Got a netbook? Specifically, got a Samsung N130 or a Lenovo S10-2? Even more specifically, do you use it in and outdoors, but find it hard to read in the sun? We have good news! The Maker Shed will sell you one of Pixel Qi’s dual-mode displays as a straight swap-in for your existing LCD-panel.
The 10.1-inch screen runs in one of two modes. When indoors, or watching video, you use the regular LCD display, which will look pretty much the same as the one you already have. When you’re in to mood for some reading, or you are outside in bright sunlight, or you’re just running low on battery power, you can switch to the e-ink mode.
This disables the backlight and shows you hi-res, grayscale pixels, much like you’d see on the screen of the Amazon Kindle. Because it only uses power when updating the screen, it sips power.
There is also a hybrid mode, which lets the sun reflect off the back of the display assembly and back out through the color LCD. This both saves battery power and lets you view a normal color display outdoors.
The panel will cost you $275, which puts it out of the “merely curious” bracket but is still cheap enough for people who do a lot of outdoor computing. The Maker Shed store page also says that the panel will likely work in any netbook: the Lenovo and the Samsung are just the only ones so far tested and guaranteed.
And according to the Pixel Qi blog, which first described the plan to sell these panels separately from the company’s own notebooks, the swap-operation (swaperation?) is easy:
Its only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb: its basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting [sic] the old screen and plugging this one in. Thats it. Its a 5 minute operation.
Available now.
Pixel Qi display [Maker Shed]
Source:wired.com
Posted under Gadget Reviews
This post was written by Journalist on July 1, 2010
Pixel Qi, a company that promises inexpensive, low-power displays that could potentially rival E Ink screens, has been talking about its product for months.