Screen of iLiad one of the best?

[Malder1]

I remember some members wrote that eink screen is not enough white.

But I just read several responses of iLiad/Sony Librie/Junke V8 owners and they all told that only iLiad has almost white screen.

See these three photos

http://gosha.pri.ee/iLiad/iLiad_2.jpg

http://gosha.pri.ee/iLiad/iLiad_1.jpg

[tribble]

The two linked photos seem like unedited photos of the iLiad, the attache image on the other hand shows a too white screen. See how the iRex logo overcasts?

[ath]

Originally Posted by Malder1

I remember some members wrote that eink screen is not enough white.

I have said so -- and I still think so. But remember that perception tends to be very personal. As far as I know, noone knows how far there are individual variations in iLiad units: I may have a darker ePaper than average. But how do you decide?

But I just read several responses of iLiad/Sony Librie/Junke V8 owners and they all told that only iLiad has almost white screen.

My reaction against the 'white' iLiad screen came about precisely because I've seen photos like this -- I can't fit them to the screen I have. I suspect it may be because the camera adjusts the white point, or does some other image enhancement that makes the photo valueless as an absolute measure of grey value.

Here's a photo of my iLiad, showing a PDF document, together with a standard IT8.7/2 target. The important thing to check is the greyscale band. The 'whiteness' of the iLiad screen seems to be around 80% (very rough eyeballing and mental calculation).

Here's another photo of a book page with the same target. The whiteness of the bookpage is very close to white -- I think above 95%. The book is from the 1890s, and is printed on toned paper, so it is slightly lower in tone that most modern books I buy except paperbacks, which are still lower.

(I see there's some vignetting from the lens setting I used so compare the page at a point near the target point of reference.)

[Malder1]

Thanks for new photos!
According first one, iLiad's white is 3 from 22 (1..22). It's a very good result. Like usual white book's page.

I'm still waiting for my iLiad and will write about my impression later.

But I see that screen of iLiad has a very good white color, according my needs.

Also other owners of Sony Librie and Junko V8 said that iLiad's screen is much whiter than those screens. And iLiad's screen looks better on various angles of reading than screens of competitors.

So I think that almost in 2 times larger screen and much whiter

[ath]

Originally Posted by Malder1

Thanks for new photos!
According first one, iLiad's white is 3 from 22 (1..22). It's a very good result. Like usual white book's page.

I should have explained better: I was not primarily out to get an absolute value of the grey level of the screen of the iLiad, but rather to suggest that very 'white' photos may have been (intentionally or unintentionally) biassed. (I can't decide if the third? photo/thumbnail was taken of both devices at the same time: that white area to the right seems suspicious.)

Difference between two screens can be compared only if both screens are shown in the same photo. Establishing the absolute difference needs a standard target in the same photo. (Even then, it may not give an accurate idea of what the screen looks in *your* light.)

But if you want absolute level ... 3 is far too high. I placed it at around 80% myself, but that was not based on a very careful inspection, as I know I have two level of screen adaptions going (one Adobe gamma adjuster, and one Nvidia adjuster) that can affect my perception of the images.

Some lab work follows. I'm checking histogram of a manually selected part of the original image (i.e. before they were resampled for the web. Resampling was 'intelligent' which probably means that things may have changed). I use the L value (lightness) of the HSL model as an approximation. (There should be no difference in using either greyscale model, or converting the image to greyscale before checking the pixel value -- and indeed repeated testing this way produce the same values. )

A) Iliad + target picture:

White box has L median 227, black box 31. A selection of the white area below the first paragraph gives 161. Box 7 median is 158, box 6 median 169, so it's between levels 7 and 6. The HSL lightness of the best part of my screen in this photo is approx. 71% (i.e. 161/227).

B) Book + target picture:

White box: 193, black box 3 (so either daylight changed, or my camera rebalanced the image: probably a little of both). A selection from the central part of the right margin of the page has a L median of 188, which ends up as HSL lightness 97%.

Based on this, the iLiad screen should not be described as paper white -- at least not the paper I used as comparison. It ends up at a little better than 2/3.

(In each case, the histograms of the selected image area are symmetrical and fairly 'tight', so median should be about the same as average. It's first when I select the entire book or visible iLiad page that the histogram gets clearly lopsided towards lower values, and so would give a obviously lower average than median.)

However, for reading ease, I don't think paper whiteness means as much as contrast between foreground (text) and background (page). I have no idea of how to measure that, though, as colour has to be taken into account (black text on light yellow paper reads better than black on pure white, for instance).

