First look at the Sharp e-note with E INK Gallery 3

Sharp is going to be releasing a new digital note taking device in the Spring of 2023. This product is an 8-inch e-note that is using E INK Gallery 3 color e-paper technology, making it the first commercially viable product to employ this new technology. Good e-Reader received some comprehensive hands on time with the final product in Japan.

The Sharp e-note currently does not have a final name. But it will be using an 8 inch screen using Gallery 3 technology. What is most exciting about this new screen, is that it is employing Advanced Color E-Paper and can display over 50,000 different colors, which is achieved through a four particle ink system: cyan, magenta, yellow and white, which allows a full color gamut at each pixel.

In Gallery 3, the black and white update time has been improved to 350 milliseconds (ms), the fast color mode is 500 ms, standard color mode is 750-1000 ms and best color is achieved at 1500 ms. This is a substantial improvement over the first generation of E Ink Gallery, which had a black and white update time of two seconds and color updates of ten seconds. In addition, Gallery 3 will have an improved resolution of 300 pixels per inch (ppi) versus the earlier 150 ppi and an operating temperature of 0-50 degrees Celsius, on par with black and white e-readers. To increase the speed of the color transition, there can be tradeoffs in the intensity of the colors. Therefore “best color” has the longest transition time to move the pigments as close to the surface as possible. In contrast, “fast mode” may be slightly more muted as the pigment’s movements are constrained by the time of the update.

The Sharp product is going to be employing an Oxide IGZO backplane. The use of it shortens the display screen update time. Update time on the black and white display will be 0.35 ms and the color display will be between 0.5 to 1.5 seconds. The resolution of the black and white panel will be 1920×1440 with 300 PPI and the PPI of the color screen is currently unknown. Sharp did not disclose any of the tech specs, even after me begging them. I don’t think they have been finalized yet, the priority was getting the screen working with hardware, so it went beyond proof of concept to a commercial product. The software was also barebones and the drawing app needs a ton of work.