600 ppi this year or next? Good ereader speculates

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I doubt that microLED will be cost competitive with OLED in 6 years at 5" to 13" display sizes.

It will win on image quality and lack of burn-in.
At this point I'm not sure OLED will ever deliver on all the hype. Certainly not before microLED is commercially viable.

And I do think it will be cost competitive with eink, which is what's relevant.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Umm... an eInk display works by moving the white or black particles to the viewing surface of the capsule. A backlight would have to try shining through the entire sandwich and would not work at all never mind help more.

A backlight would shine between the spheres. It would provide a lighter background. But no, it wouldn't help enough to be worth the trouble.

[sydmalicious]

Originally Posted by Barty

What we need is better contrast. Contrast on eink Carta is a comically low 15:1, and it's probably worse than that once you add touch and light layers on top. (Contrast of good ink on non glossy paper is about 200:1) But I guess it's easier (albeit not cheap) to throw on more DPI.

That is what someone in the comments said. I agree with that.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

A backlight would shine between the spheres. It would provide a lighter background. But no, it wouldn't help enough to be worth the trouble.

A backlight would do wonders for the display. Given the capsules contain both the white and black pigments, they would appear as black spots surrounded by a halo. And that's assuming that the back electrode is not opaque as it has been in all the current eInk panels I've looked at.

[BookCat]

I'm surprised that this is even being discussed considering the source of this speculation. I've read threads on MR which have argued that their information is usually wrong.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I'm surprised that this is even being discussed considering the source of this speculation. I've read threads on MR which have argued that their information is usually wrong.

They come from the W.R. Hearst school: if there's no news, you make some up.
Since there's nothing going on in eInk tech...

Beats another Amazon is eee-vile/amazon deals thread.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I'm surprised that this is even being discussed considering the source of this speculation. I've read threads on MR which have argued that their information is usually wrong.

What does the correctness of the information have to do with this discussion? Not letting the facts stand in the way is a grand tradition in yellow journalism.

Speaking of such, one of the finer moments of yellow journalism from the 19th century:

In 1897, Remington became very bored by the lack of anything newsworthy in Cuba and cabled to Hearst, “Everything quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. Wish to return.” In response to Remington’s message, Hearst reportedly replied, “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by sydmalicious

Will We See 500 or 600 PPI e-Paper Displays in 2019 or 2020?

I don’t know if it is necessary but the commenters suggested that it is contrast that needs to improve not the resolution. A guy in the comments argued you can’t really discern the difference in resolution from 300 ppi to 600 ppi as the human eye isn’t capable of seeing those details. Perhaps, but I have the iPhone XS Max and latest iPad Pro and it seems much of those displays are noticeably crisper than my 1st gen iPad Pro and iPhone 8 Plus.

What do you think?

Although you will find many people who say 300dpi is good enough, these are people usually satisfied already with what they have. They either don't have a burning desire to replace what they have, or higher dpi does nothing for them. I think that the higher the dpi, the better, however.

eReaders are notorious for crude, barebones typography. iPads and other tablets have higher density dpi, allowing for smoother anti-aliasing and better simulation of real book experiences in regards to layout, drop caps, titles, images, etc. Many of my peers are hardcore pbook readers, several of them authors, and they don't find the ebook experience to be a beautiful one. In my opinion, they are book snobs. Yet, if eReaders approached the dpi density of tablets, the ebook experience would be a more compelling one for them.

Already, I'm seeing reMarkable eInk tablets showing up at writer's conferences with only keen interest surrounding the device. They are popular with editors. Even with a 1872 x 1404 display, it only has 226dpi, but what makes it compelling is the 2048 levels of pressure. Writers love scribbling on eInk as if it's paper, then mailing off PDFs of their notations. The conclusion there is that eInk is not a detriment in this case. What will cause readers in general to embrace eReaders? I argue that faster processors and a more intuitive reading experience will be necessary.

As for the article, you can see in the included screenshots how much of a difference there is in the Japanese characters between 150 dpi and 500 (though who reads on a Palm Pilot anymore?). 300 dpi to 600 will be a nice jump. The text will look gorgeous in comparison.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Cootey

eReaders are notorious for crude, barebones typography. iPads and other tablets have higher density dpi, allowing for smoother anti-aliasing and better simulation of real book experiences in regards to layout, drop caps, titles, images, etc. Many of my peers are hardcore pbook readers, several of them authors, and they don't find the ebook experience to be a beautiful one. In my opinion, they are book snobs. Yet, if eReaders approached the dpi density of tablets, the ebook experience would be a more compelling one for them.

Only the retina iPad mini has higher than 300 ppi and even then, not by much (iPad mini 2/3/4, 326 ppi). All other retina iPads have pixel density of 264 ppi (similar to the Kobo H2O, iirc).

