Pixel Qi screens to be used by a major manufacturer in 2010
We've been waiting and waiting to see Pixel Qi's 3Qi e-paper screen in a device, and we were hoping to see some sort of solid announcement at CES, but looks like we will still be waiting. Though the company has ramped up production on its E ink killer, which allows you to turn the backlight off on an LCD screen, they're still working with its half a dozen partners. We were told that within the year we will see a manufacturer that "everyone is familiar with" announcing a device that uses the technology. No word on if it will be a netbook, e-reader or tablet.
Though we've seen prototype devices before and the Notion Ink Adam here at the show, we got another look at it today from PixelQi founder Mary Lou Jepsen herself. The high resolution display was hacked into a Lenovo IdeaPad S10, and with the backlight on the color LCD screen looked crisp. We did notice that while watching a video clip on the screen horizontal viewing angles were poor in some lighting, but text and the rest of the OS was clear as day. Similarly, when we turned the backlight off, which switches the display to just a monochrome mode, the viewing angles on a movie weren't great, but a PDF looked just as good as it does on an Amazon Kindle. Regardless, we continue to be impressed with the refresh rates of the display considering you can't do anything like it with E ink or any other reader on the market. Hit the break for a quick video.
