Bigme inkNote Color+ promises first 10.3-inch Kaleido 3 color E Ink display

E-readers have been around for almost two decades at this point, and while the traditional monochrome tablets have gained quite a bit of popularity (thanks to devices like Amazon's Kindle), color E Ink displays have so far failed to catch on with the wider market. This is likely due to the poor color saturation of color E Ink panels; often, they look washed out. However, a new E Ink tablet from Bigme may be the push color E Ink needs for wider consumer acceptance.

The Bigme inkNote Color+ is an upgrade to the company's inkNote Color released last year. However, the Color+ will come with a Kaleido 3 color E Ink display. Bigme claims this will make the Color+ the first 10.3-inch Android tablet with a Kaleido 3 screen.

Kaleido 3 isn't new. It was released midway through 2022, but has so far been relegated to smaller screens and e-readers. Kaleido 3 offers deeper color saturation than the previous generation Kaleido color displays. Additionally, Kaleido 3 manages to produce 4,096 colors at 150 PPI, a 50% increase in pixel density.

As far as the the inkNote Color+, it's not much different than last year's model. The tablet has  a 10.3-inch Kaleido 3 E Ink display that supports 1860 x 2480 (300 PPI) using greyscale and half that (930 x 1240, 150 PPI) when displaying color.

The tablet is powered by a MediaTek Helio P35 SoC with PowerVR GE8320 graphics. It features 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage (with support for 128 GB microSD cards). It also has standard fare for an Android tablet: 8 MP rear camera, 5 MP front camera, a fingerprint sensor in the power button, stereo speakers, Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band WiFi, and a modified version of Android 11. Charging and data is handled via a USB-C 2.0 port, and the tablet supports 4G LTE SIM cards. 

The inkNote Color+ is slated to go on sale in China later for CNY ¥5499 (roughly USD $790), so it's not cheap for an E Ink tablet. Like other Chinese e-readers, it will likely be sold globally, although Bigme has yet to confirm this.

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