Review: Bigme B13 - World's first colour ePaper display

The Bigme B13 is the world's first 13.3-inch colour ePaper desktop touchscreen monitor. The price at the time of review is USD 699.

By the way, in this review when I talk about e-ink, I'm referring to general e-ink tech. And when I talk about ePaper, I'm referring to the Bigme display since it's the marketing term they use.

This is an interesting product because while there are many colour e-ink tablets around, but e-ink desktop monitors are rare. The only other two e-ink desktop monitors I know are the USD 1499 Bigme B251 and the USD 1748 Dasung 25.3-inch.

The main selling point of an e-ink display is easier on the eyes for reading. The compromise are colour quality, latency or refresh rate. The use case for an e-ink display is very niche. People who buy such monitors need it, not because they want it. And they also need to use the display with a computer, because otherwise they would have bought a portable colour e-ink tablet instead.

Specifications

• Display Size: 13.3 inches
• Resolution: 3200 × 2400 pixels (3K Ultra HD)
• Touchscreen: Yes (USB connection needed)
• Display Technology: Kaleido 3 color e-paper
• Pixel Density: 300 PPI (black & white), 150 PPI (color)
• Aspect Ratio: 4:3
• Refresh Rate: 30 Hz
• Ports: 2 × USB Type-C, mini HDMI
• Wireless Casting: AirPlay, Miracast, DLNA
• Speakers: Built-in stereo speakers
• Material: Aluminum alloy frame
• Weight: 660 grams
• Dimensions: 290 × 233 × 6 mm (at thinnest point)
• Orientation Support: Portrait and landscape modes
• Screen Modes: Same-screen and split-screen functionality
• Compatibility: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS

Things included

• Display
• 33W USB-C charger
• Mini HDMI to full-size HDMI cable
• USB-C to USB-C video cable
• 3.5mm wired earphones
• Remote control
• Flip case (not shown in photo)
• User guide

The included remote control uses two AAA batteries. The remote control can be used to change the display settings and is certainly easier to use compared to onboard OSD menu (double click power button).

If you have no control over the light source in your room, e.g. light is determined by the weather outside your window, the remote control will be needed often.

Design

Design of the monitor looks like a huge e-reader mostly because of the choice of white instead of black bezels.

The bezels are quite thin except for the bottom which is thicker. Corners are rounded off slightly. There's a tiny hole by the bottom left that reads signal from the shortcut remote.

The first thing that got my attention is the 4:3 aspect ratio compared to the more common 16:9 or 16:10. 4:3 is the better aspect ratio for smaller displays because given the fixed width, you get more vertical space to show content. On larger displays, you'll naturally have more space to show content so wide aspect ratio is still alright.

The display isn't too thick, just 6mm at the thinnest section and 1cm at the thickest. The power button, two USB-C video and mini HDMI ports are located by the right side.

The matte textured silver-coloured aluminium alloy back does not attract fingerprints thankfully. Weight of the display is just 660g.

This is how the display looks with the included flip case. There are three horizontal grooves on the flip case cover to deploy the display at different angles. There's no way to secure the display in the grooves so a small knock may hit the display out of position.

If you plan to use it as a monitor, just get a tablet stand to elevate the tablet to a more ergonomic height.

The display is matte textured and anti-glare works well enough but is a bit more glaring compare to others that can diffuse light more effectively.

Connection

You can use either USB-C or mini HDMI for video connection. Regardless of which video connection used, a power cable has to be connected to the display.

To use the touchscreen features, a USB connection is needed. If you use USB-C video connection, touchscreen will work. If you use HDMI connection, you'll have to connect a USB data cable to the monitor for touchscreen to work. So that's three cables total for HDMI (HDMI + USB data + power).

Touchscreen doesn't really work

The display also supports wireless casting with iOS and Android devices. I did not test this though.

Display

The display is a Kaleido 3 ePaper display with 3200 x 2400 resolution, 4:3 aspect ratio and 30Hz refresh rate.

Upon powering up, the first thing I noticed is the limited colour support. Kaleido 3 can can only display up to 4096 colours. Due to the the limited number colours, photos or artworks won't look as good on this display.

