Remote-Url: https://www.pine64.org/2021/08/15/introducing-the-pinenote/
Retrieved-at: 2021-08-16 17:21:10.940720+00:00

With the base-specs out of the way, let’s talk about the e-ink panel, which is indisputably the most important part of the device. The 10.3 inch, 3:4 panel has a resolution of 1404×1872 (227 DPI), can display 16 levels of grayscale. It features a frontlight with cool (white) to warm (amber) light adjustment. What this means in practice is that you can illuminate the panel in dim or dark spaces to your liking. For those of you who don’t know, warm light is usually preferable in very dim spaces since it may significantly reduce eye-strain. I am also sure we’ll eventually see an automatic frontlight implementation, similar to KDE’s ‘Night Color’ or GNOME’s ‘Night Light’, which allow the OS to reduce the monitor’s (in this case the e-ink panels frontlight) blue light based on time of the day. Atop the e-ink panel sit a capacitive glass layer – for finger touch-based input – and a Wacom electromagnetic resonance layer (EMR) for EMR pen input. We will be selling a EMR pen for the PineNote, but in the event you don’t like it or already have a pen you’re accustomed to, then you can use it with the PineNote (granted it is compatible with theWacom EMR standard).Edit August 16 00:09 UTC: A previous version of this post listed the e-ink panel’s refresh rate at 60Hz. This number requires much more context. It takes multiple frames to display most images on an e-ink panel. The visual performance of the panel also depends on the method of converting the screen image to data the panel understands. We will be unable to make estimates of the panel’s true performance in frames per second without much more testing and development. So we’ve removed the 60Hz figure for now. We apologize for any misunderstanding.Wrapping up the hardware description section, the EMR pen (recommended by the vendor we’re working with) features a faint LED power on/off indicator, a previous/ next page button as well as an eraser button. I cannot say much more about the chosen pen at this time since I haven’t held it myself yet, but once I get some hands-on time with it I’ll be sure to share my initial impression. And while we can’t guarantee compatibility with any other pens on the market, we’re sure that people will test out their EMR pens and report back on the wiki so everyone can have a buyer’s guide.We will be making the PineNote available for early adopters later this year for $399. The early adopter’s PineNote batch will ship with a magnetic cover (working with an on-board hall sensor, putting the device to sleep) as well as the EMR pen. Following the early adopter’s batch, both the cover and the pen will be sold separately.