As someone who worked on them a decade ago:
To be clear, the displays are not created by Amazon / Lab126. Instead, they're a product of Eink Holdings, Inc.
From what I remember, most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP. And by the way, the cost of the display module alone was eye-watering, especially when compared with LCD displays...
With e-ink, you can drive it faster, at the expense of massive power consumption or terrible ghosting / artifacting. You're not going to get the 6 weeks of use out of a battery doing that.
For reading a book, smudges / ghosting sucks, so they optimize for full screen refreshes just often enough to clear that up (that's when the screen goes black then white, followed by the update).
It's kind of a physics based fundamental limitation -- the display is closer to a mechanical display of old than an LCD.
The kindle is a product that does one thing well: display static text in any lighting condition with a similar quality to the printed page.
To be clear, the displays are not created by Amazon / Lab126. Instead, they're a product of Eink Holdings, Inc.
From what I remember, most of the screen refresh algorithms etc are Eink IP. And by the way, the cost of the display module alone was eye-watering, especially when compared with LCD displays...
With e-ink, you can drive it faster, at the expense of massive power consumption or terrible ghosting / artifacting. You're not going to get the 6 weeks of use out of a battery doing that.
For reading a book, smudges / ghosting sucks, so they optimize for full screen refreshes just often enough to clear that up (that's when the screen goes black then white, followed by the update).
It's kind of a physics based fundamental limitation -- the display is closer to a mechanical display of old than an LCD.
The kindle is a product that does one thing well: display static text in any lighting condition with a similar quality to the printed page.