> Related question: what's the state of color e-ink displays?

They demonstrated true color in 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2V9iuTW3sA I would guess another 3 to 4 years to consumer availability.

That's really impressive. I look forward to seeing that in production.

(Also, some searching suggests that it's "tens of thousands of colors" rather than true color, but that's still a major improvement, and more than enough for the majority of the web sans photographs.)

> "tens of thousands of colors" rather than true color

My meaning by true color was color achieved through actual pigment pixels versus older E-Ink products like triton that achieved color through LCD-like RGB color filters on top of reflective/non-reflective pixels. The difference between the two is quite stark.

They stopped bothering. They had some demo screens a few years back, mira-something I think, and a few products that used it, but nobody bought it because the colors were terrible due to the entire "e-inks generally don't require backlights and so massive contrast issues" I think the tech got bought up and pretty much shoved in a corner somewhere

Mirasol display is I think what you're trying to recall. I still have one; a Kyobo Android 'tablet'. In typical tablet usage conditions (i.e. indoors, probably at night on a bed) then yes, mirasol displays and color e-ink screens never matched LCDs and SAMOLEDS. Mirasol was decent/serviceable imo while color e-ink has been truly terrible.

However in outdoor conditions (e.g. at the beach or a park) I still haven't seen any iPad or Samsung display as pleasing as my old mirasol display without backlight. If someone released a new mirasol display ereader today, I would buy it in a heartbeat

If you're refreshing rapidly, you might lose a lot of that battery life, based on my experience with extended fast reading sessions on my Kindle.