E-ink tablets are becoming well known; color e-ink tablets are quietly becoming more popular, as well. But an actual color e-ink display? That’s here, now, too. A key tablet maker is bringing color electronic ink to the desktop PC with the Boox Mira Pro (Color Version).
Boox already ships a monochrome 25.3-inch Mira Pro monochrome e-ink monitor, featuring a 3200×1800 (145 ppi) resolution and the BOOX Kaleido 3 technology. Now, the Mira Pro (Color Version) adds 4,096 colors on top of it. It’s not cheap at $1,899, and the Boox shop warns you may pay tariffs on top of that.
E-ink tablets and displays aren’t backlit; they use front-mounted lighting instead, which means that they provide a more natural, paper-like look without blasting your retinas with LED lighting. Put another way, they’re easier to look at, so the strain on your eyes is reduced. Both the color and monochrome version of the Boox Mira Pro include warm and cold lighting options to suit your own preferences.
The tradeoff is that an e-ink monitor is the anti-gaming display; e-ink is designed for a low refresh rate. In fact, the Boox monitors ship with dedicated anti-ghosting buttons. (“Ghosting” occurs when the display can’t keep up with the motion on the screen, causing a blurring effect.)
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Put another way, an e-ink display like the Boox Mira Pro (Color Version) is probably best for office work or design, where you’re working with a web page or office documents. Traditionally, e-ink has meant that watching video like YouTube either hasn’t worked well or offered poor contrast. Boox, however, says that this is possible, and that the display includes four dedicated refresh modes, including one designed for watching videos.
Like the Boox Mira Pro, the color version ships with a ton of ports: HDMI, miniHDMI, USB-C, DisplayPort, even a VESA interface.
I have no idea what it would be like to work with an e-ink display for your PC. Unfortunately, it’s easy on your eyes, but not your wallet.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld
Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers' News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.