[yeetaccount4]

Has there been any progress on extending e ink lifespan?

[dredmorbius]

That's a non-issue so far as I'm aware.

The displays will last and function for years. Long enough that other components are generally long obsolete.

[yeetaccount4]

Obsolete, but still functional for their intended purpose. The screen will fail before the components get tin whiskers, if you use it often-ish.

E ink readers will fail later because of a very low refresh rate, but as a screen monitor it may be a poor match.

Pixel-Qi full sun display mode may be a better match for what most want.

[dredmorbius]

That depends.

For anything networked, not having access to the latest and greatest ciphers, or CA certificates, eventually causes problems. It's possible that mobile formats won't be supported. And a decade or so out, what was once a generous provisioning of storage and memory will frequently come to seem small. Android-based devices such as the Onyx BOOX line probably won't be able to get newer OS updates even if the vendor was willing to support them as Android itself seems to have a moving hardware baseline (I'm typing this on ... an older Android device).

That said, the displays themselves should still function, yes.

[fallat]

What's the current lifespan? My original Kindle is still working just fine.

[Sunspark]

Don't you find the low-resolution and the low-contrast of the first generation panels annoying?

[fallat]

No, since I've upped the boldness since day 1 lol. I never noticed it being "low resolution".

[yeetaccount4]

Depends on how things are set up with the refresh rate; subpixel rendering may have an effect IIRC. Details I don’t really understand, but e ink has a shorter lifespan than other tech.