E Ink debuts color ePaper

November 8, 2010 By Geoff Duncan

If you thought the downside of ereaders was that they only handle 16 levels of grey...E Ink has some news for you.

Electronic paper display makers E Ink has unveiled E Ink Triton, a new color electronic paper display that can handle the 16 levels of grey found in current ereader displays, as well as “thousands” of colors, with both text and colors readable in direct sunlight. What’s more, E Ink claims its new Triton color epaper displays are up to 20 percent faster than previous E Ink displays, making page-turns and rendering even more usable. And the first product to sport the color E Ink display isn’t the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook, or another ereader in consumer channels angling for holiday gift-giving dollars: it’s an ereader from Hanvon, makers of the Wisereader.

“E Ink Triton is a response to market need for a color ePaper display that mimics the printed paper experience,” said E Ink chairman Scott Liu, in a statement. “Triton will compliment our monochrome product line to enable new markets.”

The Triton color epaper is a reflective electrophoretic display that can handle images with 4 bits of depth for a total of 4,096 colors, plus the same 16 levels of grey existing E Ink monochrome displays can handle—and, like those displays, Triton holds its image even when the power is off. Triton is still slow compared to conventional displays: E Ink says Triton can take from just under a quarter second to almost a full second to update (depending on the image). And while the display is readable in direct sunlight and has a viewing angle of virtually 180 degrees, it offers a scant 10:1 contrast ratio.

E Ink’s Triton displays aren’t going to be earning it any friends in the high-end photography or gaming communities, but for electronic publishers eager to get maps, graphics, charts, graphs, comics and (of course) advertising into the burgeoning ebook market, the Triton displays will be a godsend. E Ink says it can make displays with resolutions in excess of 200 dpi at sizes ranging from 2 to 12 inches—E Ink isn’t just looking at ereaders, but at wireless devices, game controllers, industrial displays, point-of-sale systems, signage, and things like thermostats.

E Ink doesn’t manufacture ereaders—it just supplies displays to ereader makers—and pricing and availability information isn’t available yet for the Hanvon ereader with the Triton display. However, expect color ereaders to start hitting the market in the next few months. Of course, not all ereader manufacturers have been waiting for E Ink to bring color to the table: Apple’s iPad tablet uses an LCD display, and Barnes &s Noble just announced a, LCD-based color version of its Nook ereader. E Ink’s Triton can’t offer the same levels of contrast or color fidelity as LCDs, but it also doesn’t consume anywhere near as much power—and for portable devices, battery life is everything.

Showing 8 comments

tfurrows at 8:34pm 30th November 2010 Thanks Trevor, these people need to get a grip. Those colors look exceptional for a first attempt at color e-ink, which is entirely different from LCD technology. You can't expect new R&D to be equal to decades-old technology, but even at the current quality, the power consumption and non-backlit qualities alone blow LCD out of the water for long-term reading any day.
Trevor at 1:54pm 9th November 2010 4 bits of depth does give 4096 colors. 2^4=16 but there are generally 3 colors used for each pixel 16^3=4096. They told you that the contrast ration is only 10:1 so yes the color won't look as good as an LCD screen that is usually 500:1 or better. Clearly the posters above don't understand what e-paper is; this is a medium that can be permanently electrically polarized. This means that you do not require the use of electricity to keep liquid crystals in place between polarizing mediums. You can keep the display "on" all day without the use of electricity. It is also much better in the daylight since you do not require a backlight to create the image. The color is not horrible, it is about the same as a newspaper or a book from the 90s. Can it get better? Yes. Is it still awesome? Yes. Shame on Amazon, Sony, and B&N for passing this on and falling back on old technology.
hakkim at 9:37am 9th November 2010 aaaaaa super ......what an incredible item...its very usefull to every one..it helps to have a paper less world and now we can stop cutting trees for paper ...its features are wonerfull!
vineeth at 4:40am 9th November 2010 It is a very informative article about E Ink debuts color ePaper. The electronic papers are very helpful to photograph and gaming communities. Thanks for sharing with us.
pappo at 11:25pm 8th November 2010 Yap colors look horrible...But it's really nice overall. It's a next generation tech.. However i don't think it'll effect the traditional print media...what u say guys..
coolio at 9:39pm 8th November 2010 The Nook Color will not run apps straight out of the Android Market, but that does not mean it cannot run them. In fact, they have done a lot of tests on apps from standard Android smartphones and they pretty much run on Nook Color, which has Android 2.1 under the hood. (The Nook native interface and apps are just standard Android application layers.) Barnes & Noble special Nook SDK runs on top of the standard Android one and gives developers access to exclusive extensions and APIs for the Nook and its interface. So porting Android apps is not difficult. B&N says it is more like optimising them for Nook than porting them. Nook Color screen is supposed to be better (less reflective) for reading than iPad thanks to new LG screen with anti-reflection coating. It allows to watch videos, listen to the music, view Office documents and PDF's. If you prefer e-Ink screen, the original Nook is still available from BN.
Guest at 7:44pm 8th November 2010 4 bits of depth for a total of 4096 colours? That's wrong. 4 bits gives sixteen colours - the same as the original sixteen-gray colours. for 4096 colours you need 12 bits. I also agreewith Peter the colours look TERRIBLE. Unless it was just a poorly chosen low contrast image?
Peter at 8:12pm 8th November 2010 Wow! Those colors look horrible! I've got to hand it to Kindle, Sony, and Barnes and Nobles for passing on that.