[CommanderROR]

with the iliad, lighting and viewing angle make all the difference...the "larger" you viewing angle, the better the contrast, the whiter the background. Better light also makes the screen a lot whiter, bad lighting makes it nearly unreadable...

[Mambo]

I just received my iLiad yesterday. It works very well, however, I was astonished by the greyness of the screen. I definitely not expected to be as white as on the screenshots, but at least the ability to refer to it as "whiteish" or "close to white" or as a minimum lighter than plain grey.
Maybe I have a deffective unit or different from yours I don't know. If I will have time I will post a picture comparing to the screen of my old ipod that has black-and-white LCD. The screen is only a little bit better IMHO.

To give you an idea if you open MS Excel, select all cells and click on Fill: gray-25% so that the full screen of your computer will be grey that would give you a faint idea of how gray is the screen of the iLiad.

If you - still in Excell - go to Options=>Color tab => Modify. And under the custom section choose Red 177, Green 186, Blue 172. If you apply this to the whole screen, this will give you a more closer approximation to what I see when I look at the iLiad.

All in all, the screen is so greyish that it is unbelievable. That may undermine the potential of use of iLiad for many people, who may think the screen is not white enough, so I am afraid that this is a really big hardware problem. I was talking to my father and my wife and both agreed that the greyness of the screen is unfavourable and hard to the eyes to read in some circumstances. Even could effect your eyesight if you don't turn on lights in the room, - felt my wife.
(Edit: I mean when there is plenty of light still for reading a book, it may not be convenient for using the iLiad)

So it would be great if iRex could make the screen more whiter in the next generation of eink technology, I think this is the most crucial issue that may prevent this device becoming the most popular handheld document viewer.

On the other hand, in every other respect the iLiad is very cool and I enjoy using it!

If you have different opinion or if you can confirm my opinion please put it here. I just would like to emphasize that the screen is not white and speaking about the whitness of the screen is not really correct.

[ath]

Originally Posted by Mambo

So it would be great if iRex could make the screen more whiter in the next generation of eink technology, I think this is the most crucial issue that may prevent this device becoming the most popular handheld document viewer.

That and perhaps the size of the screen.

The next development in the e-ink department seems to be colour -- a short aricle on the tests made by De Tijd published by Swedish Newspaper's Publishers Association in March said that iRex planned a colour device, but that it wouldn't appear until next year at the earliest. The SNPA said in the same article that they would wait for a colour reader.

Anyway, a colour screen should probably fix any greyness problems remaining.

[vranghel]

Originally Posted by Mambo

I just received my iLiad yesterday. It works very well, however, I was astonished by the greyness of the screen. I definitely not expected to be as white as on the screenshots, but at least the ability to refer to it as "whiteish" or "close to white" or as a minimum lighter than plain grey.
Maybe I have a deffective unit or different from yours I don't know. If I will have time I will post a picture comparing to the screen of my old ipod that has black-and-white LCD. The screen is only a little bit better IMHO.

To give you an idea if you open MS Excel, select all cells and click on Fill: gray-25% so that the full screen of your computer will be grey that would give you a faint idea of how gray is the screen of the iLiad.

If you - still in Excell - go to Options=>Color tab => Modify. And under the custom section choose Red 177, Green 186, Blue 172. If you apply this to the whole screen, this will give you a more closer approximation to what I see when I look at the iLiad.

All in all, the screen is so greyish that it is unbelievable. That may undermine the potential of use of iLiad for many people, who may think the screen is not white enough, so I am afraid that this is a really big hardware problem. I was talking to my father and my wife and both agreed that the greyness of the screen is unfavourable and hard to the eyes to read in some circumstances. Even could effect your eyesight if you don't turn on lights in the room, - felt my wife.
(Edit: I mean when there is plenty of light still for reading a book, it may not be convenient for using the iLiad)

So it would be great if iRex could make the screen more whiter in the next generation of eink technology, I think this is the most crucial issue that may prevent this device becoming the most popular handheld document viewer.

On the other hand, in every other respect the iLiad is very cool and I enjoy using it!

If you have different opinion or if you can confirm my opinion please put it here. I just would like to emphasize that the screen is not white and speaking about the whitness of the screen is not really correct.

I have made the .xls file you suggested, and it looks quite right(i dont have the iliad with me now, but i will check it when i get home)

I attached the .xls file so other can see it aswell and tell us if it looks about right.

