Transcription

What's up, Josh here. So last week I put out a video about this guy right here, the Daylight DC1. This is a 60 Hertz e-paper tablet, which uses a technology called Live Paper, which as we found out is not e-ink, but is actually a form of transflective LCD. And a lot has actually happened since then. So right after I uploaded that video, I get a call from the Daylight team saying, hey, we actually sent you home with the wrong unit. So you actually got an EBT, which is an Engineering Validation Test Unit. And so the one I got is not this one. The one I got is right here. This is a unit from October of 2023. And this one that they gave me right afterwards is a unit from May of 2024. And so basically they said, hey, we gave you the wrong unit. And so you've been testing the wrong one for two weeks. This new one has slightly tweaked hardware, slightly tweaked software, and while I was listening to this, I was like, oh my God, so frustrating, right? Because you spend two weeks testing your products, filming it, editing it, researching it, and turns out it's not the most up-to-date one. And as a reviewer, I try to be the most informative, the most helpful. And when you get something that is just not what it's supposed to be, and you spend two weeks of your time researching and filming and all that stuff, it's frustrating. So yeah, they got me the new one. Thankfully, it's not that different from the other one that I had. Okay, so I've got both of these. And as you can see, the differences aren't huge. This new one has this more gray bezel, whereas this one has a more white one. Also this fake selfie cam cutout is gone. As far as the displays go, this old one is a little bit more reflective, less matte, whereas this new one is slightly more matte. It also has this greenish, goldish tinge to it, which is interesting. And then as far as software goes with Spark, my email client, I showed that it was actually really laggy on this other one, which you can tell. This new one actually runs my email client quite smoothly. So Spark actually works as intended. But the good thing at the end of the day is that the core experience I had was still very much the same, which is why I didn't take down my old video. Now, also another thing that I noticed as a recurring theme in the comment section of my previous video is that people are a little bit confused with ePaper versus eInk. And some people actually had a problem with me calling this display ePaper in the title of that video, saying that it's not actually ePaper because they think that ePaper and eInk are synonymous. But I'd like to say that eInk and ePaper are actually not the same. So in case you didn't know, eInk is actually just a company that makes a type of ePaper display. ePaper, on the other hand, simply refers to the broad umbrella of displays that mimic paper electronically. So typically these types of displays are non-emissive, which means that they don't actually emit light, but instead they reflect light, like this transflective LCD display, when the backlight is off. And I understand that this is a big misconception that needs to be corrected. So I will be submitting my correction to Wikipedia, which currently says that ePaper and eInk are the same, but they aren't. So yeah, now you can mansplain eInk to all of your friends and anybody who tells you that they're the same. But the main subject of this video is not to explain to you what eInk and ePaper are, but rather to dive deeper into the Daylight DC1, show you some examples of how it looks outdoors, in my living room, and in other scenarios that are not this studio. Hopefully this video gives you a broader idea of what you can actually do with this device and what it's like compared to actual eInk. Make sure you get subscribed if you aren't already, and let's get out of the studio. Okay, so welcome to my living room. This is somewhere where you might be using one of these devices if you were at home. I've got the Remarkable 2 on the right. This uses eInk's Carta display. And then on the left, we've got the Daylight DC1, which uses Daylight's own live paper display, which is a transflective LCD. So right off the bat, just moving these around, you can see there are some differences, right? This one has more of a white look, and this one has a more gold, greenish tinge to it. But like looking at these side by side with this big window behind me, they look pretty similar. But one thing I wanna point to is that because of the polarizer on the front, the viewing angles is one thing that you'll notice. So with this one, true eInk, if I turn it side to side, really doesn't change. But with the Daylight, you'll see, because of that polarizer, the viewing angles are not as good. Now, this doesn't really affect the day-to-day use of the Daylight because most of the time you're gonna be using it like this. But when you have it on a table and it's just sitting there, the difference is pretty massive. Now, by the way, one thing I wanna explain real quickly is what does a