Energy Sisytem eReaderPro+ e-ink display issue

[didierm]

Hi,

I am the happy owner of both a :
- Boyue T61 (Icarus Illumina E653, e-Ink Pearl screen), and a
- Boyue T62D+ (e-Ink Carta screen),

I decided last week to order an Energy Sistem eReader Pro+, as Energy Sistem are apparently the only European store selling the (relabeled ?) Boyue T62D+ model with Carta e-ink display technology.

The device was delivered last week ; I was quite excited to own another Carta device at a reasonable price.
(the Kobo Glo HD also has a Carta e-Ink screen, at the same price range, but with a tempting higher DPI).


Unfortunately and to my dismay, when comparing the eReaderPro+ to the T62D+, it appears I am suffering a very serious issue with the screen (the most important part of any e-reader).

It appears my device (which is actually labeled at the back "eReader Pro+") :
- either has been equipped with a Pearl (!) instead of a Carta screen, just like an ordinary eReader Pro, or
- has a serious screen issue.

As the screen :
- emits a cold blue-white light (higher colour temperature, akin to the Boyue T61 Pearl screen) instead of a creamy white Carta, and suffers from severe pixelation and banding (when compared to the silk-like T62D+ Carta),


(blurriness introduced by slight camera shake and jpg resizing)







--> I tend to believe this is a standard Pearl instead of the advertised Carta screen ...

Does anyone else has a similar experience with the screen ?


I contacted Energy Sistem's technical support twice last week. Contrary to their stated response time of 24/48 hours, up to now I have not received any reply for the past 6 days. I am quite disappointed with the current lack of support.
I posted this message on their forum board yesterday, again without any response up to now (other threads are being responded to by ES staff).

If Energy Sistem does not respond to my support call(s) by tomorrow, I will execute my warranty rights (device replacement within 15 days of purchase), and failing that, I will be forced to file a complaint with PayPal (I paid the extra 3 euros for PayPal payment).


I sincerely hope this is simply an execeptional case of a manufacturing defect, but cannot understand how a Pearl-grade screen could possibly be fitted to a Pro+ labeled device ... To add insult to injury, the silence from Energy Sistem's support department is deafening.

[V3t]

Judging by your screenshots are you comparing with the frontlight on? I don't think the light is a part of either the pearl or carta display technologies. I compare my eReader Pro+ to a kobo touch and can notice a very tiny difference between the two with similar font setting.

A little worrying that it could be a T62 instead of the newest device.

[didierm]

Originally Posted by V3t

Judging by your screenshots are you comparing with the frontlight on? I don't think the light is a part of either the pearl or carta display technologies. I compare my eReader Pro+ to a kobo touch and can notice a very tiny difference between the two with similar font setting.

A little worrying that it could be a T62 instead of the newest device.

The screenshots were taken with the frontlight set to maximum.

Good point : the light should probably be judged separately from the screen.

Nevertheless :
- even with the frontlight off, there is a difference in background colour (hardly discernable, depending on the environment lighting) ;
- frontlight at minimal settings already differentiates the screens ;
- frontlight at higher settings allows to discern the disturbing background pixelation, which is frankly invisible on the T62D+.

Comparing the 3 ereaders side by side, this eReaderPro+is almost equal to the Pearl screen of the T61.


How would you judge the colour temperature of your eReaderPro+ ?

Do you experience the same banding and pixelation (e.g. in the RockChip DeviceTest app, accessible by tapping a few times Settings > About eReader > Model number) ?

[V3t]

I plan to have a much closer look tomorrow with them both running in daylight, will make for a better comparison when I take pictures. It should also rule out the frontlight from the equation. It does seem eink manufacture displays with or without lights, but in general I'd imagine companies do it themselves hence the differences you can see in youtube videos for example.

Originally Posted by didierm

How would you judge the colour temperature of your eReaderPro+ ?

I am just going by what http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/201...s-e-ink-pearl/ says. The screens there do not look much different in terms of background colour but a close up zoom shows a difference in black levels. Hopefully with the same font and roughly similar size on the kobo and my eReader Pro+ we can do a similar comparison. It would be easier for you to compare with very similar devices - t61/t62+ and ereader pro+ but you would need a good camera probably.

Originally Posted by didierm

Do you experience the same banding and pixelation (e.g. in the RockChip DeviceTest app, accessible by tapping a few times Settings > About eReader > Model number) ?

The second to last image you posted looks the same on my screen and I believe it is to test the displays 4bit greyscale capabilities (16 shades of greyscale)

The last image you posted I am not sure what it is for, but pressing the screen refresh brings up a black screen. Mine is similar to yours if that helps.

_________________________________

Once I get some time tomorrow I'll take some pictures in the day time.

Does the T61 have the same test app? Perhaps the Eink batch will shed some light on the matter, mine also begun with 320.

[didierm]

Originally Posted by V3t

I plan to have a much closer look tomorrow with them both running in daylight, will make for a better comparison when I take pictures. It should also rule out the frontlight from the equation. It does seem eink manufacture displays with or without lights, but in general I'd imagine companies do it themselves hence the differences you can see in youtube videos for example.

From the looks, the Energy Sistem eReaderPro(+) is a relabeled Boyue T62D(+) ; this is not a complaint, as the Boyue is currently hard to come by (Banggood stock has been sold out for a while), and the eReaderPro+ is very competitively priced (for us Europeans).

The variation in frontlight colour would imply the speculated OEM (Boyue/Boeye) implementing different parts in a very short time (which, on second thought, shouldn't be to much of a surprise).


