In the decade since Amazon first released the Kindle, the resolution of the e-reader's display has improved slowly but surely, from 167 pixels per inch (ppi) in the original to the 300 ppi found in its top-of-the line Kindle Oasis today. So what would an e-reader display with 600 ppi look like? Japan Display Inc. (JDI) has offered a taste of this future, this week showcasing what it calls the highest resolution e-paper in the world.
A collaboration between Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba, JDI was formed in 2012 and specializes in the development of small and medium-sized displays for suitably sized devices. Last November, the company joined up with Taiwanese company E Ink and got to work on tuning its technology for e-paper displays.
On show at the The Society of Information Display's "Display Week" in LA currently, are two rather sharp-looking products of this collaboration, e-paper that uses a LTPS (low temperature poly-silicon) backplane to achieve resolutions of 400 and 600 ppi.
This puts it on par with, or even out in front of modern smartphones. The display on the iPhone 7, for example features 326 ppi, while the iPhone 7 Plus features 401 ppi and the Galaxy S8 comes in at 570 ppi. JDI says, however, that these types of displays could not only be used for e-readers, smartphones and tablets, but yet-to-exist devices for the Internet of Things further down the track.
Source: JDI
