The other feature is it doesn't shine light.

thdrdt · on Jan 8, 2020

This would be the main reason I would buy an eInk monitor.

There are already a lot of reflective LCD displays. For example in digital clocks and watches but they are all monochrome.

Pixel Qi promised reflective displays but I believe the reflective mode is only grayscale.

BlueTemplar · on Jan 9, 2020

Color ones exist too : Game Boy Color, Pebble Color...

errantspark · on Jan 8, 2020

Neither do most of the other common display technologies available to us!

EDIT: Can't reply to TeMPOraL, but I think that's not true, they need polarized light. I'm not an expert on this but my intuition is there are unrealized advances to be made in the field of reflective LCD-based displays. I just don't think there's much demand to research these applications and connect the dots. I would be surprised if you couldn't make a pretty decent, high refresh rate reflective display using an LCD based approach.

TeMPOraL · on Jan 8, 2020

But they do! If they don't emit lights from pixels, they usually need a backlight to be legible.

E-ink is nice because it does not need a light source to be fully legible in any condition in which print is.

BlueTemplar · on Jan 9, 2020

Transflective LCDs do not need a light source either, and, unlike e-ink, can use a backlight in low light conditions.

TeMPOraL · on Jan 9, 2020

They're just an exception confirming the rule, though.

jval43 · on Jan 9, 2020

E-ink does need a light source, it's impossible to read without sufficient environmental lighting (like real paper).

BlueTemplar · on Jan 9, 2020

One thing I noticed with my Pebble Time is how, unlike any other LCD I've seen so far, polarized glasses don't have an effect on it for some reason ! (It might be due to multiple layers of weird liquid crystals ?)