Glider – open-source eInk monitor with an emphasis on low latency

Because someone needs to be paid to land Rockchip drivers in mainline, and Rockchip aren't going to do it.

> so they keep the cost low by not innovating on responsiveness

Could you clarify who the "they" is? The way you write "not innovating on responsiveness" sounds very confident. Do you have a background in electrophoretic particle physics or industry expertise which is why you're saying that? Just want to make sure this isn't like some case where a commentor is saying "the only reason we haven't established a homeland on Mars is because rocket companies are not innovating".

There are many high-quality products at a competitive cost. That's a pathetic excuse.

A lot of time was spent integrating social features that no one uses. That time could have been spent on quality & latency.

I understand their business goals and objectives. It's still a low-quality product.

A profitable product can also be terrible.

Successful doesn't necessarily mean good. the UI is slow. It crashes with large books. The hardware is seemingly under-powered. The OS degrades in usability over time. Search indexing is poor. The lack of responsiveness makes the keyboard unusable.

I've heard similar pitfalls about Kindle Scribe, the write-able Kindle.

They've been the benchmark for amazon kindle books. They suck for pdfs or anything with graphics.

I think e-readers are pretty much a solved problem for books that consist of solely text - it's got to the point where they only differentiate themselves on things more related to personal taste than any technical merit. And price, of course.

I consider myself a heavy user of ereaders, probably averaging over an hour a day, and have had a few in my time (Kindle paperwhite, Kindle Voyage, Kobo Aura H2O, latest the Kindle Oasis - which I got in Jan 2019). The only real time I felt like I got an "upgrade" was the slightly denser screen on the voyage, then the slightly larger screen on the Aura. The Oasis feels functionally the same for my use case (again, 99.9% text, no images or diagrams or animations, so can't compare them). But really the only reason I "upgraded" after the voyage is leaving it on a train or got damaged in my luggage one time.

And what can they really improve on it? There are denser screens - but they don't make the font size I use actually look any better. There are larger screens, but it's already about the limit of what I want for portability, and much larger would be harder to read not easier. There are faster refreshing screens, but I've never even noticed the page refresh speed, as it's lost in the time it takes to realign my eyes to the top of the page anyway.

So what's left? Looks? "Premium" materials? Thinness? The oasis is already at the point where any thinner or bezels any smaller and you couldn't hold it. I don't read comics on it, so don't really need a higher resolution, or colour panel (though can see the advantage if you did). Same with flash size - every book I've ever read on it (nearly 3000) is still on my 8gb model, and it's not even at 50% capacity.

And now my Oasis battery is starting to fade - it doesn't more than a few days anymore - and somehow it feels weird considering buying the same thing again - or pry open the back off and try to replace it - though who knows what that would do to it's water resistance. I guess the newer models have an amber backlight option, which would be nice, but still doesn't feel like an upgrade to something I purchased over 5 years ago now? Or even more as I only got that because the (functionally equivalent) predecessor got crushed on a plane.

So I think my point is that for the "Reading Books" use case, a kindle has already reached the maxima. Any "improvement" would almost be a waste - why improve refresh times when it won't actually affect the user experience one bit?

Is there something I'm missing? Is this just a local maxima where you'd look back on and feel stupid for not seeing the "obvious" improvement path? Or is ereader "development" just a waste now as it's now just a commodity?

thanks for the recommendation I've started on the jailbreak for my old kindle. I'd like to turn it into an offline wikipedia & public domain books reader.

I agree with all of this, and I've noticed as much with the other readers. Some users promote Kobo reader as a quality alternative, but I haven't tried it.

I'm not sure from your post if you're aware of the collections feature of a Kindle library. It can be accessed under the menu on the library view. Chose the collections view and add books to collections you create and it works a bit like folders.

https://us.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=T...

>I'd prefer for it to work as USB stick like other ebooks do

Have you tried Calibre? https://calibre-ebook.com/

After registration, I have never connected my Kindle to the internet - 6-7 years now. This has prevented updates that degrade performance, and Amazon getting my usage data. I just copy over ebooks using usb, optionally after converting to mobi using Calibre.

Works perfectly.

Yeah.

I like tools that do one thing well. The Kindle has hit that spot for a long time. There were incremental improvements (faster processor, 3G/4G, front light, higher DPI / contrast, etc), but it's surprising how similar a 2010 kindle is to a 2024 one.

Indeed, and though Kindle has improved, it hasn't improved by much. I've owned 4 generations and they are all a bit better, especially when new.

It's the same complaint people make about iOS devices degrading to force upgrades.

