A few weeks with the Daylight DC-1 tablet: rethinking screen time

There’s a large portion of insubstantial successful the San Francisco offices of Daylight Computer, with a database written successful purple ink of each the kinds of devices the institution hopes to 1 time make. The database is long: Daylight wants to marque a phone, a laptop, antithetic kinds of tablets. Basically thing you tin deliberation of with a screen, Daylight wants to marque it with a better, antithetic screen, 1 that doesn’t blare brightly into your eyes successful a acheronian country but alternatively looks similar insubstantial and works conscionable good outdoors.

I should notation different large portion of insubstantial close adjacent to the 1 with merchandise ideas — an arsenic agelong database of reasons Daylight mightiness fail. And arsenic CEO Anjan Katta shows maine astir the office, the remainder of the squad is preparing for a motorboat enactment for its archetypal device, a tablet called the DC-1, it’s wide he’s disquieted astir however the satellite volition respond to his large thought astir the future.

Daylight wants to beryllium much of a manner marque than a gadget maker. In caller months, Katta has been connected a circuit of podcasts and YouTube channels preaching the high-minded gospel of minimalist gadgets, arguing that bluish airy vulnerability is sidesplitting our slumber and that we request devices that incentivize america to usage them little and much deliberately alternatively than luring america successful with agleam lights and notifications. Instead of modeling themselves disconnected of purveyors of precocious tech similar Apple oregon Samsung, Katta and Daylight look to idolize companies similar Patagonia, which some made bully things and stands for something. And I accidental if Patagonia tin merchantability vests to VCs, Daylight tin merchantability tablets to tech enthusiasts.

The DC-1 costs $729, which is simply a batch for an Android tablet, and it’s particularly a batch for a tablet that feels precise overmuch similar a company’s archetypal product. It’s thick, it’s heavy, it’s powered by aged chips. I similar the speckled backmost and the clicky buttons, but I can’t halt noticing the precise somewhat misaligned ports oregon the information that I tin descent my fingernail betwixt the show and the lawsuit and virtually pry the happening apart. I’ve had nary existent hardware issues utilizing the tablet truthful far, but the deficiency of manufacturing polish feels similar a archetypal try. 

Katta tells maine that the DC-1 isn’t yet finished, particularly the software. The instrumentality is meant to tally bundle called Sol:OS, a customized mentation of Android meant to assistance you support things minimal and quiet. Right now, my trial exemplary is moving a lightly customized mentation of the fashionable Niagara Launcher, and astatine 1 point, erstwhile I mill reset the device, it mislaid a batch of the features the squad had loaded connected for maine to test. All of that is to accidental this instrumentality isn’t acceptable for a afloat reappraisal — we’ll get to that erstwhile it launches Sol:OS for real, which Katta tells maine should beryllium this fall.

For now, I mostly conscionable privation to speech astir the screen. The DC-1 has a 10.5-inch screen, and Daylight calls it a “Live Paper” display. Just to beryllium clear: Live Paper is not E Ink. E Ink is the tech you find successful a Kindle and astir different e-readers and uses existent ink. That means it looks truly bully successful the sunlight and lone uses powerfulness erstwhile it’s moving the ink around. (Technically E Ink is simply a marque and “electronic paper” is the technology, but everyone uses them interchangeably. E Ink is Kleenex.) Live Paper is really designed to lick immoderate of the weaknesses of E Ink — particularly its dilatory refresh complaint and the ghosting that leaves faint impressions of worldly connected the surface for excessively long. 

What Live Paper really is, Katta tells me, is an adaptation of a reflective LCD show tech that has been astir for a agelong time. Reflective LCDs are LCD displays without a backlight; they usage a reflector astatine the bottommost of the stack to bespeak earthy airy backmost done the pixels. That makes them large and comfy to usage successful agleam light, means they don’t usage overmuch power, and allows them to beryllium cheaper, thinner, and lighter. All bully things! But determination are conscionable arsenic galore downsides: RLCDs, arsenic they’re known, evidently conflict successful atrocious lighting. They’re besides hard to find successful color, astatine ample sizes, oregon astatine precocious resolutions.

There are immoderate well-liked RLCD devices retired determination already. (The HannsNote2 is simply a favourite of the r/RLCD subreddit, and the HiSense Q5 got immoderate bully reviews a fewer years ago.) Katta says he’s spent the past 5 oregon truthful years trying to lick RLCD’s problems and amended connected the full system. He hasn’t solved each of them — the DC-1 doesn’t bash color, which Katta tells maine is technically imaginable but causes a clump of different compromises — but the Daylight squad has managed to marque a 10.5-inch reflective LCD that is astir arsenic casual connected the eyes arsenic E Ink and astir arsenic responsive arsenic a emblematic tablet screen.

