Quote:
Originally Posted by msundman
Huh? It takes more than 2000 ms after the key press before it shows the next screen. That's completely unacceptable IMO. It feels like after pressing the key you have time to go and boil an egg before the next screen is displayed. It's like some kHz range computer from the 1960s. Yet I bet they have a 100+ MHz CPU and a dedicated display controller with DMA. I just don't understand how they manage to make it so incredibly slow.
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OK.
Plese consider several things:
e-ink is in fact a kind of electroMECHANICAL device.
check
http://www.eink.com/technology/howitworks.html
You have to actually mechaically move charged white particles.
With most of e-ink devices the emphasis is not on the computing power of processor, but on the powersaving. A typical PDA can display page in a fraction of second, yet the battery will last only a few hours of reading. With Sony Reader, for example, you get WEEKS of use.
The processor and other circuits go to the sleep mode (on all e-ink devices except the Illiad
) while you read the page.
So. When you press page down button the machine has to:
- Power up the circuits
- spin up the processor
- process the page (using a deliberately slow (and thus very power eficient) processor)
- actually physically move mechanical particles that make picture
When you start actually using an e-ink device, you will very quickly to press page down when you are still reading, so the refresh occurs when you reach the bottom of the page.
And finally, take a stopwatch, open a heavy, thick, stiff, hardcover book and time how fast you can turn physical paper page. I am pretty sure you will not be able to beat the slowest e-ink device in page turning speed. Yet, I have never heard anyone complaining that it takes too long to turn a paper page.