Advantages and Disadvantages of E-Ink Displays for Reading and Writing

Reading and writing can consume large portions of time, especially if you are a student. Still, most reading and writing happen digitally on a screen nowadays, and Staring at digital screens for extended periods can harm and ache your eyes.

But don’t worry, there is a new technology here to prevent that, and it is called e-ink, so in this article, we will talk about what e-ink is and its advantages and disadvantages.

How does an e-ink display work

Unlike LCD screens that use small LED light bulbs to portray images, e-ink displays use color pigments that rearrange themselves on the screen using an electric charge. For example, a negative charge will make the pigments rise, and a positive electric charge will cause the pigments to go back down. This is why it’s called e-ink, essentially standing for electronic ink or, in other words, ink that reacts to electricity.

e-ink tablet pain reduction

Also, if you think this is all fake and just an excuse to sell you something, a Harvard-founded study found that, Unlike LCD or OLED screens that have to emit light to operate, electronic inkscreens, because they do not emit light, reduce stress on the retina by 3x, meaning three times more reading time before pain

What are the advantages of e-ink devices?

As previously mentioned, e-ink displays do not emit light, giving them a major advantage over regular LCD displays, which constantly emit light. Here are a few of those advantages:

Infinite battery life

One of the significant advantages of e-ink technology, especially if you use it for reading, is that unlike a regular display, which consumes battery life every single second, an e-ink display only consumes battery life while it changes its picture, meaning it can display an image forever as it does not consume battery life while doing so

readable in every situation

For you to see an image on an LCD display, it has to emit light, but that gives it a significant disadvantage. Suppose there is a stronger light source like the sun. In that case, it can make the image invisible as the stronger light source engulfs it, and that is where e-ink technology comes in because e-ink does not use light to portray images; instead, it works by moving ink particles around it has the same experience of reading a book in sunlight where the sunlight makes readability higher and not poor.

better sleep

As we just heavily discussed, E-ink’s significant advantage is its lack of light, so it’s no wonder that sleep, which has been proven to be heavily affected by light, would be affected by the switch to e-ink

Many people, including me, enjoy late-night reading, and switching to E-ink helps to ensure a peaceful sleep experience. You may not be aware, but any light source comes in waves, which means it flashes. And when you stare at a light source like your phone before bed, you’re essentially staring at a flashing light. Regardless of who you are, staring at flashing lights can cause headaches and make it harder to fall asleep.

That’s why e-ink displays (which do not emit light) are a better alternative to regular screens, especially if you use them before bed. 

What are e-inks disadvantages? 

low refresh rate

E Ink’s primary disadvantage is its slow refresh rate. Refresh rate or Hz is the number of times your display can change its picture every second. Most e-ink monitors have a refresh rate of 1 Hz. which is very slow.

This low refresh rate means if you want to watch videos on your e ink tablet or play games on your e-ink tablet, you will be heavily disappointed. Because, for comparison, most videos and video games are made at 30 to 60 frames per second. (Frames per second (FPS )and Hz are synonymous.)

ghosting

Additionally, if you manage to get an e-ink display with a high refresh rate, you will still be disappointed. As with e-ink screens, there is a phenomenon called ghosting. Ghosting happens when a new image appears on the screen, but a remnant of the previous image remains visible. These images or remains can pile up, making you feel unsure of what is on your screen and what isn’t, and the only way to fix the ghosting is to do a full-screen refresh.

The Electronic ink limited color range

Another major caveat to using electronic ink in your display is the limited amount of colors; a regular LCD display uses micro LED light bulbs that can display millions of colors, providing a full-color display experience. Still, with e-ink technology, you are limited to the colors of the pigments in the display. Because of this, even today, the most advanced e-ink tablets and e-ink displays that claim they have “Advanced Color ePaper” technology. have a minor color range., heavy ghosting, and are very expensive.

price

Talking about expensive, e-ink tablets which use electronic ink displays inside of them or a far cry from regular tablets, which use LCD technology inside of them, if with a standard LCD display, You’re accustomed to having a variety of options, ranging from affordable to expensive, with each providing logical features for the cost.

With an e-ink display, the only affordable options available are the Amazon Kindle lineup; the Amazon Kindle lineup essentially provides you with ads for their services inside the device, and they do not offer third-party apps, like the Google Play Store Google Drive. They only provide Kindle titles from the Kindle app and Kindle Store, Ensuring you can only use their services on their devices, so even though they sell you their Kindles at a loss, they’re guaranteed to profit from you.

And if you want a device that does not have a monopoly on your purchasing, prices can get very high for very minor feature Editions like expanding the storage from 64 to 128 GB, boosting the RAM from 2 to 4 gigabytes, and adding a camera can easily cost $200 to $300 extra when you can effortlessly get an LCD tablet with a camera 128 GB of storage and 4 GB of RAM FOR THE SAME PRICE OF THE UPGRADE !!!

But…

You probably have noticed all of these caveats: the refresh rate, The Limited color display, and the price add-ons for a camera or storage only bother a person who wants to use their e-ink device for surfing the web, watching videos, playing video games, Etc

but if you’re going to use your e-ink tablet for reading and writing, note taking, and even for handwritten notes, all of those used case scenarios do not need High amounts of storage because they only take up micro amounts of it. They do not need lots of RAM because they are not power-intensive, and they barely need a camera(except for scanning documents.) The only thing they need is a display, and even that does not have to be colorful or super high resolution with high refresh rates.

And it might be even better that there is a black and white screen as that makes it harder to get sucked into apps and offers a more distraction-free experience, especially if this device is meant for reading and writing note-taking handwriting notes for studying and work as when you work, you want a distraction-free writing experience.

That’s why reading and writing, and also note-taking benefit so much from an e-ink display and why using an electronic paper device for them feels like a glove to a hand because all of the caveats of an e-ink display do not apply to them and don’t matter to them (except for the price of course and that even barely) and all of the benefits of an e-ink display or exactly what benefits them and make all of those experiences better.