In this article, I want to explore the advantages and disadvantages of e-ink tablets that offer fast refresh technologies – primarily Boox’s Super Refresh (BSR) and Bigme’s xRapid.
What is BSR and xRapid?
Historically, e-ink screens were designed primarily for reading text.
They have advantages over regular screens because they can be easier on the eyes, do not emit as much blue light, and are very power efficient.
This is because they have very low refresh rates (the rate at which the screen is redrawn). With conventional screens, the image/text on the screen is being redrawn many times per second – so fast that you do not notice it. The refresh rate stays the same, even when the text/images are static.
In contrast, e-ink screens refresh very slowly. And if the text/images are static (such as when showing a page of a book), the screen does not refresh at all.
Whilst this has the advantages listed above (eye friendliness, low power consumption, comfortable reading experience), e-ink screens do not perform well for applications that use a lot of on-screen movement. This includes things like video, animations, and even scrolling down a webpage.
Over time, various improvements were made to e-ink screens to make it possible to use applications that had some on-screen movement (such as A2 refresh modes, that redraw the screen more quickly). However, whilst this was now possible, it really wasn’t all that comfortable. It suffered from poor quality, lots of flashes/flickering as the screen refreshed, and ghosting (faint outlines of previous screens left over in the background).
In 2022, Boox introduced their BSR technology for some of the models in their product range. This combined a dedicated GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) with proprietary software to allow fast refresh rates on e-ink screens. Bigme followed a year later with their xRapid technology.
Advantages of Fast Refresh Rates
The main advantage of fast refresh rates is that actions like scrolling on an e-ink screen are much smoother and slicker.
This opens up a lot more potential applications for e-ink screens. Many third-party apps that were previously unusable on e-ink screens could now be installed and used.
People were now using their e-ink tablet for applications beyond reading and note-taking, such as email, web browsing, document editing, and even video streaming.
Disadvantages of Fast Refresh Rates
Although fast refresh rates open up more possibilities with regards to what an e-ink screen can be used for, performance is still not as good as you would experience on a conventional screen.
I cannot over-emphasize this enough. Yes, you can browse the web fairly comfortably, but there are still random flashes as the screen refreshes. You can type in a Word Processor, but there is still a little lag (milliseconds, bit noticeable) between hitting a key and the character appearing on screen. And whilst it is possible to watch video, the experience is not that great due to lower quality and ghosting.
In addition, this technology is a huge power drain (which was historically one of e-ink’s strengths). Whereas, you might get about a week of battery life from an e-ink screen without BSR/xRapid, this dwindles down to a day or two for those that do have it.
Verdict
Do not assume that BSR and xRapid turns an e-ink tablet into something comparable to a conventional tablet, such as a Samsung or iPad. This simply isn’t the case.
Whilst these fast refresh technologies are great in that they allow you to use your e-ink tablet as a multi-purpose device, the core use case should still be for reading and note-taking. If these are not your primary use cases, then e-ink is probably not for you because most third-party apps are inferior in performance, quality, and speed when compared to conventional screens. And the power consumption benefit of e-ink tablets is negated with BSR/xRapid.
In the world of e-ink tablets, those that have fast refresh technologies are much more capable and versatile, and have better performance. But when compared to conventional screens, the performance are inferior.
