My Experience with Dasung Paperlike E-Ink Monitor

[Lile]

Recently, I bought a used Dasung 13.3" E-Ink monitor from China. The previous owner bought it on March 30, 2016 and decided to resell in less than two month. The item cost me 4275 CNY (~652 USD) including the shipping fee to Singapore .

I received the product this Tuesday. It came with an adjustable stand and a USB cable to connect with the PC. Note that Dasung provides different stands to overseas customers and mainland China customers. For the former is a portable stand while for the latter is a steel stand. Below are two pictures of my Paperlike with the steel stand. I have seen quite a few Chinese customers complain that the steel stand is heavy (~2.5kg) and ugly, but I like it very much, simply because it is so unique





Now after four days with it, I'd say the product did not let me down. It is definitely not comparable to a LCD/LED monitor in terms of display effects, and you cannot play games or watch videos on it. Don't expect it can totally replace your current screen -- actually whenever I view or process a picture I still need to drag the window back to the LED screen. However, it did fulfill my needs for PDF reading, document editing (I am now writing this post on it), coding and web surfing. This is the biggest value of the Paperlike -- you can now conduct your everyday eye-abuse activities, e.g., reading, writing and coding, on an eye-friendly display. For people like me whose eyes are vulnerable and easily get dried and tired on the traditional monitor, Dasung's monitor really makes our life easier.

The Paperlike monitor supports a resolution of 1600*1200 and 800*600. The maximum display gray levels are 16, but the key to use a E-Ink as a monitor is the so-called A2 and A5 mode, i.e., use only 2 or 5 gray levels for display. Reducing the number of gray levels can significantly improve the refresh rate. I am using the Paperlike with Windows 7, as an extended screen, in a resolution of 1600*1200 and A2 mode. The A5 mode can provide better visual effects, however it only support the resolution of 800*600. So there is a trade-off to be made. For me, I found a higher resolution can bring better experience than a larger number of gray levels.

Under the A2 mode, there is no annoying delay during typing and mouse operation like move, drag and scroll. The ghost shadow problem can be ignored. The driver did crash from time to time (every several hours), but I believe this problem can be alleviated or fixed by software updates.

To ensure the best experience with Paperlike, it is very important that you always try to adjust your applications' appearance so that it looks best on the E-Ink display. For example, when I browse webpages with Chrome, I found it helps a lot if you install an extension that allows you to change the fonts of the webpages, otherwise the texts of many webpages would be too dim to view on the E-Ink.

Last but not the least, the best measure to protect your eyes is always to keep good habits of using eyes instead of buying an E-Ink monitor.

p.s. Dasung is now open for the third run of pre-order on Indiegogo (will ship in August). They also provide some nice video demos there. Check it out if you are interested.

[ou4read]

If only I could get my hands on it though. About half a year on since the last batch of order there is not a word from Dasung.

[fgdas]

Originally Posted by ou4read

If only I could get my hands on it though. About half a year on since the last batch of order there is not a word from Dasung.

7th Feb 2017 Dasung tweeted "pre-order e ink monitor/ereader right now":
https://mobile.twitter.com/DasungTec...78884401655810

New 13.3" Dasung ereader is on the way probably with ability to use it as a monitor.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DasungTec...17120306237440

[Pajamaman]

Good to hear they are releasing another batch. It's a shame they are so hard to get outside of China. More market penetration is needed.

Onyx next 13.3" device will boast an HDMI plug, so should be usable as a monitor with low lag. Ultimately, I think a dual tablet/screen is a better approach from a commercial POV (more sales).

[ou4read]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Onyx next 13.3" device will boast an HDMI plug, so should be usable as a monitor with low lag.

Is it for sure? I asked them about the second monitor function and HDMI port. Their response was first there's second monitor functionality via 'software'. And then it said the engineering team was notified about the HDMI port 'idea' and they thought it was a good suggestion. So the implication is that the new one doesn't have hardware support for any external monitor function.

It is already March anyway and we'll see what the new device is capable of. Looking forward to it.

p.s. If it does work as an external monitor, there should be a good battery protection in place, like how laptops charge only up to 80% if you set it to. Otherwise the battery could go belly-up sooner than users think.

[Lesnikus]

Originally Posted by Lile

Recently, I bought a used Dasung 13.3" E-Ink monitor from China.

What is the delay in A2 mode? I watched the video on Youtube and delay there was about half a second. The author moves the mouse and in half a second the cursor starts moving. I'm worried about such a high delay.



I was able to play games on the E-Ink screen using the electronic book Nook Simple Touch and a special patch. It looks like this:



The delay between keystrokes and the action on the screen is almost nonexistent. Everything happens instantly. The frame rate is of course low, but i can play comfortably. What about Dasung E-Ink? What is the delay between pressing the key and the action on the screen?

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by Lesnikus

What is the delay in A2 mode? I watched the video on Youtube and delay there was about half a second. The author moves the mouse and in half a second the cursor starts moving. I'm worried about such a high delay.



I was able to play games on the E-Ink screen using the electronic book Nook Simple Touch and a special patch. It looks like this:



The delay between keystrokes and the action on the screen is almost nonexistent. Everything happens instantly. The frame rate is of course low, but i can play comfortably. What about Dasung E-Ink? What is the delay between pressing the key and the action on the screen?

I think e-ink is best for text-processing. It's okay for that, depending on link (not VNC. Too slow). For example, a bluetooth keyboard is fast with it.

How does the Nook game work? It looks like its running directly on the Nook. It's not linked to a PC, I think.

[Lesnikus]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

I think e-ink is best for text-processing. It's okay for that, depending on link (not VNC. Too slow). For example, a bluetooth keyboard is fast with it.

How does the Nook game work? It looks like its running directly on the Nook. It's not linked to a PC, I think.

Yes, the game is running directly on the Nook. And it works comfortably, despite the e-Ink screen. Using Dasung Paperlike, I would like to not only work with the text, but also play games. This is possible if the delay is minimal. After all, I can play on Nook, can I also play with Dasung PC-display? So I want to ask the people who own Dasung Paperlike how much delay and whether it allows them to play games.