I’ve long been a fan of the Pixel Qi screen technology, its ability to work in direct sunlight is something us tech folk have been waiting on for a long time. At Computex 2010 Pixel Qi showed us the technology compared with a Apple iPad and the results are stunning. JKK also got some time with the people at Pixel Qi to show us more how the technology works and the difference it makes to outdoor visibility.
Well we no-longer have to dream of working outdoors in the sun as MakerShed are selling the Pixel Qi 3Qi 10.1 inch upgrade kit. For a cool $275.00 and a little time you can upgrade your own netbook;
MAKE and Pixel Qi announce the availability of a revolutionary LCD display technology from Pixel Qi–the 3Qi display. This one-of-a-kind, plug-and-play 10.1-inch display offers two modes–an easy-to-read, real colour, multi-media mode or a crisp, low power e-reader mode. The sunlight-ready, e-reader mode makes it easy to use outdoors.
These screens rival the best e-paper displays on the market today but in addition have video refresh and fully saturated colour. The e-paper mode has 3 times the resolution of the fully saturated colour mode allowing for a high resolution reading experience without sacrifice to super colour fidelity for graphics. In addition these screens can be used in sunlight.
Currently the only tested models are the Samsung N130 & Lenovo S10-2 but they state that it should be compatible with other 10.1 inch netbooks and are testing more models as we speak.
This is obviously going to be a popular kit and MakerShed are already out of stock. Pre-orders are live for the next batch.
New article: Pixel Qi Screen Upgrade Available To All http://bit.ly/bTUORL
Pixel Qi Screen Upgrade Available To All: I’ve long been a fan of the Pixel Qi screen technology, its ability to w… http://bit.ly/aYa8Dn
It seems pretty expensive though – I had planned to get one, but at this price I don’t dare making this my first modding attempt beyond changing the RAM
I sure hope 8.9″ models appear some day.
same here !
It says something when the first commercial appearance of the screen is in such limited quantities. Are they not able to get a big customer? Issues with large-quantity production? At that price it looks like a very limited production run.
Plus I thought one of the selling points of these screens is that they could be easily manufactured in factories that create LCD screens, thus making it easier to bring the PixelQi to market. I’d love to see this technology finally offered as a standard feature.
I think the price needs to be right for manufacturers to begin mass uptake. I really hope to see this screen technology expanding into new products and also down all the way into smartphones.
They apparently went through a couple of revisions since they first announced themselves. Pointing out improved viewing angles and contrast, for example during Cebit, compared to when they first demoed their screens.
Add Pixel Qi isn’t manufacturing the screens themselves…
So I suspect they may have just sold the final prototype run, for set number of units for testing, samples, etc. And we’ll get the full scale production run later.
Hopefully they’ll offer higher resolution options for the DIY kits then as well as sizes besides 10.1″…
And at a lower price point — it’s hard to justify spending as much on the PixelQi screen upgrade as on the device it’s to be used on!
I personally do agree actually, but: It was the first batch of the kits ever released to the market and sold out almost instantly. So it doesn’t seem too unreasonable to be expensive as long as supply lags behind demand that much.
Oh, sure. They clearly didn’t overprice this first batch — in fact, they may’ve underpriced given the pent-up demand.
But for myself, I’m going to wait until the price comes down!
Looks like I was right, these were the sample run, http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4754897725_191a096438.jpg
I actually think I would pay the price to upgrade my netbook with a Pixel Qi kit, even though I live in the UK (limited amount of good enough weather to afgfect outdoor working).
If nothing else the battery improvements are justifiable?
My Dell Mini 10 gets 8+ hours and my Viliv S5 runs for 5.5 to 8 hours, depending on what I’m doing. That’s more than enough juice to get me through the day, especially since I have a spare battery for the Viliv S5, so I can’t really rationalize spending the $275 in terms of battery life. But I do think the PixelQi display looks very crisp, especially outdoors. I can’t justify at the present price point, but am definitely looking forward to when the technology becomes more affordable.
Sorry, I forgot to add my key point: Netbook prices have come down to the point where you can pick up one for the cost of one of the PixelQi kits. And many netbooks these days come with six-cell batteries that offer upwards of 8 hours battery life.
Will watch this with interest, looking forward to a 1366×768 version!
This is a tablet format…hummmmm…delicious.