> The most recent one (the Carta 1300) has significantly improved contrast over the 2021 era panel, the Carta 1000. It's trivial to see that, and nobody looking at the most recent Kobo B&W would claim that it has less contrast than a 2021-era device.

Well, I have linked an article making such claim. But how much has Carta 1300 improved the contrast, exactly? eink has stopped publicizing the contrast ratio on the public specs, just the marking BS that says the contrast ratio is improved (over what?), so I'm fearing the worst. I bet you it's still 15:1 (as Carta was on 2013) on paper or rounding-error level close to that, which explains why most users would see contrast as becoming worse.

> The Remarkable 1 uses a custom co-developed version of the Canvas panel [...] has reduced the thickness of the touchscreen layers and other layers above the eink pane

This is marketing BS. No such thing as canvas panel. It's Carta.

Also, RM1 has no other layers. Stylus input is wacom (below substrate) and there is no frontlight. On RM color pro they made stylus input capacitive AND added frontlight which may arguably have increased touchscreen layer thickness, leading to the perceived reduction in contrast. But ironically enough even eInk spec says Gallery has lower contrast than Carta (around 1:12 for Gallery 3), so no comparison is needed there. Unsurprisingly, all reviews say contrast has taken a hit.

> you would be amazed at how much contrast even the 1st gen panels have

The early panels were utter crap. There's a reason you couldn't not even put glass on top of them and things like "infrared touchscreens" were a thing on ancient e-readers (google for them, if you're curious). The improvements since ancient panels have been significant -- they used to have contrast ratios worse than 8:1, and Pearl and Carta raised that to 15:1. However, it is still ridiculous compared to contrast in most other screen technologies (even memory LCD can reach 20:1 https://www1.futureelectronics.com/doc/SHARP/LS013B7DH03.pdf). And has it improved at all in the last decade?

Not blaming eInk: there is a physical limit to contrast for their tech.

> Both the AMOLED and the Solar Watch are separate SKUs with the display in the name. There is no "base" Fenix 8 anymore

If you google, or if you click on the product, you or if you choose the cheapest one, or if you walk to a physical store... you will be offered the AMOLED one. It used to be that you had to go out of your way to get the AMOLED line. Now it's all in your face. I do not have product sales numbers but it's still rather obvious to me they're focusing on the AMOLED one.

> Seriously dude, if tranflective LCDs got better battery life and had competitive contrast to eink panels, do you really think that every ereader company including Amazon would still be using eink panels over cheaper transflective LCD panels?

Memory LCD panels are _not_ cheaper, and most definitely not at this size. I'm not even sure they are manufactured at such sizes, either.

ebooks are the only thing that defies the overall trend, maybe because e-ink practically defines the product line; but they are becoming even more of a niche market -- most people seem to have no problem doing their reading on a backlighted LCD iPad.