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by mholt10 hours ago |
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upvoteby WillAdams9 hours ago|
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Trying to outbright the sun on a battery-powered device is an approach I've always found questionable.

E-ink, instead just lets the sun reflect off of it, does want some sort of light in the dark, but, perfectly visible in full-bright/direct sunlight.

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upvoteby ianburrell7 hours ago|
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Transflective LCDs, which most bike computers use, are also reflective but have better contrast than eink making them more visible in sunlight. They are different than phones.
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upvoteby carlosjobim6 hours ago|
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They don't have better contrasts. They have blacker blacks, but eInk has much whiter whites.
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upvoteby pandaman3 hours ago|
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They obviously do. E-ink display in this topic, for example, is 12:1[1]. The best (contrast wise) e-ink displays available commercially are around 20:1. The trashiest LCD, on the other hand, will be around 500:1.

1. https://www.panelook.com/ED047TC1_E_Ink_4.7_EPD_parameter_25...

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upvoteby carlosjobim3 hours ago|
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Measuring the contrast within the display means practically nothing compared to measuring the contrast in the real world environment, which in this case is outdoors and hopefully in the sun.

Compared to the full contrast range of the sun lit real world, all displays emitting light function in a very narrow and very dark contrast range. An eInk display does not emit light, so in that environment you have a clear separation between bright and dark.

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upvoteby pandaman2 hours ago|
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> Measuring the contrast within the display means practically nothing compared to measuring the contrast in the real world environment

Even if it had been true, claiming the e-ink has the same or better contrast as LCD is still false. The sun-lit world has higher contrast than any display, yet it does not make e-ink's contrast any good. In fact it makes the low contrast display much worse as you are likely to be looking at much brighter scenes than your bike computer's screen immediately before looking at it and thus having even less ability to distinguish slight brightness variations on the low contrast screen. A transflective TFT display in bike computers also does not emit light, it's still higher contrast in the sun than e-ink.

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