Hands-On with Pixel Qi’s Power Efficient Netbook Screen

We have long been fans of the screen technology in One Laptop per Child’s (OLPC) XO laptop and now PixelQi is aiming to bring it to consumer electronic devices, including netbooks. The company, started by former OLPC employee Mary Lou Jepsen, has started producing the very power efficient screens and we got a chance to see one that has been hacked into a 10-inch Aspire One today in Taipei.

PixelQi’s high resolution display is readable outdoors and in, and is similar to eInk displays found in eBooks like the Kindle. However, these screens allow for faster refresh rates, and fully saturated color. Even better, because they pull less power and you can turn the backlight off, they use half to a quarter less of the power of a regular LCD screen.

The Aspire One that we got a chance to look at had a button on its right edge for turning on and off the backlight. With the backlight on, the screen had decent coloring, was incredibly crisp, and legible in the sunny room where we were sitting. There is absolutely no glare to the screen. When you turn the backlight off the screen doesn’t only dim but loses its color. Even with the backlight off the content on screen was very clear and vivid. There was very little delay when trying to move through Windows XP’s menus on the Aspire one.

Check out our video below of the Pixel Qi screen on the Acer Aspire one in action. According to the company, they expect the outdoor readable displays to be ready in 2009.