I accidental “almost” due to the fact that it’s not each the mode determination successful either case. On the E Ink broadside of the spectrum, Live Paper has a small much glare, uses a batch much power, and has importantly worse viewing angles than my Kindle. The viewing angles are possibly E Ink’s astir evident vantage — you’re ever going to get glare connected an LCD, and portion the Live Paper is an improvement, it’s inactive not arsenic wide and crisp successful the sunshine arsenic an E Ink screen. E Ink feels similar paper; Live Paper feels similar a screen.

Meanwhile, compared to an iPad oregon smartphone, erstwhile you scroll rapidly successful an app, the DC-1 lags a spot (though not arsenic overmuch arsenic immoderate E Ink surface I’ve tried), and you get a spot of that wiggly “jelly scroll” that utilized to plague tons of devices. I besides spot a tiny spot of ghosting if I’m moving things astir quickly; Daylight says the Live Paper surface refreshes astatine 60 frames per second, but I decidedly announcement it stuttering sometimes.

Basically, the DC-1’s surface isn’t arsenic bully arsenic a Kindle successful perfect Kindle conditions oregon arsenic bully arsenic an iPad successful perfect iPad conditions. But there’s a lawsuit to beryllium made that Live Paper is really a jack of each trades successful conscionable the close way. It’s responsive and accelerated capable that I tin easy benignant connected the DC-1 oregon adjacent ticker a video (albeit successful achromatic and white). E Ink is often good successful a pinch, but you tin get overmuch much done smoothly connected the DC-1 than connected a Kindle oregon a Boox tablet. 

The DC-1 is besides overmuch easier to look astatine successful furniture oregon immoderate benignant of agleam airy than thing similar an iPad. Personally, I’d astir similar this show successful somewhat smaller signifier — I’m connected grounds for loving the Boox Palma arsenic a pocketable Android device, and I fishy I’d similar it adjacent amended with a Live Paper show — but if you’re the benignant to usage an iPad for reading, web browsing, and possibly journaling and crosswording, the DC-1 does it each truly well. It’s conscionable not a bully Netflix machine, you know?

As for the backlight, Daylight’s clever thought was to fto you power not lone the brightness but besides the somesthesia of the light. (You tin bash this connected tons of e-readers, too, by the mode — immoderate caller Kindle models have a “warm light” mode that I similar overmuch amended than the default light.) It tin spell from normal, daylight-blue airy to a deep, warm, amber glow, which is ostensibly amended for speechmaking astatine nighttime without screwing up your circadian bushed and sleep. The wide mentation is sound, but whether your telephone surface is capable airy to truly bash immense harm is harder to say. But adjacent from a comfortableness perspective, I truly similar it; I present work successful furniture with the airy beauteous debased and precise warm, and I don’t cognize if I slumber immoderate better, but it’s surely easier to look astatine successful the dark.

The cooler happening is that you tin crook the backlight each the mode off. At the lowest setting, the DC-1 emits nary airy astatine all. It relies wholly connected ambient airy to amusement you what’s connected the screen. (An RLCD with a backlight is sometimes besides called a “transflective LCD,” for immoderate that’s worth.) With nary airy on, though, the DC-1 looks precise dim and low-contrast adjacent successful agleam sunshine. I hardly ever crook the airy each the mode off.

Everything successful Daylight’s bureau feels arsenic frantic and caller arsenic the DC-1 does. There’s a feline outside, barefoot, putting tablets into tiny writer boxes to springiness to radical aboriginal successful the day. There’s a array filled with plush cases for the DC-1 and different with Patagonia slings for the aboriginal buyers. There’s outdoors-focused creation everywhere. This institution seems to cognize precisely what it’s about, but possibly not precisely what to bash astir it. After utilizing the tablet for a while, I’m skeptical astir the lawsuit for the DC-1 astatine $729, but I’m beauteous bullish connected what a lineup of Live Paper devices mightiness look like. Maybe the mediate crushed of iPad and Kindle tin beryllium aft all. In a satellite progressively mediated by screens, Daylight asks a amusive question: what if you conscionable changed the screen? I deliberation it mightiness alteration a batch much than that.