e-ink

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If you’re in the market for a $1,900 color E Ink monitor, one of them exists now

boox, e-ink, Monitors, Tech / /

Color E Ink in its current state requires a whole lot of compromises, as we’ve found when reviewing devices like reMarkable’s Paper Pro or Amazon’s Kindle Colorsoft, including washed-out color, low refresh rates, and a grainy look that you don’t get with regular black-and-white E Ink. But that isn’t stopping device manufacturers from exploring the technology, and today, Onyx International has announced that it has a $1,900 color E Ink monitor that you can connect to your PC or Mac.

The Boox Mira Pro is a 25.3-inch monitor with a 3200×1800 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio, and it builds on the company’s previous black-and-white Mira Pro monitors. The Verge reports that the screen uses E Ink Kaleido 3 technology, which can display up to 4,096 colors. Both image quality and refresh rate will vary based on which of the monitor’s four presets you use (the site isn’t specific about the exact refresh rate, but does note that “E Ink monitors’ refresh speed is not as high as conventional monitors’, and increased speed will result in more ghosting.”)

The monitor’s ports include one full-size HDMI port, a mini HDMI port, a USB-C port, and a DisplayPort. Its default stand is more than a little reminiscent of Apple’s Studio Display, but it also supports VESA mounting.

Onyx International’s lineup of Boox devices usually focuses on Android-powered E Ink tablets, which the company has been building for over a decade. These are notable mostly because they combine the benefits of E Ink—text that’s easy on the eyes and long battery life—and access to multiple bookstores and other content sources via Google Play, rather than tying you to one manufacturer’s ecosystem as Amazon’s Kindles or other dedicated e-readers do.

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review:-amazon’s-2024-kindle-paperwhite-makes-the-best-e-reader-a-little-better

Review: Amazon’s 2024 Kindle Paperwhite makes the best e-reader a little better

Amazon, e-ink, e-reader, kindle, kindle colorsoft, kindle paperwhite, Reviews, Tech / /

A fast Kindle?

From left to right: 2024 Paperwhite, 2021 Paperwhite, and 2018 Paperwhite. Note not just the increase in screen size, but also how the screen corners get a little more rounded with each release. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

I don’t want to oversell how fast the new Kindle is, because it’s still not like an E-Ink screen can really compete with an LCD or OLED panel for smoothness of animations or UI responsiveness. But even compared to the 2021 Paperwhite, tapping buttons, opening menus, opening books, and turning pages feels considerably snappier—not quite instantaneous, but without the unexplained pauses and hesitation that longtime Kindle owners will be accustomed to. For those who type out notes in their books, even the onscreen keyboard feels fluid and responsive.

Compared to the 2018 Paperwhite (again, the first waterproofed model, and the last one with a 6-inch screen and micro USB port), the difference is night and day. While it still feels basically fine for reading books, I find that the older Kindle can sometimes pause for so long when opening menus or switching between things that I wonder if it’s still working or whether it’s totally locked up and frozen.

“Kindle benchmarks” aren’t really a thing, but I attempted to quantify the performance improvements by running some old browser benchmarks using the Kindle’s limited built-in web browser and Google’s ancient Octane 2.0 test—the 2018, 2021, and 2024 Kindles are all running the same software update here (5.17.0), so this should be a reasonably good apples-to-apples comparison of single-core processor speed.

The new Kindle is actually way faster than older models. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

The 2021 Kindle was roughly 30 percent faster than the 2018 Kindle. The new Paperwhite is nearly twice as fast as the 2021 Paperwhite, and well over twice as fast as the 2018 Paperwhite. That alone is enough to explain the tangible difference in responsiveness between the devices.

Turning to the new Paperwhite’s other improvements: compared side by side, the new screen is appreciably bigger, more noticeably so than the 0.2-inch size difference might suggest. And it doesn’t make the Paperwhite much larger, though it is a tiny bit taller in a way that will wreck compatibility with existing cases. But you only really appreciate the upgrade if you’re coming from one of the older 6-inch Kindles.

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