Good news everyone! Pixel Qi‘s 10.1 inch, outdoor readable display is officially not vaporware. You can buy a DIY kit today that will let you swap out your netbook’s current screen with a Pixel Qi display and the whole process is supposed to take just 5 to 10 minutes.

Now for the bad news… the DIY kit will set you back a whopping $275. You can pretty much buy a complete netbook for that price.

Clearly the kits are aimed at early adopters and enthusiasts at this point. But now that Pixel Qi has ramped up production, hopefully it won’t be too long before we start to see actual tablets and netbooks shipping with the screens preinstalled — hopefully without adding too much to the base price of those devices.

The Pixel Qi 3Qi display is a 10.1 inch screen that has been tested with the Samsung N130 and Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 netbooks. Although the screen will probably work in most other netbooks with 10.1 inch screens, the company is only guaranteeing that it will fit in those netbooks.

The main difference between a Pixel Qi screen and a typical LCD display is that Pixel Qi uses a unique LCD technology that lets you use the screen in two different modes. In full color mode, the backlight is on and the screen looks almost like any other LCD display. But if you cut the backlight, you’re left with a high contrast screen that looks almost, but not quite black and white. In this mode, the screen users 5 times less power and is easily readable outdoors in direct sunlight.

You can purchase the Pixel Qi display kit from Make Magazine’s Maker Shed.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,545 other subscribers

9 replies on “Pixel Qi display DIY upgrade kit now available”

  1. Anyone know how to take your old LCD and use it as an external monitor?

  2. OLEDs are super-pricey and a long way off.

    Does anyone know of a way to force the backlight off on command on an Acer AspireOne AOD-150? I am planning on making this upgrade. A MacOS-powered eBook reader sounds mighty fine to me.

  3. For the tech challenged, ‘5 to 15’ minutes could take longer and end up with a useless netbook. I think it might be easier to wait for netbooks with this screen already built in.

    I have been watching OLED (organic light emmitting display) since it does not require a back light; therefore, it uses less power. 🙂
    https://www.oled-display.net There is much improvments to OLED’s.

Comments are closed.