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Comment by prewett | Hacker News Reader

If it's a 4k TV it also has more pixels and better refresh rate. And color. But for that extra $2360 you get the feature that your image is still there when the power is off. I expect that feature would be substantially more costly regardless of the patent holder's extra.

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But that's not the only benefit of eink.

EInk doesn't have a backlight. So it's easy to see in glaring light. It's also not disruptive if so, you want to use it as a digital picture frame and you don't want light from the display bothering your eyes day and night.

EInk is a more peaceful display technology, and some people put a lot of value on that.

> you get the feature that your image is still there when the power is off

How is that a realistic feature? Who is losing power and being happy that they spent a few thousand more, nearly 40x, than a 36" photo quality print, just so the image can remain while their lights are off?

The point is that it only uses power when changing the image, so a small battery can run it for a long time - not that it works during a power outage.

(and of course it is a lot easier to change than a printed photo)

For $2,200, you could run a 35W 43” $160 TV for 29 years, if your power is $0.3/kWh. In reality, much more, with a dim display at night.

I understand being eco friendly, but that’s an absurd, entirely negligible, justification.

I would claim the reflective display is the killer feature.

As the person you are replying to clearly stated, it has nothing to do with drawing power from a wall socket. It’s about enabling new uses that work on battery power that can last for months/years instead of minutes.

I see now that my perspective was too bound to the context. Thanks.

Many of e-ink's use cases involve low power environments. This is often due to logistics - not cost.

I'd love big reflective/tranflective display but I'd imagine because of rarity the prices would also be pretty high

Rotating the art while not actively producing light is a pretty big draw. The power seems like a red herring.

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