I don't think it's deliberate but I do think it's deliberately neglected.

my paperwhite 2022(ish) seemed faster than the previous one (2017?) but now it's nearly as bad

Isn’t it funny how the CEO is always saying that user experience is their primary focus, and you get such a mediocre experience?

To be fair, the Kindle is primarily used for reading books and doesn't require a fast refresh rate. It also lasts for weeks (months?) without charging.

Try using KOReader instead of the built-in reader software. It's a bit faster (doesn't wait to reflow the entire book if you change fonts, margins, orientation, whatever), and also it's easier to achieve consistent rendering of books (fonts, spacing, etc.) as it supports overriding the stylesheet, and just generally handles HTML/CSS better.

Oh, and speaking of responsiveness, I found that it depends on temperature a lot. E-ink apparently has a sweet spot at room temperature, but when I use the device outdoors, in either sub 10 ˚C temperatures or over 30 ˚C the screen changes noticeably slower.

what qualities are good? I admit they have a good ebook selection , networking features are good, and the price point is good when on discount.

But the software is awful and the application of the eink hardware is terrible too.

code I wrote as a 12 year old beginner in python is running all of the Deutsche Bahn, I think. I suspect it anyways, it has the same performance characteristics.

Whoa. So, on a whim, I got my eyes measured when my wife was picking up her glasses. Very slight astigmatism in my right eye.

And like you say, even though it's a minor abberation, the difference it makes in fatigue is incredible, especially after a day of coding work behind a screen..!

Straight up the best 200 bucks I spent in terms of QOL improvement. Well that and a very nice thick blanket to sleep under.

I sat at my home desk and measured the max and min distance between my eyes and all parts of the screen. I then presented those measurements in my next eye appointment, and the optician (not sure of American terms) was very appreciative that he had specific values to work from. He then simulated text at the different distances, and adjusted my prescription to work correctly over that distance. I think it was 18 inches minimum, 30 inches maximum.

I got computer glasses from that, no special blue filtering or whatever, just set to give me the best view.

Glasses dispensed for reading often don't work well for computer use. Historically "reading" meant looking at a book held in your hands, but computer monitors are further away and at a higher angle than a book. If you spend a lot of time using a computer, you need to discuss this with your dispensing optician when you buy glasses to make sure you get the right lenses for your needs. You may benefit from a dedicated pair of glasses for computer use, or a properly designed varifocal lens. This is especially important if you're over 35 and are likely to have some degree of presbyopia (look for an "add" value on your prescription, or different prescriptions for near and distance).

There are a lot of special lens technologies and coatings that are advertised as being able to reduce eye strain when using digital devices. Most of these have little or no evidence to support their efficacy, so be wary if they try to upsell you on expensive extras.

Glasses for working at a computer. The same as reading glasses. The word is directly translated from the common name for it in my native language.

Basically intermediate distance glasses.

I'd be glad of a contemporary device w/ a b/w LED --- still saddened that there wasn't a replacement for the Asus Eee Note EA800 --- and I'm still annoyed that Apple has yet to make a device to replace my Newton (at a minimum, I'd want Apple Pencil support on an iPhone (or iPod Touch if they'd bring that back) or Mini iPad), but using something other than an LCD for daylight viewability would be something I'd be glad of (trying to out-bright the sun on a battery-powered device is just as stupid as it sounds to my mind).

I wish I could find my Palm V. That device felt like quality in your hand. Metal back with satin finish, leather cover, the stylus was a snug fit.

As a not so proud owner of a Dasung color I have to agree. The product is absolutely atrocious. It has like 8 colors, not thousands. The contrast is shit, „white“ is brown, black is … some darker brown. It’s reflective. It heavily relies on unstable dithering (so moving the mouse will jitter around a large area of nearby pixels), which also makes everything unreadable. The color processing is shit, it won’t even try to approximate displayed colors with the ones it can display.

You have to fight with the settings to just get something that is vaguely usable, and set up the OS with custom colors and an accessible theme. But even then it’s so much more straining to use than a normal monitor, because of the reflections and shit contrast.

I think you could probably get something more useful by building a 28“ wall paper of game boy colors.

Worst purchase ever.

The core patents already have expired. They have competition, it's called Reinkstone (and their DES/cofferdam tech).

The reason e-inks are so expensive and progressing so slowly is that it's a niche product which doesn't drive much R&D spending (compared to LCDs, which sell billions per quarter and you're reading this comment on).

I'm surprised the eink patent holders are seemingly content to lose their patent in time instead of licensing it and making real money