[robinsoh]

> Because those were simply phenomenal. I have two and I've never had a display quite their equal in direct sunlight.

That's odd. I've had and evaluated the XO-1 using Jepsen's displays and found them to be of low quality for even that timeframe. Even basic things like the resolution were terrible for that time. There's good reasons why they (both OLPC and PixelQi) were unsuccessful. OLPC was a disaster and in my opinion just a way to transfer money from the education budgets of developing countries and UN funding into the pockets of people who enjoyed hanging out in swanky incredibly costly offices at 1 Cambridge Way with guys like Nicholas Negroponte, Joi Ito and Jeffrey Epstein instead of actually achieving real progress. [1]

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/09/05/133159/mit-media...

[dleslie]

Direct sunlight being the key part of what I said; I've never had any other display that was so legible while sitting at the end of a dock with a blazing sun blasting straight down upon the screen.

Otherwise, for sure, in general conditions it was mediocre.

And yes, the whole project was sketchy as hell, in retrospect.

[Wowfunhappy]

My Panic PlayDate, which lacks the paper-like contrast of e-ink but can refresh at 50 fps, looks fantastic in direct sunlight. I believe it’s using a Sharp Memory LCD.

So there is other tech for this.

[dleslie]

But it's just black and white, right? Still, that sounds promising.

[Wowfunhappy]

Yes, and the pixels can only be either black or white, not shades of grey. (Although dithering is surprisingly effective.)

My Pebble Time Smartwatch had a color memory LCD which was also easy to read in direct sunlight, but the PlayDate's screen looks a lot better.