01-20-2010, 11:33 AM | #1 |
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Text fading under sunlight
Hi,
today was the first day I could use my PRS-300 under sunlight. It was not nice ! Text faded quite considerably when turning pages under direct sunlight. They were rendered like a sheet of paper printed by a laser printer when running out of toner. This is quite dissapointed. I did some experiments at home and I saw that it's not only direct sunlight which causes this. If a put the ebook reader quite close to an incandescent lamp and I do a page turn, I can observe more or less the same behaviour. And it's not the heat it's just the intensity of visible light (my incadescent lamp doesn't have any kind of UV light) which seems to affect the rendering of the page. I've attached a picture of the screen taken with my camera where you can see what the fading looks like. So, remember, it only happens when turning pages (rendering). If you turn the page avoiding the direct sunlight it will be rendered properly and it will not change if you expose it afterwards. However if the page turn was done under direct sunlight, the text will remain faded I bought my PRS-300 on mid. December in the US. I read in some other threads where it was said that some displays were defective... If that's the case, mine's for sure. BR Juan Last edited by dolmen; 01-20-2010 at 03:18 PM. |
01-20-2010, 12:46 PM | #2 |
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This isn't a problem with eInk displays generally, but unfortunately a small number of individual screen do have the problem. Unfortunately, all you can do is try to exchange the device.
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01-20-2010, 12:46 PM | #3 | |
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Quote:
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01-20-2010, 01:39 PM | #4 |
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This happens on my prs 600 too and I guess it's due to the way the e-ink technology works
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01-20-2010, 03:13 PM | #5 | |
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Quote:
for in instance in the dark and the displayed page looks fine it doesn't matter if you expose the device to direct sunlight, the page will remain fine. However, if the page is turned while the device is under direct sunlight, it will not be rendered properly and will remain this way permanently until you turn the page again and you are not under direct sunlight or it will happen again ! BR Juan |
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01-20-2010, 03:25 PM | #6 |
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My 505 does the same, and I thought it was normal. It's not, for some reason a certain percentage of eink screens (which includes kindles and whatnot) do this. Some are worse than others. It doesn't bother me enough to go through the trouble of exchanging it, I just angle my Reader so my shadow covers it.
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01-20-2010, 03:30 PM | #7 |
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My 505 is great in direct sunlight. It seems though that some Vizplex screens made by LG are to blame for sunlight fading.
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01-20-2010, 03:32 PM | #8 |
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Ah ok, I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the clarification. I dunno if this will be a problem for me or not. I sure hope not.
ETA: I exposed the 300 to a very bright light and it didn't fade. Maybe I'll be ok. Last edited by tnronin; 01-20-2010 at 03:40 PM. |
01-20-2010, 04:26 PM | #9 |
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I'd say most readers suffer from this problem but not everyone experiences it since it depends on the sunlight intensity. The fading effect is (I think) caused by the radiation emitted by the sun which causes some kind of interference on the e-ink display.
On the following picture we can see how e-ink displays are made so it seems plausible that a high level of electromagnetic radiation might interfere in some way with character rendering on the screen. |
01-20-2010, 05:55 PM | #10 |
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That's very interesting. I haven't seen it on my PRS-600, but I have always been at least slightly in the shade while reading. Out of curiosity, does the same thing happen if you were to hold a bright flashlight above the screen while turning the page? Also, does it get more noticeable over time? Without looking up more details about how e-ink refreshes the display it would be impossible to tell, but I wouldn't suspect light to be the primary culprit here; a bi-product of light seems much more likely.
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01-20-2010, 06:48 PM | #11 |
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I stepped outside just now and tested my 300 in bright sunshine. There is a notable difference but not enough to bother me.
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01-20-2010, 07:00 PM | #12 | |
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Quote:
th thread: "If a put the ebook reader quite close to an incandescent lamp and I do a page turn, I can observe more or less the same behaviour." So fare, I haven't seen it more noticeable over time. It just depends on the light intensity when you turn the page. Higher intensity --> higher text fading. Juan |
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01-21-2010, 08:37 AM | #13 |
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The reason why I asked about a flashlight was because I was hoping for a source that wouldn't give off a lot of heat while still being bright (flashlights tend to have some sort of insulator between the light source and the user).
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01-21-2010, 08:57 AM | #14 |
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never saw that and i am reading a lot while lying on my terrasse
and that is a lot nearer to the sun because i live on the 17. floor and that's where my terrasse is ;-) keep reading harry |
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