Sharpness is 150 PPI for colour and 300 PPI for grayscale. Pixelation is not noticeable.

When you look close, the grain of the ePaper panel can be seen, but the grain is not noticeable from one arm distance away.

Wallpapers with more simple backgrounds would look better than photographs.

Another limitation of the ePaper is contrast is affected by the dark display panel. You'll have to enable the front light to get better contrast, even on the brightest of days. There is cool and warm light for adjustment, 16 levels for each.

Max cool light.

Max warm light.

Max both lights.

When adjusting the cool light, I noticed there's a slight magenta cast at lower brightness which becomes less obvious as brightness increases. The warm light looks really warm, orange.

All e-ink displays will have image retention. How much of image retention retention you see, and how long the image retention remains on the display will depend on which display mode you use, namely Video, Web, Text, Image.

Image mode will provide more details with smoother gradients, colour transition and less visual quality degradation. However you will have to sacrifice latency as animation will appear more choppy, and there may be occasional flickering in certain areas. Image mode is not really usable with the flickering.

Text and web modes are more responsive and better for daily or general purpose use. These two modes look quite similar with minor differences. You can choose whichever looks better. Limitation here is the number of colours that can display are limited, and there is grain in certain colours, and watching videos will be more choppy.

Text quality looks quite similar on Text and Web mode.

Video mode is most responsive and has least latency, less image retention when watching videos, and surprisingly can display more colours than Text and Web mode. Downsides are all colours are less saturated and there's grain.

Colour wheel comparison

You can click on the images below for a larger view.

This is how the ePaper looks without front lighting. The cool colour cast is quite obvious.

Image mode has more saturated colours. The pale colours in the inner circle can still be seen.

Colour separation or differentiation isn't as clear compared to other modes. Here we see that mauve/pink, pink and red are almost grouped. The other group is mauve, violets and blue. Third group is yellow green, green, blue green.

This is Video mode. Colours are less saturated, look more grainy, but colour separation seems be better than Image mode.

The different levels of how light and saturated (from inner to outer circle) can also be seen more clearly.

This is Web mode.

This is Text mode.

Web and Text mode look quite similar. Colour separation seems to be better than Image mode. Difference in value (inner to outer circle) isn't as good as Video mode.

Web and Text mode also have some stray colours appearing in other columns, and you can see similar colour appear in different columns.

So interestingly, Video mode actually has the best colour quality, but there's still grain which is not a big deal unless you look close.

Conclusion

E-ink displays are easier to look at compared to LCD especially for long periods of time.

With e-ink, you're looking at reflected light which isn't as glaring compared to LCD where you're looking at light. I personally have no issues working for hours looking at LCD displays, but there are people with more sensitive eyes who may be affected by the glare or light.

This display is probably good for people who read often and for long periods of time. It could be reading books, news, or code while programming. And you'll want to use your computer because otherwise you could have bought a colour e-ink tablet which is portable and more convenient.

The display can be used to watch videos but video watching experience is not ideal. Audio quality from the speakers is actually decent and don't sound too hollow. So the speakers are quite usable.

The main downside of the Bigme B13 is the lack of contrast. Having colour is nice but not really necessary. Black and white e-ink displays with lighter background have noticeably better contrast than colour e-ink displays. A good black and white e-ink display can still look great, and even converted coloured images can look great.

So this is where we are at now with the latest tech for e-ink or ePaper. Hopefully there will be more improvement in the future for the visual quality.

One last thing is this display runs hotter than I expected. The area around the ports can be quite hot to touch. Hopefully that won't affect the longevity of the display.

Pros and cons
+ World's first 13.3-inch colour ePaper display
+ Build quality feels good
+ Flip case is included
+ Good sharpness
+ 4:3 aspect ratio is more usable for smaller displays
+ There's touchscreen, but works only with Windows
+ Remote control is useful for quick adjustment
+ Matte textured surface has good anti-glare
+ Good for reading for extended period
+ Speakers actually sound alright
- Display background is darker than BW displays
- Black is not dark enough due to lack of contrast
- Display can get hot
- Single USB-C cable connection not possible
- Magenta colour cast at low cool light brightness

Availability

The Bigme B13 is available from Bigme online store.