E Ink Kaleido 4 doubles color gamut volume to more than 40K, raises white reflectance by 15% and improves contrast by 50% over the previous generation of the color ePaper platform, according to E Ink. E Ink says the first end product to carry it is the M10C II smart ePaper notebook from Hanvon Technology.
E Ink ties the upgrade to what color ePaper is now asked to show: color PDFs, presentations, data charts and engineering drawings, not only eBooks. That mix, it says, needs a better balance of color, brightness, contrast and clarity. Kaleido 4 also adds new algorithms that allow video playback at up to 18 frames per second.
On the hardware side, E Ink describes a new oxide TFT backplane that supports higher driving voltages and faster refresh. Hanvon adds its own Enhanced Pressure Floating technology and T2000 timing controller, and E Ink credits the combination with 27% faster page turning and scrolling on the M10C II. E Ink gives no baseline for the 27%.
Hanvon positions the M10C II beyond reading. The notebook pairs the panel with a redesigned front light, OCR, voice and AI-powered office applications, cloud library synchronization and a battery-free wireless pen with 8,192 pressure levels. A micro-etched tempered-glass surface is meant to cut glare and parallax and give paper-like writing resistance. Hanvon Vice President Wang Jie said the company wants color ePaper in research and development tools, document review and meeting records.
The "world's first" label applies to an end product, and the M10C II is the only Kaleido 4 device E Ink names. The gamut figure is also a volume measure whose unit E Ink does not define, so "more than 40K" has no stated reference standard. E Ink's Kaleido brand page describes the family as a printed color filter array layered over its ePaper ink, quoting 4,096 colors and 16 levels of grayscale, and lists no Kaleido 4 figures.
What decides a purchase of the M10C II is still to come: price, ship date, regions, screen size and resolution.
