I'd love to eventually see a low-end Chromebook built around one of these displays. You're already volunteering for a limited experience in exchange for convenience there, and I can see the battery life outweighing the negatives with the display. (And you probably have a phone or tablet with a higher resolution screen in your pocket/bag/whatever anyway.)
Obviously it's cost prohibitive right now, but as throwawaymsft said earlier it's very likely the price would plummet at scale. Clearly it would need to if the display is to find a market, and I expect they know that.
Emacs, a tiling window manager, a low-powered processor, and lots of RAM in a 2-in-1 form factor e-Ink device is pretty much my dream machine. Sadly, I am a tiny and ignored market segment.
The problem, at least for me, is that 13" is about the minimum screen that I'm willing to consider, and this is the second display of that size that I've seen (the first being Sony's Digital Paper, which is currently prohibitively expensive for me). I'm hoping that the price on this will come down into my range once the tech gets proven out a bit, though if it ends up getting positive reviews I might not wait.
Similar devices are around for 3 years now. PixelQi offered 10" display compatible with most netbooks for $220. It even offered color backlight color mode.
In real life the benefits are not that great, screen is still polished glass and reflects everything.
saying pixel Qi "displays" were around or available is an overstatement. For a short while you could pick up the screen as a hacker kit. Just the glass and ribbon cable. It wouldn't be clear to build a housing and then make it run via USB, which is really the best way to use as a portable secondary monitor if you think about it. That and the screen quality was never really good. Dark mode was really silvery. I had the OLPC with the pixel qi screen and it was neither good as either screen, lit or not. Sadly they never became anything for the consumer. I'm not sure why either because they claimed they were in this great niche where they could pump out a lot of product because their build process was right inline with LCDs except for minor tweaks.
If you want to say they've existed you they have since maybe 2005 / 2006. Doesn't mean they have been accessible to anyone for mainstream use. This chnese e-ink display could get traction but they need to cut the price in half. the best innovation on e-ink lately is the yotaphone. Makes the most sense, solves problems and is accessible in price.
The pricy Sony 13" Digital Reader (plastic e-ink display) has a web browser, so it can be used to display some web pages and function as a pseudo-monitor. It weighs 358 grams / 0.79 lbs. Android clones are expected later this year, when Sony's exclusivity period on the new lightweight e-ink screen expires.
Obviously it's cost prohibitive right now, but as throwawaymsft said earlier it's very likely the price would plummet at scale. Clearly it would need to if the display is to find a market, and I expect they know that.