No, That's Not Really Paper: Acer Tips Touch-Screen Color ePaper Monitor

Combining paper-like visuals with glare-free use, the Acer EP130K ePaper monitor , announced today at IFA, is designed for professionals who perform deep work for long periods, avid readers, and mobile users whose work takes them outdoors.

The EP130K supports touch directly on its ePaper screen, enabling stylus use as well as the intuitive feel of writing or drawing with a finger. Its 13.3-inch matte screen provides a resolution of up to 3,200 by 2,400 pixels in black-and-white mode and up to 1,600 by 1,200 pixels in color; it can render up to 4,096 colors. The screen supports wide viewing angles of up to 178 degrees, vertically and horizontally.

The monitor's bi-stability functionality allows the image on screen to remain in place even when all power sources are removed. Supported connectivity includes mini HDMI and USB-C; it draws power from its host computer over a USB-C cable. The EP130K includes a built-in pair of 1-watt speakers. The device also has an audio-out jack, should you prefer to use it with headphones or powered external speakers. Acer has integrated a tiltable kickstand into the product's design.

EPaper is a display technology—best known from the E Ink brand commercialized by E Ink Corporation and widely used in ereaders such as the Amazon Kindle —that supports ultra-high pixel densities, reflects ambient light, remains readable in bright sunlight, and greatly conserves battery life. A commonly cited drawback of ePaper devices is that screens that use it tend to be very slow to refresh—some take well over a second—impairing, if not scuttling, their ability to render video and animations, but the screen that the EP130K uses has a full 60Hz refresh rate typical of desktop displays.

EPaper is also used in some tablets, including those made by companies like Onyx and ReMarkable , but due to its cost, it has been largely limited to smaller-screen devices. There are, however, hopeful signs that mainstream monitor manufacturers are beginning to embrace this technology. At Computex in June, Asus announced its own 13.3-inch ePaper monitor, the ZenScreen Color ePaper MP13UC , which has yet to come to market. Unlike the EP130K, though, its refresh rate is only 35Hz.

Pricing and availability info for the EP130K have not yet been announced.

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