, since they need greater base reflectivity to compensate for the color filters.
If it could beat 250ppi, I'd probably go for it even if slow.
If it were fast, I'd probably go for it even if only 166ppi.
But color without speed, contrast or resolution? No sale here.
"The Taiwanese company is also the EPD provider for several other"
No- All the other :) PVI is E-ink so they are the only producers. and because Auo/Sipix active matrix displays seem to have hit a production glitch that has delayed all devices that were to use that epaper, PVI is the ONLY company in the world producing epaper for ebook reading devices