Can handwriting can carry the new e-book can be large or small

Color screen e-books can read comics, office books with stylus are written smoothly, portable models can be carried in the pocket... In the related activities held on the day of World Book Day, the new ink screen e-book products have attracted much attention. How has the way people read in the digital age changed?

E-reading has become the mainstream way of reading

The e-book eye protection function is favored

According to the "Results of the 19th National Reading Survey" released by the China Press and Publication Research Institute, 77.4% of adult citizens have read on mobile phones in 2021; 71.6% of adults have read online; 27.3% of adults have read on electronic readers; and 21.7% of adult citizens have used tablets for digital reading. Compared with the previous year, the data have increased steadily or are basically flat, and the digital reading tendency of adult citizens is obvious.

At the same time, at the release of the first national reading conference held recently, the "2021 China Digital Reading Report" showed that in terms of the age of digital reading users, 44.63% were users aged 19 to 25 and 27.25% were users under 18 years old. In terms of reading form preference, the use of electronic reading forms is as high as 96.81%, while 57.97% of users read for more than 2 hours in electronic reading. It can be seen that e-reading has become a mainstream way of reading.

The "2021-2025 China E-book Reader Market Prospect Forecast and Investment Proposal Report" released by the Ruiguan Industry Research Institute mentioned that although more and more users have read e-books through smart phones, e-book readers have their unmatched "eye protection" function and reading experience, and are still favored by a large number of consumers. It is expected that in the next few years, the domestic e-book reader market will still maintain a good development trend.

Interchangeable refills support a variety of strokes

A stylus keeps down reading notes at any time

The transformation of the digital intelligence era expands the new scene of digital reading and brings readers a more immersive reading experience. In order not to become a "cover bubble noodle artifact", e-book readers have also launched more detailed products according to different use scenarios. First of all, it is an office book that can be written smoothly and recorded at any time, which has been favored by many office workers and student parties.

On the market, many iPads and Android tablets are also equipped with stylus, and the writing delay is well optimized through screen hardware and software, but the experience of the pen tip tapping on the glass plate is still different from the feeling of writing on traditional paper. The ink screen device relies on the advantages of screen characteristics and display effects, and at the same time, the refresh rate can often only achieve the effect of 10Hz to 20Hz, and it well simulates the familiar touch and perception of handwriting, which is currently the closest to the traditional handwritten screen material.

Recently, Huawei's e-book MatePad Paper has become one of the products with high attention. The product is equipped with a 10.3-inch E-Ink ink screen, which is already quite a heavyweight presence in e-books.

The handwriting effect of the product is smoother, supporting a variety of brushes and different handwriting effects according to the pressure of 4096 levels, but it does not currently support the tilt sensing of the stylus, and it is impossible to achieve the stroke operation commonly used in painting.

In the software-optimized handwriting experience, in addition to the global call-out quick notes and split-screen note functions that can be used with other applications, a variety of preset templates are also built into the system itself, which is convenient for users to quickly choose and use according to different note scenes.

iFLYTEK's smart office book also achieves a better "handwriting" experience. Since many professionals have the habit of recording work with pen and paper, the office book continues the habit of writing through the combination of flexible ink screen and original customized electromagnetic pen. Carefully adjusted screen and pen friction to create a "rustling feeling" of real pen and paper writing. The patented 0.1 mm suspension screen technology restores the elastic feel of writing on a pile of paper. All the recorded notes are also very convenient to retrieve, do not have to go back and forth like paper notes, as long as you say the time of the notes or keywords, you can find the relevant notes.

The flagship model of Palm Reading Technology, iReader Smart X2, is also equipped with a stylus, and the refill can be replaced, and the product has five different pen edge effects such as pens, pencils, ballpoint pens, markers, etc., and supports 15 levels of thickness adjustment to meet the diverse needs of drawing, shorthand and so on. In terms of software, the product supports handwritten annotations for PDF, Office and other document and book formats.

