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Comment by saidajigumi | Hacker News Reader

Are there even e-ink displays with characteristics suitable for hacker/developer use? Their application has been so greatly limited to e-readers that I'm unclear how well current displays would function in a general-purpose system.

Likewise, the impression I've gotten is that that e-ink has been kind of stuck behind the dominance of LCD (and OLED to a lesser extent), both in perceived desirability and in resources being put into R&D.

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There are not but existing ones can probably do more than you could think of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R92qSBU_WzA

Bottom line: you can drastically increase refresh rate but you loose contrast.

And yes, way too less resources into R&D, people just don't get it. It's just like nowadays everybody likes glossy vs mate LCDs. It's frustrating because all of the problems can be solved: refresh rate, size, color. I have been waiting for years (at least it feels like it!) to code on an e-ink! (And then take notes on a paper-thin one but I'm gonna stop here... :)

The closest to hacking on an e-ink are people transforming their kindle DX into a screen with GNU Screen or even VNC (Don't try it). The loveliest project involves the Raspberry Pi: http://www.ponnuki.net/2012/09/kindleberry-pi/

HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4502577

EDIT: elaborating

Pixel Qi had some pretty interesting products being developed including reflective LCD displays. I am not sure how readable they are in low light conditions, but I always thought it would be cool to have one of these for programming.

Pixel Qis are not e-ink but still amazing. As you said they are reflective LCD, and can also be backlit, thus readable in low light just like a regular LCD. Their market is also small devices, so the size problem is still there (Last time I checked I think there max size was 10.1 inches)

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