Most ebook readers on the current and not-so-current market have E Ink screens with 300 ppi (pixels per inch). A few of the cheaper models and some larger devices have E Ink screens with lower ppi, but 300 ppi has become the standard for most ereaders going back many years now.
When dedicated reading devices first started coming out in the late 2000’s, most had E Ink Vizplex screens with 167 ppi. Some larger devices like the Kindle DX only had 150 ppi.
Then in 2011 E Ink released their upgraded higher resolution screens with 212 ppi (the iRiver Story HD was the first ereader to feature the new “HD” screen). The Kindle Paperwhite 1, released in 2012, was the first Kindle to get a 212 ppi screen. The 2nd Paperwhite also had a 212 ppi screen.
In 2014, Amazon released the Kindle Voyage. It was the first ereader ever to get a 300 ppi E Ink screen (to this day it still has one of the best-looking screens). Then other companies started releasing new models with 300 ppi screens in 2015, including Kobo with the Kobo Glo HD.
Since then E Ink has released several new “upgraded” versions of their E Ink displays (even though the Kindle Voyage’s screen still looks superior in most cases), but the resolution has remained the same, maxing out at 300 ppi.
At this point it’s been over a decade since E Ink last upgraded the pixel count of their most common screen sizes (I think they might sell other products with higher ppi now, but ereader screens top out at 300 ppi).
Some of the newer Samsung phones have screens with over 500 ppi. The latest iPhone’s screen has 460 ppi.
Is it time for E Ink to increase the ppi of their screens too? Or is it not worth the extra cost and (potentially) worse battery life and slower performance?
I would jump all over an upgraded screen…say 400 dpi. I think I could appreciate the difference. Even a 400 dpi color screen-200 dpi color film would be nice. Upgraded processor might be needed.
I think Iink said higher resolutions were doable a couple years ago.
450 PPI in monochrome, would just about make PDFs doable on an 8″ screen. Your eyesight would still need to be excellent (or have a good pair reading glasses). Color at that resolution would be better, but with Kaleida, 600 would be much better, even if the colour would still be a bit dull.
From my perspective the 300 ppi for book reading (like novels etc) is already overkill. Of course larger screen e-readers could benefit from infinite-like ppi if the user wants to read high res documents with images. But in smaller e-readers the manufacturer shouldn’t go crazy with high res. as lot of people read with big fonts, so the letters don’t look “furry” anyway.
Or, if it won’t increase the price, higher res. is the better. And if it won’t drain the battery faster, but that part should be done by e-reader manufacturers, to implement both hardware and software based power saving methods.
A DPI increase would be nice, but contrast improvements would be even nicer