Can E Ink’s Color ACeP Displays Be a Viable Option for eReaders?
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Back in 2016 E Ink unveiled their latest generation color screens called ACeP displays, which stands for Advanced Color ePaper.
E Ink has mostly been marketing their color displays for digital signage, but could they eventually develop ACeP displays to use with ereaders too?
E Ink had a 13.3-inch 300 ppi ACeP concept demo on display in their booth at SID 2019.
Their earlier ACeP displays had lower resolution that wouldn’t work well for reading applications, but a 300 ppi color screen would certainly be sufficient for a reading device. However, the screen update time it still too slow at 2.8 seconds.
E Ink also had a flexible 13.3” ACeP screen with a Mobius backplane on display at SID (pictured above). It has a resolution of 2200 x 1650 (206 ppi). It only weighs 68 grams, but the refresh rate is a lengthy 8.6 seconds.
E Ink’s ACeP displays contain micro-capsules with four color pigments—cyan, magenta, yellow and white. Those four colors can generate eight primary colors to produce over 32,000 colors.
I came across the YouTube video below of a German company advertising development kits for E Ink’s 13.3-inch ACeP displays. The currently available ACeP displays aren’t going to be used for ereaders but perhaps future versions could be.
Does it have to do that 25 second flickering thing every time it changes the image? If so, I can’t see this being feasible for anything reading related.
E Ink told me that they have to develop a new waveform controller to make ACEP compatible with e-readers. The Regal Waveform they use in Carta, CARTA HD, Pearl etc is incompatible with ACEP. This is why we likely won’t see it for a number of years.