Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The PW's light diffuser is a diffraction grating, hence colour fringing is inherent in its design. Really Amazon need to make this clear in their advertising.
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The one thing that surprises me is (and I'll be probably skinned alive for saying it): Why do people want a screen that looks as even as an LCD, while they know that it is not an LCD but a front light? On a different forum I actually saw someone posting that he would be going back to his Touch with clip-on reading light because the PW screen was not perfectly even. I find that strange reasoning. A Kindle Touch with clip-on light is even more uneven an has far less brightness control.
As said in another thread: batches have nothing to do with this. My Kindle is batch 502, so it's even older than Yolina's 503. The screen is absolutely perfect, right up to setting 24. It has the expected alternating shadow/hotspot part on the bottom because of the four LED's, but there are no color fringes that I can see. And as someone who takes a lot of pictures, and looks at calibrated monitors most of the time I know what to look for and if there had been a color fringe, I would have seen it.
Could be that I'm just extremely lucky with my Kindle PW; I don't know. Please note that I am not saying that there are no problems. Probably, there are, and will always be Kindles with real problems. Still, I think that people who keep swapping Kindles to find one with a perfectly even screen are on a futile quest, as it is just not possible with a front light yet. I think Amazon did as well as could be expected; and better than I expected personally.
By the way: posting pictures is of no help. The *slightest* focusing error can create chromatic abberations, which means that the edges of the letters will take on a green or purple cast. This is caused by the lens, not being able to handle the extreme contrast. This will be worse on the higher settings, as the contrast is higher. Also, some lenses are more sensitive to this than others. (Especially cheaper lenses are sensitive to this problem.) Here's some proof. Please note that I took these pictures with a manual focus camera, high speed lens, and no tripod. They may not be tack sharp.
Kindle on setting 13, on top of a high quality sheet of white paper, in the room and under lighting in which I normally read:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...n/_0012041.JPG
Looks perfectly fine to me. This is my normal reading setting. To compare:
5:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...n/_0012036.JPG
10:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...n/_0012037.JPG
15:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...n/_0012038.JPG
20. The camera is starting to have difficulties. The screen is becoming greenish.
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...n/_0012039.JPG
24. Fringing galore:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...n/_0012040.JPG
Now... complete blackness. Normally, I read between setting 10 and 13. It varies a bit with regard to my eyesight. As there is nothing else to see but the Kindle, the camera can handle the light better; it does not need to take other colors (white balance) into account. However, setting 20 and 24 are more troublesome to it than the lower settings.
5:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...f/_0012044.JPG
10:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...f/_0012045.JPG
15:
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...f/_0012046.JPG
20: Here there is some purple fringing in the middle of the screen.
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...f/_0012047.JPG
24: This setting is obout to overexpose the sensor of the camera.
http://members.home.nl/katsunami/mis...f/_0012048.JPG