transflective LCD even mean? So a transflective display combines two words, transmissive and reflective, transflective. So a transmissive display is, let's say, an LCD TV. It's actually transmitting light with the backlight behind it, and that's how you're able to see the LCD display that's in front of it. So that's a transmissive display. A reflective display is something like a Kindle. This is reflecting light all around it, and that's how you're able to see. A transflective display combines both of those properties. You actually have a backlight, which you can turn on, and when it's off, it also reflects the light around it. And this is important because the physics behind how it all works sort of clues us in as to why this device looks the way it does. So behind the polarizers and the LCD layer, there is a metallic reflector that is reflecting light all around you. And then even behind that is the backlight. And so the challenge here is with that reflector layer that is blocking the backlight, you have to make it semi-transparent for that backlight to shine through. But at the same time, if you make it too transparent, then it's not gonna reflect as much light. So it's a balancing act. It's also what kind of material you're using for that back reflector. There's a lot of time and research, I'm sure, that went into this to get a result that looks this good. But yeah, that is essentially what a transflective display is. Now, the main advantage of the Daylight is obviously the fast refresh rate and the fact that it runs Android. So we get 60 Hertz on the Daylight, and there's no ghosting, no lag. And so one classic example is zooming into a drawing. So on the Daylight, I can pretty easily zoom in and I can draw something. Here's what zooming looks like on the Remarkable. So, you know, it's laggy, move around, but it's just painfully slow. And there's a lot of ghosting going on. And so you can see all these little outlines here. And of course, when it refreshes, it goes away. But yeah, if you're coming from an E Ink tablet, going to this just feels night and day. Also, the other big advantage is that it runs Android. So you can download a whole bunch of apps. This one currently is running a custom launcher called Niagara. But in the future, Daylight does plan to release a custom operating system called Sol OS. And one thing that probably everybody getting this is gonna download is the Kindle app, which means you instantly have access to your entire Kindle library. Now, I mentioned this in my original video that it doesn't come with any first party keyboard case or anything like that, but you can DIY your own solution. So this is like an origami case from Amazon. It's like 20 bucks with an Apple Magic keyboard. You can Bluetooth it to the device. And now you can type, this is the Daylight PC1. So like you can make it work. It's just for a $729 device. I would expect it to have some sort of support, especially because it is running Android. It has a smooth display. So why wouldn't it come with a keyboard? Also, let's talk about battery life because the amazing thing about e-ink displays is their bi-stable property. The fact that they can leave an image on the screen and not consume any battery. I'll throw some figures on the screen right now that the Daylight team sent over to me on email. So 67 hours of reading without backlight. And then as you turn the backlight on brighter and brighter, your battery life will go down. So if you have the backlight running on full blast, it might drain to like eight to 10 hours, which is in line with basically an iPad. So this right here is I'd say a good representation of if you were using your devices at night in like a dim room, you can see that e-ink does reflect more light, right? It's kind of hard to see what's going on with the Daylight, but the nice thing with the Daylight is, of course it has a backlight. Now the Remarkable doesn't have a backlight or a front light, which is what typically e-ink devices will use, but it's not hard to find an e-ink device with a front light. This one just doesn't have it. But yeah, the cool thing with the Daylight is it has this amber backlight. So this is the white, and you can slide it all the way to amber or somewhere in between. The amber backlight doesn't have any blue light. So theoretically it should disrupt your sleep less if you're using it at night. So now both of these devices are out in sunlight. And as you can see, here's how the Daylight looks. It's still got that greenish, warmish hue to it. Whereas the e-ink display looks nice and white. As you can see with e-ink, it looks pretty good from all angles. This one, again, some issues with the viewing angles and the polarization of the screen. Now I also brought the iPad out because I just wanted to show you guys how an emissive display like LED, light emitting diode, is actively fighting the sunlight. This one, you're gonna burn through battery. The display's already cranked up to full brightness and it is barely usable. I think in a few minutes, the