Also, with the iliad vs the lcd screen:
the iliad has no backlighting and the lcd has; the brightness and contrast of the screen will give diff people diff results.

I hate that there's not precise way of comparing the colour of the screen; maybe there is variation in the e-ink panels aswell.

Seems that the forums wont allow me to upload .XLS

So i have changed the extension from .XLS to .TXT.
After you have downloaded the file please change the extension back to .XLS


EDIT: I have done this aswell:

If you - still in Excell - go to Options=>Color tab => Modify. And under the custom section choose Red 177, Green 186, Blue 172. If you apply this to the whole screen, this will give you a more closer approximation to what I see when I look at the iLiad.

[Mambo]

vranghel:

I appreciate that you take your valuable time and that you are interested in this issue.
On second thought I was a little bit harsh and after 2 days use now I see the screen a little bit brighter than in my first post.
(So if you who read my posts disagree with my specification please excuse me)
Apparently I need to spend more time and try to find an equivalent color to my screen also I will try to shot pictures without using the flashlight and post here.

Also it would be great to see - as you said - is there any variation in the eink panels found in iLiads.

[vranghel]

Originally Posted by Mambo

vranghel:

I appreciate that you take your valuable time and that you are interested in this issue.
On second thought I was a little bit harsh and after 2 days use now I see the screen a little bit brighter than in my first post.
(So if you who read my posts disagree with my specification please excuse me)
Apparently I need to spend more time and try to find an equivalent color to my screen also I will try to shot pictures without using the flashlight and post here.

Also it would be great to see - as you said - is there any variation in the eink panels found in iLiads.

I partially agree with you: the screen IS grey, but it is not as dark as to impair reading; What makes quite a big difference is the lighting. Because the screen is a bit grey, low lighting has a stronger impact on it than on paper;

Actually before i received my iLiad i read all these rave reviews about the screen and how 'white' it is. After i received my unit i was a bit down by the greyness of the screen. Maybe the reviews raised my expectations to an unreasonable level(for this technology).
All in all i can say that i am quite happy with the iLiad and that i have gotten used to the screen color.

Taking a picture of the screen turns out to be an exceptionally difficult task, as there is no standard: different cameras, different settings, differnt light levels etc....
The best way to compare the screens is using your own 2 eyes. Even then your opinion might be different from somebody else's because the eyes are like cameras (only better), all different.

[Malder1]

Anyway owners of iLiad and Junke V8/Sony Librie said that iLiad has much better screen. So in iLiad we have maximally possible better screen.

[scotty1024]

My own thoughts are that the screen is grey to speed up screen refresh and save power.

To go from white to black you have to move all the ink capsules. Max time, max power (the ink capsules are migrated by electrons, the more you move, the more electrons you need.)

To go from grey to black or from grey to white you need to move half the ink capsules.

One of the key features in the iLiad appears to be the +/- 15V swing they can apply to the electrophoretic manipulation of the e-unk panel. The larger the voltage, the quicker the ink can be moved. This appears to be courtesy of the new version of the driver chip they had developed.

My guess would be that if you pop the top on the new Sony Reader you'll find this chip in it as well (when/if it ships.)

Some of the failures reported in the iLiad panels could be due to them needing to spend more time getting the tolerances in the printing process used for creating the panel under more tight control. At 30V even smaller variations in line width in drawing conductors on the panel can result in electrical shorts.

One of the issues holding back Sony could be the need to increase the panel yield ratio. So far iRex seems willing to let customers handle the final panel inspection.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

One of the issues holding back Sony could be the need to increase the panel yield ratio. So far iRex seems willing to let customers handle the final panel inspection.

Nicely put. Love your sense of humor

[yvanleterrible]

[QUOTE=scotty1024]My own thoughts are that the screen is grey to speed up screen refresh and save power.

To go from white to black you have to move all the ink capsules. Max time, max power (the ink capsules are migrated by electrons, the more you move, the more electrons you need.)

To go from grey to black or from grey to white you need to move half the ink capsules.

QUOTE]

As one who frequently works with color, I have a hunch about this. This is typical of light physics. Have you ever tried to put white paint over black sealer? Its looks bloody gray and you see every overlays.

My solution would be to thicken the screen by augmentating the size of the pigment cells, having the drawback of reducing resolution.

I think that E-Ink did the best they could do with what they had. A perfectly opaque white is impossible to find.