More Contrast

[tazem]

Is there a way to increase the contrast on the PP? The screen is much more gray than white, this makes it hard on the eyes. I can not read for very long, only about 20 minutes or so. I have increased the reading font size but it is still difficult.

I have tried updating the firmware to 2.02astak100320, making sure that it is fully charged, and changing the font.

Also some of the internal text does not scale up at all. It stays very tiny.

This is dark but it shows the grayness of the screen.


I just got this for Mothers Day. Any help or advice welcome.

tazem

[jusmee]

Experiment with different fonts. Often the default is Times Roman and this not a good font for contrast, or even for ease of reading IMHO. Even the humble Ariel font works better. How to do this varies with firmware version and type and also with type of eBook i.e. whether it is ePub, PDF, fb2, mobi etc. Many threads here about them.

[tazem]

I have done some experimenting but will be doing more. Right now I am using Tahoma font. When I find the format that looks the best I will just convert to that one before loading.

I would like to be able to set the background to a lighter shade though. that would make it much easier to read. Since the case is white it may also be that the screen appears darker in contrast. Like this -



Which is something I did not think about before getting the white one of course.

[Blossom]

I find the color of background changes by light for me. I just purchased a booklight and it made a world of difference. I prefer reading in MOBI with the font Thesis Sans which is a nice dark font and when zoom 3x in makes the book very readable for my tired eyes.

I bought what RobertB recommended a Mighty Bright Xtraflex 2 at my local B&N. I got the kit version which comes with an wall adapter as well. That light is bright but it really helps because my apartment is not well lit.

[AJ Starr]

If you do your own font adjustment, I find I like Verdana for it's darkness and contrast.

AJ

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tazem

I have done some experimenting but will be doing more. Right now I am using Tahoma font. When I find the format that looks the best I will just convert to that one before loading.

I would like to be able to set the background to a lighter shade though. that would make it much easier to read. Since the case is white it may also be that the screen appears darker in contrast. Like this -

< snip>
Which is something I did not think about before getting the white one of course.

View your document on your computer to make sure it does not have a background texture set (many designed for color displays, do).

[Aptosreader]

Originally Posted by tazem

I have done some experimenting but will be doing more. Right now I am using Tahoma font. When I find the format that looks the best I will just convert to that one before loading.

I would like to be able to set the background to a lighter shade though. that would make it much easier to read. Since the case is white it may also be that the screen appears darker in contrast. Like this -



Which is something I did not think about before getting the white one of course.

I have a red PP and my wife has a white one. Even though they have essentially the same screen, it's amazing how much brighter mine looks just because of the case color.

[slm]

One of the experimental system versions gives some control over contrast and seems to work a bit.

[ThomasMcKean]

Originally Posted by slm

One of the experimental system versions gives some control over contrast and seems to work a bit.

Just a few minutes ago I ordered a KANDLE book light from Amazon. According to reviews, some like and some don't. I post a review when I get it about how well it works with with the ASTAK. I got the black version.

[nimblem]

Hey Thomas...

I was wondering if there are any plans to have your book go to an ebook or if it already has and I am just over looking it. (sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread)

[ThomasMcKean]

Originally Posted by nimblem

Hey Thomas...

I was wondering if there are any plans to have your book go to an ebook or if it already has and I am just over looking it. (sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread)

Despite my many appeals and requests to the publisher, he refuses to release it as an ebook. As long as he has the marketing rights, I have to abide by that.

The good news about that is I have not (yet, anyway) seen the book on any of those oddball torrent sites. I like to go over there every now and again to check. So far, so good. I have been very fortunate that way.

[Sylver]

Originally Posted by tazem

Is there a way to increase the contrast on the PP?

tazem

tazem, no, there is no way to increase the contrast on astak ereader, nor on Kindle, nor on Nook, nor on Sony reader. It is the limitation of the unfortunate status of the current e-ink technology. You can play around the fonts like many suggested, but the improvement is very marginal if any. The e-ink screen to me is still not matured enough to be really paper-like. There is a new generation of e-ink coming out probably this year (so you will see some products next year at the earliest) which claims to improve the contrast, but further reading got me confused as to whether it does improve the contrast (between the whitest and the darkest color) or just adds more levels of grayscales (which will improve photo-realistic rendering, but does no good for text at all).

even with the same e-ink technology, each screen manufacturer still makes things a little bit different. From what I can see (I brought my PP to different stores), Nook has the best contrast, followed by Sony Pocket (not the touch version), and unfortunately, pp is worst in this regard, not only the contrast is not good enough, but it has some kind of green-yellowish tint on both the background and the fore ground color, which makes it only readable under sun light or very bright ambient light (or use a reading lamp). Almost all e-readers I see cannot compare with real paper as yet (if you compare with a real book, you will be lucky to find any e-reader that can mimic 50% of the contrast of a real book in normal light conditions). For my taste, e-reader still has a long way to go.

[tazem]

Originally Posted by Sylver

even with the same e-ink technology, each screen manufacturer still makes things a little bit different. From what I can see (I brought my PP to different stores), Nook has the best contrast, followed by Sony Pocket (not the touch version), and unfortunately, pp is worst in this regard, not only the contrast is not good enough, but it has some kind of green-yellowish tint on both the background and the fore ground color, which makes it only readable under sun light or very bright ambient light (or use a reading lamp). Almost all e-readers I see cannot compare with real paper as yet (if you compare with a real book, you will be lucky to find any e-reader that can mimic 50% of the contrast of a real book in normal light conditions). For my taste, e-reader still has a long way to go.

That is what I was afraid of. Unfortunately I live more than 100 miles away from any city so was unable to check any e-readers out before purchase. As you pointed out I need to be pretty much in direct sunlight, or a very hight wattage reading lamp, in order to see effectively.

Guess I will just have to wait for the technology to improve more. In the mean time, I will order one of the mentioned book-lights and see how much that helps. At least I can enlarge the font, which is something print books can't do.

Thanks to all for your quick replies and suggestions.

tazem

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by tazem

That is what I was afraid of. Unfortunately I live more than 100 miles away from any city so was unable to check any e-readers out before purchase. As you pointed out I need to be pretty much in direct sunlight, or a very hight wattage reading lamp, in order to see effectively.

Guess I will just have to wait for the technology to improve more.

If the contrast of your electrophoretic e-ink display is not roughly equivalent to newspaper print, then you may not be getting all the contrast available from the technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper
I have two e-ink readers, a Hanlin V3 (EZReader) and a Hanlin V5 (PocketPRO) and the display on the V3 has much better contrast than the V5. The new experimental firmware for the PocketPRO that is mentioned in some threads on this forum has a display control setting that is not available on the Astak firmware. The display control setting seems to primarily affect the background "whiteness" of the display. Just that firmware control setting has significantly improved the contrast on my V5 to where it is almost as good as my V3. My V3 is definitely very similar to newspaper contrast quality when a dark font like IBOOKN is used.

[ThomasMcKean]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

If the contrast of your electrophoretic e-ink display is not roughly equivalent to newspaper print, then you may not be getting all the contrast available from the technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper
I have two e-ink readers, a Hanlin V3 (EZReader) and a Hanlin V5 (PocketPRO) and the display on the V3 has much better contrast than the V5. The new experimental firmware for the PocketPRO that is mentioned in some threads on this forum has a display control setting that is not available on the Astak firmware. The display control setting seems to primarily affect the background "whiteness" of the display. Just that firmware control setting has significantly improved the contrast on my V5 to where it is almost as good as my V3. My V3 is definitely very similar to newspaper contrast quality when a dark font like IBOOKN is used.

There are three options for the contrast setting. Which one do yew use?