The crowdfunding has already ended, but I think it's still worth a discussion due to the new DES e-paper display technology... not exactly in the best light however.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2026122594/reinkstone-r1-true-color-e-paper-tablet-powered-by-androidDES is a new e-paper display technology likely designed by Good Display and probably manufactured by another company. Instead of using capsules, it uses cofferdams which lets it display super sharp and crisp pixels instead of blurry pixels. Now this can be seen as an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time (your images will be really pixelated instead of having smoothed out corners). I personally love this technology as it also provides higher contrast.
This display is also apparently way more UV resistant than existing e-paper displays which means it is ideal for outdoor use. Now I personally don't know how well normal capsule e-paper displays fare with sunlight but I'm going to take their word for it.
So far this seems all good and fine right???
Unfortunately I have huge concerns for this project, mainly regarding the display. Apart from one of the reviews showing damage (
) on the right side of the screen (no idea if that came out of the factory like that or was damaged during shipping), I've bought my own DES displays and they ALL HAVE FAULTY PIXELS with more appearing the more times I refresh the screen. Like the kickstarter's e-paper tablet, there's also horrible ghosting. Now this isn't permanent, but only if you can wait 24 hours haha
.
DES technology is currently at its infancy, and I wouldn't touch it for commercial use at all at this point. But if you want a cooler looking e-paper display to play around with using your Arduino or something, and don't really care about dead pixels, I'd say it's probably worth the shot perhaps, or perhaps not. You can buy them here
https://www.good-display.com/product/68/. Though I'd probably buy their displays through Alibaba instead (in which I personally did).
I'm curious what you guys think about the kickstarter aside from my comments on the display technology.