It's the phones that have super high pixel density.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I'm surprised that this is even being discussed considering the source of this speculation. I've read threads on MR which have argued that their information is usually wrong.

Don't you know by now that even the slightest rumor of new ereading technology is guaranteed to result in a multi-page thread full of speculation about how it works, what's wrong with it, etc. etc. even though nobody has actually seen it?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Cootey

Although you will find many people who say 300dpi is good enough, these are people usually satisfied already with what they have. They either don't have a burning desire to replace what they have, or higher dpi does nothing for them. I think that the higher the dpi, the better, however.

eReaders are notorious for crude, barebones typography. iPads and other tablets have higher density dpi, allowing for smoother anti-aliasing and better simulation of real book experiences in regards to layout, drop caps, titles, images, etc. Many of my peers are hardcore pbook readers, several of them authors, and they don't find the ebook experience to be a beautiful one. In my opinion, they are book snobs. Yet, if eReaders approached the dpi density of tablets, the ebook experience would be a more compelling one for them.

Already, I'm seeing reMarkable eInk tablets showing up at writer's conferences with only keen interest surrounding the device. They are popular with editors. Even with a 1872 x 1404 display, it only has 226dpi, but what makes it compelling is the 2048 levels of pressure. Writers love scribbling on eInk as if it's paper, then mailing off PDFs of their notations. The conclusion there is that eInk is not a detriment in this case. What will cause readers in general to embrace eReaders? I argue that faster processors and a more intuitive reading experience will be necessary.

As for the article, you can see in the included screenshots how much of a difference there is in the Japanese characters between 150 dpi and 500 (though who reads on a Palm Pilot anymore?). 300 dpi to 600 will be a nice jump. The text will look gorgeous in comparison.

Hmmm... you seem to be confusing typography with Great Ghu alone knows what. An ebook with ugly typography is going to be an ebook with ugly typography no matter what the DPI of the display it is being displayed on. As for iPad DPI? My iPad Pro has a massive 264DPI, slightly less than three of my Kobos which weigh in at 300DPI. The iPad mini's do have a slightly higher DPI at 326.

Hmmm... the two advantages to reading on my iPad Pro are 1. The colour display helps with the occasional image. Sadly most of my ebooks have 1 or two images. 2. The faster processor and more RAM help with displaying PDFs. Sadly most of my PDFs are tech manuals. The images are mostly diagrams in glorious living black and white. My laptop does an even better job of displaying those PDFs making it my goto device for that purpose despite it's "pathetic" 141DPI display. All being said and done, my Kobo is my goto ereader since the weight and battery life make it a much more enjoyable experience.

BTW, my ereaders all do an excellent job of displaying drop caps, small caps, title, chapter headings, etc. It comes down to the person who creates the ebook knowing what they are doing and not what display the ebook is being displayed on.

And could you please explain WTF what a "more intuitive reading experience" is? Is this like "user friendly" when it comes to software? To quote W. Shakespeare, "full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.".

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Cootey

eReaders are notorious for crude, barebones typography. iPads and other tablets have higher density dpi, allowing for smoother anti-aliasing and better simulation of real book experiences in regards to layout, drop caps, titles, images, etc. Many of my peers are hardcore pbook readers, several of them authors, and they don't find the ebook experience to be a beautiful one. In my opinion, they are book snobs. Yet, if eReaders approached the dpi density of tablets, the ebook experience would be a more compelling one for them.

I agree that ebook typography is currently terrible. But that's the fault of the ebook coding standards and the ebook display software. Nothing to do with the resolution of the screens. It's entirely possible to do good typography on a 300dpi greyscale screen.

[HarryT]

Look at the way resolution has changed over time:

Original Kindle (and many others): 169 ppi
Kindle PW (and others): 212 ppi
Kobo H2O: 248 ppi
Many modern devices: 300 ppi

To expect a sudden jump to 600 ppi seems illogical to me. If resolution does increase beyond 300 ppi, history suggests that it will do so gradually, not in a sudden quadrupling of pixel density.

[John F]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Look at the way resolution has changed over time:

Original Kindle (and many others): 169 ppi
Kindle PW (and others): 212 ppi
Kobo H2O: 248 ppi
Many modern devices: 300 ppi

To expect a sudden jump to 600 ppi seems illogical to me. If resolution does increase beyond 300 ppi, history suggests that it will do so gradually, not in a sudden quadrupling of pixel density.

Not that it matters, but the Aura HD also had 248ppi, and was released before the H2O.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by John F

Not that it matters, but the Aura HD also had 248ppi, and was released before the H2O.

...and both had a resolution of 265ppi, not 248.