We’ve had e-readers and e-note units that includes coloration digital paper screens for a number of years now, however E Ink is lastly addressing among the greatest drawbacks of the know-how with Kaleido 3, introduced earlier this month, and E Ink Gallery 3, introduced yesterday. In specific, we’re taking a look at boosts each to coloration and backbone.

When we went palms on with the primary few units to characteristic E Ink’s first era coloration digital paper show know-how, we had been each blown away by an e-reader that would show coloration pictures, and likewise a bit dissatisfied at what we noticed. Kaleido, as E Ink calls its coloration e-paper designed for shopper units, was restricted to simply 4,096 colours (the display in your smartphone, laptop computer, or pill can show tens of millions of shades) and really a lot reliant on a vivid supply of sunshine for these colours to not look darkish and muddled. Our expertise was seemingly mirrored by firms like Amazon and Kobo, who’ve but to undertake coloration E Ink shows for his or her common e-readers.

E Ink has rapidly iterated its Kaleido know-how over the previous couple of years, releasing up to date variations that enhance coloration saturation and efficiency. These embrace Kaleido 3, introduced only a few weeks in the past, which has improved responsiveness and refresh charges, permitting the screens to play movies and animations with out ugly ghosting, plus a greater entrance mild for improved coloration copy when studying at midnight.. That makes Kaleido 3 an thrilling possibility for tablets and different media consumption units, but it surely’s nonetheless restricted in each decision and simply 4,096 colours.

That’s the place E Ink Gallery 3 holds extra promise. Like the earliest e-readers, it options comparatively gradual refresh charges, taking as much as a second-and-a-half to redraw a complete web page in full high quality coloration mode, or simply half a second in a coloration mode with diminished picture high quality. But the trade-off may simply be value it, as E Ink Gallery 3 can reproduce over 50,000 colours utilizing a “four particle ink system: cyan, magenta, yellow and white.” That’s nonetheless no the place close to as near the colour constancy of even an inexpensive LCD panel, but it surely’s an enormous enchancment over Kaleido. E Ink Gallery 3 additionally boosts picture decision to 300 DPI for each coloration and black and white content material, the place as Kaleido nonetheless limits coloration imagery to 150 DPI.  In the age of Retina Display tech, this may be very noticeable.

There’s no specifics as to once we’ll see e-readers or pen-compatible e-note units that includes E Ink’s new Gallery 3 display tech (hopefully later this yr), however along with boasting about its improved specs, the corporate additionally demonstrated the pliability of the shows by means of a few chunky prototypes.

Like the OLED shows that make units just like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 attainable, E Ink’s digital paper shows are versatile and sturdy as properly, which suggests we might additionally finally see foldable e-readers or e-notes which are simply as straightforward to journey. Of course, there would characteristic screens practically twice the measurement, to accommodate the bigger layouts of magazines and newspapers—two codecs that don’t reflow properly and are exhausting to learn on units just like the Amazon Kindle. Again, there’s no timeline for once we’ll really see units like this launched, but it surely’s a future that E Ink is clearly closely invested in and needs to see occur.