Boox Max Lumi

Totally different technology. Transflective LCD, which has response rates of 480 Hz or better (as LCD television displays). Edit: cite link: "60Hz vs. 120Hz vs. 240Hz vs. 480Hz - LCD Response Rate" https://lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv/120hz-240hz-60hz.html > Best eInk refresh rates are in the several-Hz range, and that with a tremendous degredation in image quality over a full-refresh. (I've own an Onyx BOOX Max Lumi for 4+ years now, using an eInk Mobius Carta display (2,200 x 1,650 207 ppi). I'm quite happy with it, but I'm also well aware of its display limitations. For reasonably static text it is indeed excellent.)

I treat mine (Max Lumi, about 3 years old now) as an insecure device. There are (very nearly) no account-based services on them (and occasional use of SSH roughly doubles that count), and that which I do use is to a pseudonymous service which ... I've soured on sufficiently that I use it little if any. The device is almost wholly dedicated to consumption, largely e-books, podcasts, and websites. That's a nonzero vulnerability surface, but it's pretty close to nil. And for those purposes, the device is quite satisfactory.

Already widely-available e-ink devices have been capable of far better than 1 Hz refresh for years . The idea that this isn't possible has entered into the Land of HN Tropes That Will Not Die. I use an Onyx BOOX Max Lumi, now three years old, with locally-installed Termux (Linux environment for Android) and remote SSH fairly frequently. It can run highly-interactive text apps, with slight ghosting, and could probably handle an X11 display as well though I've not tried that. Even at high-quality display, B&W e-ink offers 2--4 Hz refresh, and can offer ~16 Hz or better in "X-Mode" display. I won't pretend that's great video quality, but it is possible to view animations or videos using it. For a now-several-years-old demo of what e-ink device capabilities are, with the fastest saved for last, see: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=KdrMjnYAap4 > There are higher-refresh displays as well. This one advertises 60 Hz refresh and colour (it's not clear whether colour can drive at 60 Hz). https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/new-open-source-high-r... > https://www.modos.tech/blog/modos-paper-monitor-pre-launch-o... > Video demo: https://yewtu.be/embed/pXn-bAwzNv4 > It's true that some colour displays currently run slower. There's also an "e-paper" technology, based on LCD, which offers far higher refresh and AFAIU no ghosting. (I've been using an e-ink tablet for the past 3+ years, and frankly love it.)

Addressing a few points that have been raised about e-ink, apps, and Android, I've been using an e-ink tablet as my daily driver for the past three years (Onyx BOOX Max Lumi, running Android 11), and have a pretty good idea of the capabilities and limitations. Overall, the device has been far superior to any earlier Android device I've owned for overall readability, usability, battery life, and satisfaction. For a demonstration of what e-ink displays are capable of, see this video, which starts basic (static signage systems), and progresses through video-capable displays (not, it's true, high quality, but serviceable ): https://yewtu.be/watch?v=KdrMjnYAap4 > An Onyx BOOX Note displaying video, similar to my own device: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=XRDJv_-wWBI >. For e-ink tablets and mobile devices there are typically multiple display modes, which can be set on both a per-app and overall system basis. It's reasonably easy to switch between these where needed (e.g., on a Web browser). Higher-quality rendering comes with slower refresh, and there's a trade-off for visual quality vs. speed, but even basic animation is possible with only very modest quality degradation. "X-mode" for full video sacrifices a lot of quality, but you'd typically use that only for video-intensive apps (or occasional video viewing in a Web browser). The main side-effect is ghosting at higher refresh speeds. Android devices can use third-party app stores such as F-Droid ( VERY strongly recommended…

I've had what I believe is an earlier rev of this model, or at least Onyx's ebook reader based on the 13.3" Mobius display, the Onyx Max Lumi. It is indeed an excellent e-book reader and note-taking device, with strong benefits over what I call emissive (OLED) tablets. I've written about it a few times in HN comments: - June 2021: 3 month review: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27521248 > - September 2021: Benefits of a large-format e-ink handheld display for reading, and why the main problem with PDFs is actually computer displays generally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28612615 > - October 2021: On battery life: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28745230 > TL;DR: "the battery life published by Onxy is best considered "value never to be exceeded". The weeks-long battery longevity is based on about an hour of daily use, presumably with frontlight and radios disabled and minimal page-turning." That said, yes, as an e-book reader the battery life is excellent. Web browsing, by comparison, sucks battery at about 10x the rate. - November 2021: On display modes and trade-offs of display quality vs. speed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29260403 > - November 2021: On e-ink vs. emissive tablets generally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29303195 > - December 2021: On how an e-book reader fits into my research / reading practices: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29609479 > - July 2022: Onyx BOOX vs. Remarkable (and why I'm gla…

Onyx iterates on its BOOX tablets fairly rapidly, but tends to continuously offer something in various size classifications. You'll find 13.3" tablets typically named as "Max" something or other. I do see the Note Max as presently available, FWIW: https://shop.boox.com/products/notemax > I've had a previous iteration of their 13.3" tablet, the Max Lumi. Slightly lower resolution, and has a frontlight. It is a very nice display, though with an Android OS which I see as a net negative. I'd really like an e-ink display option for the Framework 12" or 13" laptop.