iPad's gonna get too hot and it's gonna tone down that brightness. Now here's a look at a more shaded area. The light is a little bit more diffused and a little bit more even. And if we tilt the Daylight, it's less prone to those effects with the polarizer. And of course, when you're in the shade, the iPad is gonna be just fine. Then here's how the e-ink display looks compared to the Daylight. Now here we are in my kitchen with a big window with blinds over there. Here they are side by side. And I mean, this one just looks more natural, right? Like if you were to ask me which one was easier on the eyes, like I would say this one for sure. Because this one, you sort of do have to strain your eyes in certain viewing conditions to make out what's on screen. Whereas this one, it's just so easy. I think with tech, it's all about compromises, right? Because with this one, you are compromising on functionality. And then with this one, you're sort of compromising on the e-ink qualities, like viewing angles and reflectance. But yeah, I mean, I hope this comparison is helpful for those of you guys who are actually genuinely interested in the tech, but let's hop back over to the studio. Okay, so we're back in the studio and you've seen how these two displays compare to each other. But now I wanna walk you through everything that I've been using the Daylight DC1 for and sort of my day-to-day experience actually using the device. Now, since I don't read all that much, what I have been using this for is as a supercharged notebook. Here are some notes about this video and some pros and cons. This one is for meal planning. So I will write down some of the ingredients that I have in my fridge so I don't forget about them. And I can sort of just tick them off when I use them. And the really nice thing with having an actually responsive display is you can just do things way easier. So let's say I needed to make space for another item. I can move that stuff down as you just saw and write something here. And then over here, I have my thumbnail ideas. So I basically made this template of these squares where I can draw some ideas. Now, in my original video, I mentioned that doing typing-related tasks or just the stuff that I personally like to do every day, which is Notion and Spark, are not very easy on a device like this that doesn't support first-party accessories like a keyboard case with a cursor. And so really, I haven't really been using this device as like a primary device. I've mainly been doing all my work on a laptop and then having this on the side for like jotting down notes or if I just wanna lounge on the couch and do some reading or doodle or plan out my week, that's sort of how I've been using this device. But that's not to say that if you're somebody who works in mostly document-based apps like Google Docs or if you need to read PDFs or annotate stuff, that you couldn't use this as a primary device. I think you definitely could. It's just that for my workflow, this doesn't really suit me. Now, I do wanna end on this note. So these days, I think it's easy to bash on tech products for releasing half-baked products that don't really need to exist. We've seen a couple of these over the past few months. These are genuinely bad products that either don't work as intended or weren't fully thought out. But I don't think Daylight is one of these companies. I think ePaper has largely been overlooked and it's looked the same over the past decade. And so I am kind of glad that there is actually some competition because competition is what drives innovation. Now, yes, the price as it is now is more than most can afford, especially for a product that most people don't need. But that's just sort of how it is if you're entering the game as a newcomer, buying in limited quantities. You don't get the benefit of being able to order millions of these, but instead, you're probably ordering a couple of thousand, maybe 10,000 units. So there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of things that you need to consider with a company like Daylight. The fact that they're making their own display, that they aren't just buying an off-the-shelf display, and also they can't purchase in huge quantities just sort of makes this first-gen product like a proof of concept and it has to be the price that it has to be. But yeah, I'd say the biggest hurdles that Daylight needs to solve right now for at least the Gen 2 product is, of course, the price. And then the hardware, it's not really comparable to like a Books, which actually feels premium. And then the third thing is accessories. They need to figure out some way to make a first-party keyboard with a cursor to really take full advantage of that display. Yeah, that is all I'm gonna say about the Daylight. I'm sure there's probably even more questions that I didn't cover. So if I missed anything, leave it down below, but subscribe if you aren't already. This POV thing is pretty interesting. But yeah, I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.