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E Ink writing tablets are some of my favorite devices. I got started with the Amazon Kindle Scribe, and ended up becoming a regular user of the reMarkable 2. I haven’t added to the stacks of yellow legal pads in my office for almost two years.
It’s my go-to device for scribbling stuff down and thinking things through. It feels almost like using a real pen and paper. Sometimes I have to remind my brain that it’s not actual ink or lead flowing out of the stylus. It’s easy to undo and erase, and add unlimited pages to a notebook. The battery life can be measured in weeks.
In many ways, it’s better than real pen and paper.
The market for these devices reached a pivotal moment this week with reMarkable’s unveiling of its new Paper Pro — now with color E Ink, not just black-and-white. Watching the unveiling and the demo videos this week felt like seeing Dorothy go from monochrome Kansas to the colorful Emerald City.
The reMarkable Paper Pro is not the first color E Ink tablet or e-reader — the technology has actually been around for a couple years — but given reMarkable’s loyal fan base, this device promises to bring new attention to color E Ink displays.
It’s not cheap: The reMarkable Paper Pro starts at $579 with a basic marker, but the price can easily exceed $700 if you go for a premium marker with a built-in eraser, or optional folios for protecting and/or typing on the device.
ReMarkable, based in Oslo, Norway, blends an Apple vibe with a Scandinavian ethos, pitching its tablets as an oasis of peace and mindfulness in a sea of distraction.
Now the big question is whether Amazon will join the trend with a color Kindle e-reader or Kindle Scribe. The Seattle tech giant typically holds its big device unveiling in the fall, so we may find out relatively soon.
The technology enabling the shift from black-and-white to color is the Gallery 3 color display, from E Ink Holdings, a company that spun out of the MIT Media Lab in 1997. So what’s really going on behind the screen?
On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we talk with Timothy O’Malley, associate vice president of U.S. operations at E Ink, about the evolution of the technology and the applications for E Ink displays.
“We have about a billion displays in the world,” O’Malley says. “Most of them are in shelf tag and retail environments, but most of the time, they look like paper, and people would walk right by them and not know that.”
Here’s how he explains the evolution of E Ink’s color technology.
We’ve been slowly integrating and improving, starting with two particles: black and white. Then we went to three: black, white, red. Then we went to four, but not mixing them: black, white, red, yellow. Each one of these steps is us learning how to get better and better at controlling the placement of the particles in this very tiny space.
Today, it’s four particles — white, cyan, magenta, yellow — and the cyan, magenta and yellow mix to give you the appropriate color. All of that learning and control algorithms, in order to get all that placement just done perfectly, in the nick of time … that’s been the journey of delivering color to these devices.
Among other topics, we talk about what’s next for E Ink, the evolving market for digital notepads, and some of the more surprising applications of the technology, including airline bag tags and color-changing cars.
Listen above, and subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
