Hi, what's the maker/model of the LCD panel in the efika mx smartbook? has anyone tried to replace with pixel qi's 10.1" panel?

if it's compatible, can you (genesi) consider selling it optionality with a pixel qi panel? a netbook^Wsmartbook this portable needs to be sun friendly ;-)

Thanks in advance

In fact there is interest in the pixel Qi LCD even from people that read my blog, they want to know when the smartbook will have this option.

Thanks

Roberto

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http://deliriotecnologico.blogspot.com

It's an AUO B101AW02, 1024x600, 16-bit LVDS connection.

It's connected to an MTL017 LVDS controller, which while in some versions supports a 24bpp input bus and 16bpp dithered output over LVDS for high quality display.. unfortunately had to be connected 16-bit, so unless you like terrible display banding and no way to work around it, you're stuck in a 16bpp display.

Since the MX53 comes with an internal LVDS bridge we will no longer have to deal with "cost reducing" impacting this on the next product revision, which is a jump for joy for everyone involved :)

The PixelQi panel works, but you will need a longer cable to connect the panel. We have several test units with the panel installed, and it has been at CES and several other shows (Mobile World Congress etc.) with Freescale. Those cables are hard to come by..

The real problem with PixelQi is cost: it does cost a little bit more than a standard panel. There are also some complaints about colours being washed out even with good ambient or backlight.. but these are things you trade off for the extremely low power "monochrome" ereader mode and being able to use it even with the sun over your shoulder.

It remains to be seen just exactly how much user demand there is outside of the "DIY Netbook Upgrade" market, but we do see interest, and we ourselves are also very interested in the product. We will see! But not for the current MX51 Efika Smartbook.

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Matt Sealey

thanks a lot of the info!

btw, would you sell one of those test units? ;-)

Hi, there is an embedded YouTube video (second video)from Freescale at CES:

http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-ye ... -more.html

Here are a few pictures from the Pixel Qi Booth at CES:

http://flic.kr/p/98dGnE

http://flic.kr/p/98dGny

Please email us for more details.

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

awesome!
done ;-)

thanks a lot for your replies neko & bbrv

good stuff there (http://deliriotecnologico.blogspot.com/), it seems I'll subscribe to your feed.

that comparison between arm and x86 tablets made my day :D thanks!

This sounds really interesting to me.

Pixel Qi claims that its displays uses 5 times less power than conventional LCD displays - I've read 1.5W. Do you have any numbers on the battery life of a Efika MX Smartbook using a Pixel Qi display?

I've read that the display is what consumes the most power in these PCs, so, naturally, I'm having wet dreams about a 24-hour battery-life netbook.

Longer.

If it's averaging 6 hours with the current panel then it's about 8 and pushing 9 with the PixelQi operating in transflective mode.

The irony of the PixelQi panel is that the backlight and panel itself uses more power than the AUO panel we ship: outside of turning the backlight off (which implies a brightly-lit environment) you actually see marginally lower battery life. Coupled with the much higher price of the PixelQi, it remains to be seen if we will actually go ahead and use it.

At some point there will be some official figures and graphs on the blog for the current model, I don't know if we will be making the same power benchmarks available for the PixelQi panel if we aren't going to ship it.

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Matt Sealey

I see. So if it'll get 8-9 hours in transflective mode, what will it get in reflective mode do you think?

By the way, how much power does the Smartbook use, in total? It must be very little if a 1.5W display doesn't decrease the battery life significantly.

Looking forward to the graphs!

With the backlight on full? Less than with the AUO panel.

With the backlight on 25%? Less than with the AUO but with better readability.

With the backlight barely on at all, less than with the AUO but with the AUO it would basically be impossible to view, PixelQi would still be readable.

There is no "reflective or transflective" mode on PixelQi, just where it gets the light from. If you're in bright sunlight you get a almost-greyscale display with greatly reduced power consumption. If you're using the backlight it is not quite as good as the AUO. That's what we got from testing.
For PixelQi: 1.5W for the display, around 2.1W for the backlight, the Smartbook draws about 3.5W give or take. With the AUO, 1.5W for the display, around 2W for the backlight.

The sole benefit is you can turn the backlight off and still use it. At the same intensity of backlight the AUO panel and backlight is more power efficient and costs 25%-50% less.

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Matt Sealey

Interesting figures! I read a comment somewhere that it is always the display on these type of low-power devices (Netbooks, phones) that draws the vast majority of power. I guess you proved that wrong.

When I wrote "transflective mode" I was referring to the state where the Pixel Qi's backlight is turned off completely, so the backlight is using no power. But reading more closely the article from where I got the term (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/ ... i-display/) I can see that I've used it wrongly.

With the figures you give, given that the Smartbook lasts around 6 hours using the normal LED LCD display with the backlight on full, the Smartbook with a Pixel Qi display with the backlight turned off completely would last 40% longer (7W/5W = 140%), which would be ~8.5 hours. This was the figure I was after. But I see that was the figure you mentioned in your previous reply wrt. "transflective mode". I just mixed up the terms. Of course, this would require that one would be sitting outside all day.

Thanks for clarifying. This does make the Pixel Qi option less interesting to me, the price taken into account as well.

That's a very interesting information for me. It sounds pretty curious. I will definetly try it out soon.