Color: Silver or Dark Blue

[yagiz]

When I opened a thread just after buying my PRS 505, we discussed about the offered colors. Obviously it largely depends on one's taste and sometimes on its availability. Someone mentioned the contrast created by the color against the text background as well. However, I think there's another practical side. Let me explain!

Last week I was on holidays and I did a lot of reading on the beach and most of the time under the sun. And yesterday, when I was watching the Discovery Channel, they were experimenting with two different surfaces, one black and one white. They put them both under the sun with an initial temperature of 27C (80F) and pretty soon the difference was impressive with the black surface gone to 48C (118F). So, I think, the dark blue will get hotter under the sun...

[Ervserver]

I apply a liberal amount of sunscreen to my blue 505 when spending a day in the sun

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Ervserver

I apply a liberal amount of sunscreen to my blue 505 when spending a day in the sun

[DixieGal]

What works for me is a simple baseball cap. I just put the device (inside its Ziploc bag) into the hat and let the brim shade it. Works like a charm, and the print doesn't disappear in the sunshine either when it is shaded.

Where there's a will - and a beach - there is a way!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by yagiz

Last week I was on holidays and I did a lot of reading on the beach and most of the time under the sun. And yesterday, when I was watching the Discovery Channel, they were experimenting with two different surfaces, one black and one white. They put them both under the sun with an initial temperature of 27C (80F) and pretty soon the difference was impressive with the black surface gone to 48C (118F). So, I think, the dark blue will get hotter under the sun...

It depends far more on the reflectivity of the surface than its colour - matt surfaces absorb (and radiate) heat much more efficiently than shiny ones. Very few of us bother to paint our central-heating radiators black, and even if you did, it really wouldn't make that much difference to their efficiency.

Given that the Reader has a somewhat shiny metallic surface, it shouldn't have too much of a problem in sunlight.

[yagiz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Very few of us bother to paint our central-heating radiators black, and even if you did, it really wouldn't make that much difference to their efficiency.

So you have central-heating radiators under the sunshine?

[yagiz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given that the Reader has a somewhat shiny metallic surface, it shouldn't have too much of a problem in sunlight.

I have a black car and my wife used to have a silver one. I can tell you that there was a difference...

[HarryT]

That's because silver is reflective. It has little to do with the "colour" of it, as such. A car with matt white paintwork will get just as hot as one with matt black paintwork. The reflectivity of the surface is a far more important factor in how much heat it absorbs than the colour.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by yagiz

So you have central-heating radiators under the sunshine?

Matt surfaces are more efficient radiators and emitters of heat. A shiny silver radiator wouldn't work very well at all as a radiator of heat, and similarly a shiny silver surface is a very poor absorber of heat. This is elementary physics.

[yagiz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is elementary physics.

Hum! I would have thought that being "shiny" is elementary "optics" as it's the ability to reflect the light and that conducting heat would be elementary "chemistry"... (such as water conducts heat 20 times better than air)... Such or such paint may conduct the heat better but it doesn't make any sense to say "a color" is a better heat conductor...

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by yagiz

Hum! I would have thought that being "shiny" is elementary "optics" as it's the ability to reflect the light...

Note that optics, or rather "optical physics" in this case, is a branch of physics, so in this respect "elementary physics" is a quite reasonable phrase.

Cheers,
Marc

[Peto]

That's the only reason why I preferred the silver one. In the end, I got the blue one anyway

But color sure makes a difference. Reflection can help, but only so much. The blue one will always get hotter. The silver one might increase sun glare in the same circumstances.

[Taylor514ce]

My original was blue. I recently exchanged it because the battery was weak, and all they had was silver in the store. I want the blue one back. The silver does trick my brain into seeing a much darker background on the display.

[JeffElkins]

I bought a silver and my wife a blue. In the hot Florida sun after a few hours of poolside reading they both get _very_ toasty.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

My original was blue. I recently exchanged it because the battery was weak, and all they had was silver in the store. I want the blue one back. The silver does trick my brain into seeing a much darker background on the display.

You are very artistic. Why don't you paint it?