Samsung quietly folded a little ocean into its latest display. The company’s new 13‑inch Color E‑Paper (EM13DX) is about the size of an A4 sheet, paper‑thin, and — crucially — the first display housing that uses a bio‑resin made in part from phytoplankton.
A compact, low-power poster with a green accent
This isn’t a Kindle replacement (at least not yet). The 13‑inch Color E‑Paper is pitched at businesses that still plaster counters, doors and shelves with printed signs. Samsung designed the panel for those small-surface use cases: it has a 4:3 aspect ratio, 1,600 × 1,200 resolution, weighs roughly 0.9 kg and measures 17.9 mm thick with a built‑in rechargeable battery and USB‑C charging. Static content draws zero watts between refreshes; updating the screen requires power, but Samsung says the overall energy use is far lower than typical digital signage.
The housing is the headline: 45% recycled plastic blended with 10% phytoplankton‑based bio‑resin, which Samsung claims can cut carbon emissions in the manufacturing steps by more than 40% compared with traditional petroleum plastics. UL has reportedly verified the material claims. Samsung will show a 20‑inch version at ISE 2026 and already sells a 32‑inch model, so the 13‑inch is the small, portable end of that lineup.
Why plankton? And how much of it is actually in there?
Phytoplankton — microscopic algae that power ocean food chains — sounds like an eco win on the label. But Samsung’s version is a partial substitution, not a wholesale replacement: only about 10% of the housing material comes from the algae‑derived bio‑resin. The rest is a mix of recycled plastics and other components. Samsung hasn’t published step‑by‑step details about how the phytoplankton is processed into resin or how it’s compounded with recycled polymers. That matters for recycling flows and lifecycle analysis, but as an industrial first it’s a notable experiment.
For context: Amazon reported using 58% recycled plastic across some devices by late 2024, while Apple once used 32% bio‑based plastic in an iPhone frame back in 2018. Samsung’s move sits in that continuum — an incremental material swap that companies hope will scale into bigger reductions over time.
Features and real‑world uses
The Color E‑Paper isn’t a full tablet. It doesn’t run a general OS or let you install apps; instead it behaves as a remote display that you update from an Android or iPhone app or through Samsung’s VXT cloud management. Samsung also touts an advanced color imaging algorithm to smooth gradations and sharpen contours so the output looks more like printed paper than a backlit screen — a small detail that matters when restaurants, galleries or shops want the tactile look of print without constant reprints.
Because it’s battery‑powered and thin, the 13‑inch unit can be moved around to wherever a short‑run poster would go: tabletop menus, temporary shelf talkers, meeting‑room door signs. That flexibility is part of Samsung’s pitch to stores and venues that still rely on paper.
Could this turn into an e‑reader for consumers?
Potentially — but Samsung hasn’t announced any consumer e‑reader plans. The hardware and the color e‑paper tech could conceivably be adapted for reading devices, and rivals like Amazon already sell large color e‑readers (for example, the 11‑inch Kindle Scribe Colorsoft). If you’re curious about alternatives to Samsung’s approach, the 11‑inch Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is one existing option you can check latest price.
Samsung’s product cadence also shows the company experimenting across form factors — from foldables to XR — so it wouldn’t be surprising to see this tech influence consumer devices down the line. (Samsung’s other hardware pushes, like the recent Galaxy Z TriFold announcement, hint at a company comfortable trying new device shapes and materials.)
Small step, interesting direction
The 13‑inch Color E‑Paper is best read as an industry play: an attempt to replace short‑run printed signage with ultra‑low‑power digital displays while shaving material emissions via recycled content and a novel bio‑resin. It won’t replace paper overnight, and the phytoplankton claim is modest in percentage terms, but these sorts of material experiments — combined with efficient display tech — are the kind of incremental changes that can add up. Samsung’s broader device strategy, from XR ambitions to new foldables, suggests the company is willing to test and iterate; this is one such test in a greener shell. For more on Samsung’s device roadmap and its push across categories, see Samsung’s evolving hardware efforts like its global Galaxy XR plans.
If you work in retail or venue operations and need poster‑sized signs that cut waste without constant printing, the EM13DX looks built for that conversation. If you’re a reader hoping for a scaled, algae‑made Kindle competitor, keep an eye on how Samsung evolves the tech — there’s room for surprises.