I use my boox max lumi as a secondary display daily for working in emacs. The eink is great for text/terminal use, the only issue I have is when i sometimes need to do any kind of mouse work (which, is basically never, when I use it for what I said above). What I really want is a low power linux laptop that is not entirely without CPU/memory power, so I can program some simple things on it. I don't mind if it has _less_ power, I can use ssh for anything that is overly cpu-hungry. Ive seen several devices that seem like they might suit my need, but I look at them for long enough and just won't pull the trigger. Either it seems overly much like a walled garden (like, I can program on the device, but it doesn't seem like a suitable spot to write blog posts in emacs for my blog or whatever), or its just too underpowered and I'm sure that 99% of the tools I use already won't work on it. I wish I had the EE knowledge/confidence to start hacking on this kind of thing. I think its very doable; I was just looking at e.g. https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/epaper-1/... which is just cheap enough that I could see myself risking buying it without being sure that it will work with my other choices. Nowadays, I feel like I should be able to run most of what I want on an android device that is built for power, and it should have a fairly long lasting battery because of its design; attach a trackpad, keyboard, and eink display, and my perfect device is here. I don't care if…

I'm going to check that out. I have had a Max Lumi for years and have been happy with it, but I never do browsing. Any other apps I you recommend?

Your original claim was that e-ink displays are incapable of "multiple frames per minute". Even allowing for hyperbole, that's simply not true, and it's well past time we retired that very tired meme. Fact is that e-ink delivers acceptable multi-Hz update capabilities. I've used one such device (Onyx BOOX Max Lumi, with E INK Mobius and Carta HD display). I use it for interactive applications, animations, and video regularly. Yes, it's advisable to change the display mode, but at anything but the highest display quality, most animations are tolerable. Not ideal, but tolerable. And you don't have to take my word for it, there are numerous reviews and videos showing performance. And if you're specifically designing applications or use-cases for the devices capabilities, you can do far better than that. Which would include frequent updates. Appropriate use of technology means playing to strengths, and e-ink has numerous capabilities emissive displays simply cannot match which I've discussed previously, e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396797 >. For a large-format display application you absolutely can have frequent updates. More than once a minute is trivial, and as often as several times a second involves very few distractions or compromises. No, you're not going to prefer e-ink for gaming or as your principle display for streaming video over an OLED or similar monitor. But both of those uses are reasonably within achievable capabilities of product…

I use the Boox Max Lumi for this, it's a 13.3" eInk Android tablet, great for writing + for reading/marking/signing PDFs.

Seconding the Onyx Box Max Lumi here. I bought one back when they were much more expensive and I still think it's been worth it.

I haven't done a ton of usage outdoors, but my boox max lumi works for this. IIUC the android it runs is "unlocked" so I think you could use it as a computer if you wanted. I use it as a tablet and a monitor.

This was one of the reasons, why I went with one of the Boox devices (Max Lumi) in my case. It is Android, so adding even easier than working around their Linux distro. Screen sharing (actually it doubles as a remote control as well) via https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy And as they don't try to leverage proprietary formats, Syncthing for syncing books and notes. And NetGuard for a good measure, so it doesn't call home.

Onyx BOOX Max Lumi here, 13'3 inches of 2200x1650 pixel, 220 dpi, 16 greyscale goodness. The device is quite frankly fantastic, despite a somewhat anemic (for my purposes) onboard storage of 64 GB (doubled in the follow-in Max Lumi 2). (I'm perennially well above 90% utilised, though a good chunk of that are podcasts.) I've written about that at length in other HN comments, search should turn those up for anyone interested. Yes, it's huge, but it means (almost) never having to pan-and-zoom within scientific or scanned-in magazine articles. Smaller devices can work, though 8" is probably the smallest I'd consider for serious reading. My experience with Onyx is that when used just for e-books the battery life is excellent. Once you start web surfing or playing podcasts, battery starts getting chewed pretty quickly, though a charge still lasts most of a day. My preferred web browser (Einkbro) easily consumes 10x the power of Neoreader (Onyx's ebook reader software). I'm increasingly finding the Web just ... generally less interesting (though of course it is compelling to a painful degree), and have amassed a large library of books and articles mostly in PDF, ePub, DVJU, and a smattering of other formats. Organising those usefully is the 2nd 90% of my content-management frustration. Writing is the 3rd 90%. Oddly enough, Termux provides a number of tools there that I find useful, including a healthy chunk of the libpoppler PDF tools, though that really needs an ex…