Increase color saturation and refresh frequency

Color ink screen efforts "evolution"

For comic book lovers, color screen e-books have more advantages. The development of e-reader products for more than ten years has always stayed in the black and white stage. For several years, reader manufacturers led by Kindle have been committed to finding color ink screen solutions, but color electronic ink has always had the problems of low technical color, slow refresh, and high cost.

Last year, palm reading iReader, opalescent BOOX, iFLYTEK and other well-known reader brands have successively released their first color ink screen readers, so that ink screen reading began to step into the color era.

Among them, iFLYTEK's color e-reader is equipped with a 6-inch high-definition screen, which is suitable for reading children's picture books, comic booklets and illustrated books. In order to truly make the color display clear and natural, a series of optimizations have been made for the color electronic ink screen: for the problem of insufficient color saturation, the picture color strengthening mechanism has been realized to enhance its display sharpness in comics and picture books. Aiming at the problem that the resolution of color mode and black and white mode is different, the display mode switching algorithm is optimized to improve the transition smoothness. At the same time, in view of the low reflectivity of the color screen, on the basis of the 24-level headlight, a uniformization algorithm is designed to achieve the best balance between color reproduction and brightness softness. The 212ppi screen has a pixel density sufficient to keep the reader's display clear when viewed from multiple angles.

The fourth generation of color ink screen technology currently launched by Palm Reading Technology has increased the color contrast by 40%, the saturation by 15%, the base color whiteness by 10%, and the black and white contrast by 30%. It is expected that the brand will also launch an electric paper book using the latest color ink screen technology in the future.

Recently, E Ink Yuantai Technology launched a new generation of full-color e-paper E Ink Gallery 3, locking the e-book reader and e-paper notebook market. It is understood that the electronic paper is based on the full-color electronic paper technical architecture, with cyan, magenta, yellow, white and other four kinds of electronic ink to achieve a full color gamut color display effect. It is greatly improved in color display, in the fast color display mode, the update speed is 500 milliseconds, the standard mode is 750 to 1000 milliseconds, and the best color display mode is 1500 milliseconds, which is compared to the first generation of black and white display updates take 2 seconds, color update time takes 10 seconds, bringing a significant speed increase. The resolution of the product has been increased from 150ppi to 300ppi in the first generation, and supports digital handwriting, in addition to black and white, the handwriting can also be presented in several major colors. In addition, the new colored e-paper provides a low blue light and visually healthy digital reading experience by reducing the amount of blue light reflected from the display surface.

Lighter than a mobile phone

Pocket eBooks are easy to read

Small-screen e-books can be easily carried into the pocket, convenient to read anytime and anywhere, and can be called a weapon for fragment reading.

Oper Arms unveils the 7-inch Leaf as a new product this year that is highly anticipated. As a portable e-book reader, the fuselage is about 13 cm wide, about 16.5 cm long, and only 5.9 mm thick, which is very thin and light. However, its resolution has reached 300ppi, ensuring a good reading experience. The bare metal weighs 170g, which is the best balance between portable reading and weight.

Two years ago, Palm Reading launched the FACENOTE F1, which is only 5.84 inches in size, about the size of a mobile phone, and is very suitable for carrying in the pocket. This year's new products have a 7-inch ink screen, which still does not give up the "pocket" market in a number of large-screen products, maintaining the richness of the product line, so that users who like portable, side grip design have new choices.

The mini-reading inkPalm 5 released at the end of last year is a typical mini-e-book that once swept the market. It uses a 5.2-inch ink screen, and the whole machine weighs only 115g, even lighter than the mobile phone. At such a small size, the reader has a resolution of 1280×720 and a pixel density of 284ppi, ensuring clearer reading. It is worth mentioning that as an entry-level product, the product still supports 24 levels of cold and warm two-color temperature reading light adjustment, for the small partners who often read e-books, the color temperature and backlight of the screen can be adjusted to better reduce visual fatigue.

Text/Reporter Chen Si