E Ink's Kaleido 4 debuts in a Hanvon note-taking tablet sold only in China

The first people to hold a Kaleido 4 screen will be writing on it. The debut device, Hanvon's M10C II, is a note-taking tablet with a battery-free pen and a micro-etched tempered-glass surface meant to cut glare and feel like paper ^[6]. The Hanvon product, which the blog spells "Hanwon", has no release date yet, according to The eBook Reader blog ^[8]. Its first buyers are note-takers in one market, so it says little about how the panel will look on a Kobo or a Boox.

Color is the pitch, but two of the headline gains apply to every page. White reflectance rises 15 percent, and contrast rises with it ^[3]. Kaleido 3's color filter leaves plain text looking darker than on a black-and-white E Ink screen ^[11], and The Verge says the new figures mean plain text will "potentially look less muddy" ^[3]. For a reader who mostly opens text, we think those two numbers matter more than the gamut claim.

Amazon is the open question. Its press release for the new Kindles says the Colorsoft has "a completely redesigned display" with "higher contrast on both color and black-and-white content" ^[14]. The blog says the product page for the new Colorsoft makes no claim of an improved color display and talks up a thinner, lighter body instead ^[15]. Its author concludes the new model is most likely not using Kaleido 4 ^[17]. That is an inference. The Verge describes the Kindle Colorsoft screen as a customized version of Kaleido 3 ^[9].

The reflectance and contrast figures appear on the marketing slides the blog saw, and The Verge repeats them as E Ink's claims ^[7]. Neither source reports an independent measurement. Timing is the other limit. The blog says it usually takes companies a year or two to move to a new screen, and some keep selling the old one ^[18].

In our view the assignment's premise holds for text and is weaker for color images. A next-round device should look better on a page of text if the reflectance and contrast figures survive a side-by-side test, and the palette, still capped at 4,096 colors, limits what color pages can gain ^[12]. The next round is also not close for the big names, since Amazon and Kobo have announced nothing with Kaleido 4 ^[5].

A buyer can sort the decision with two questions: whether the device mostly shows text or color pages, and whether the purchase can wait for a model with a ship date. Text-first and able to wait: hold out, and accept that the wait has no date. Text-first and not able to wait: a Kaleido 3 device works, and the cost is darker text ^[11]. Color-first and able to wait: waiting buys a larger gamut but the same 4,096 colors, so the gain is smaller than the headline ^[2][12]. Color-first and not able to wait: buy now.