this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Modos Paper Monitor - has anybody used one? any good? (www.modos.tech)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I haven't used the Modos Paper Monitor. Not even sure if it's actually for sale.

You could look at the Dasung Paperlike monitors though. Or the Onyx Boox Mira. They should be much the same (ie. they're e-ink monitors), though they are quite expensive. They've been out for years, so there are plenty of videos, reviews, second hand units, etc. out there.

I have one of the Onyx Boox Mira monitors (the 13" one). It's a bit small and cost more than I'd like, but it has helped with eye strain as someone who works on a computer all day. Speed isn't an issue. It's plenty fast for anything except watching videos or gaming. The main caveat with any e-ink monitor is that it's black and white, so you'll need to tweak things on your PC to get a good experience. That usually means putting things in light mode or high contrast mode.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Looks like a bunch of workarounds even in the concept stage

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It has to be. Epaper is done by physically moving the "ink" particles (which are designed to not move at all when you aren't deliberately moving them) around. It takes too much time for fast refresh rates.

The benefit is that it actually reads like paper. You can't replicate that on LED or OLED.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

And another benefit is reduced energy consumption.

Not sure how much it takes to redraw the screen, but when it's not changing, it doesn't use any power.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

LCDs also physically move their pixels to block or emit light.

I don't know why we haven't been able to get a similar effect from an LCD.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

E-ink doesn't block/emit light. It reflects it. This is why it reads like paper. Instead of having a light blasting at your face, you have light from the front bouncing off of the display into your eyes. This means that your display can use ambient light instead of needing to overpower it.

Reflective LCD displays actually do exist. You basically have little mirrors behind the pixels because LCDs are transparent and designed to use a backlight. If you're curious, search RLCD or if you want to see a tablet, the Hisense Q5.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Are they even available for sale?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

No idea, just saw them being posted on lemmy and sounded interesting