Nevertheless, I went the advised road, disabling the frontlight and taking daytime pictures :


(T62D+ vs Pro+)


(T62D+ detail)


(Pro+ detail)


(T61 / T62D+ / Pro+)

While it may not be immediately visible from the rather low-quality pictures (slightly fuzzy pictures, inexpensive camera), in reality the T62D+ has definitely a very nice slightly cream-like screen, with no visible texturing. From the closeup, I think it is reasonable to say the T62D+ has the better contrast too.
The eReaderPro+ screen is much more white, has less contrast, and suffers from dithering/pixelation (especially with darker grey backgrounds), appearing more like the T61 (which in my particular case is not too representative for a good Pearl screen).

These pictures were taken with a disabled frontlight ; with an active frontlight, the differences become even more visible.


Meanwhile, an ES representative has courteously replied in a response to my ES forum post, assuring the Pro+ is equipped with certified Carta screens.

[Lucien Didier]

I've just ordered the Energy eReader Pro + and hope to find that it has a screen equivalent to the T62+. Unfortunately, it's going to be my first e-reader so that I have no direct comparison. I wonder whether there is a software hack that could determine the actual screen type instead of relying on the human eyes.

This video review from Goodereader "Boyue T62 vs Energy Sistem Pro Glowlight Test" also indicates a very visible difference in screen quality:


But the youtube user busycell points out that actually not the same devices are compared:

The Boyue device is actually Boyue T62+ or T62D which according to the manufacturer uses E-Ink Carta while the original Energy Sistem eReader Pro is Boyue T62C which used E-Ink Pearl. According to the manufacturer the newer Energy Sistem ones are gonna be the same as the T62+. I think these stuff should be mentioned to show why are there these differences between these 2 same devices.

A detailed comparison of their screens to see the difference between Pearl HD and Carta would be nice.

[didierm]

Originally Posted by didierm

Meanwhile, an ES representative has courteously replied in a response to my ES forum post, assuring the Pro+ is equipped with certified Carta screens.

Following Energy Sistem's request, I filed for a warranty ticket on May 28th, which currently (June 2nd) is still somewhere in limbo.

I would like to be proven wrong, but up to now (my initial support ticket dates from May 19th !), Energy Sistem's support leaves a lot to be desired.

[V3t]

Sorry for long reply was a little busy. Opening same book I got something that looked similar to yours, but I saw screen having darker shades in menus etc. As a result to compare contrast I took pictures using my SLR camera with exactly the same white balance, exposure and same light conditions on screens that showed the darkest blacks. Neither my kobo or ereader had a backlight on.

I opened the images in photoshop and used the color dropper to get the colours of the blacks and the whites. I can see a very minuscule difference with eyes but the dropper shows it clearer. The whites have a small tint towards the yellows and the blacks are indeed very slightly darker.

Energy E-Reader Pro+

Kobo Touch

_______________________

Heres two pictures of the ebook you were using as well. Black shade is almost identical and the white is same as above - a more yellowy tint to it.

Energy E-Reader Pro+

Kobo Touch


I'm quite happy with mine and can see there is a tiny difference, pity I don't have a Boyue to test for you. Maybe they have changed the OS slightly and it behaves different.

Try a pure black picture in a gallery app on both perhaps and also a white picture. Best of luck with the support!

[V3t]

Plugging the RGB values of black&white of the two first images into THIS LINK gives a contrast ratio of 5.7 and 8.5 which is just below 50% higher.

For me, I'm now certain I have not been given the wrong screen.

You could use the same methodology as I used above to determine contrast ratios of your T61, T62D+ and Energy E-Reader (don't compare them to mine as different lighting conditions will yield different results).

I would use the test pattern that you posted, quoted below without backlighting as they show the 16 shades of grey possible with the left bar being darkest and right the lightest the screen can produce.

Originally Posted by didierm

Attachment 138635

I'd be happy to calculate it for you if you wish

[didierm]

Originally Posted by V3t

I would use the test pattern that you posted, quoted below without backlighting as they show the 16 shades of grey possible with the left bar being darkest and right the lightest the screen can produce.

Thanks !
Interesting methodology you suggest here, although contrast ratio is not my main concern (the eReaderPro+ contrast is good enough for me) : the dithering (and hence lower quality background) is.

Nevertheless, I resampled my test pictures with a higher quality camera (Fujifilm XF1, auto whitebalance), taking care that the Boyue T61, Boyue T62D+ and eReaderPro+ were subject to identical lighting conditions during each test.

- Average (to rule out dithering artefacts) black and white RGB values were calculated by means of Gimp's Color Histogram function.
- 3 test samples (Huckleberry Finn's first page with no backlight, and the gray test pattern with and without backlight).

* Huckleberry Finn :
T61 (3.7) / T62D+ (4.8) / eReaderPro+ (4.7)
* Test pattern without backlight :
T61 (4.2) / T62D+ (6.2) / eReaderPro+ (6.3)
* Test pattern with backlight :
T61 (4.0) / T62D+ (6.7) / eReaderPro+ (6.6)

From these results, it can be concluded that contrast of both T62D+ and eReaderPro+ is very equivalent to each other (and visibly better than the T61).

However, as said, the eReaderPro+ dithering is the real issue here :

Overview :


T62D+ bottom page closeup (no backlight) : almost perfect


eReaderPro+ bottom page closeup (no backlight) : heavy dithering


T62D+ top page closeup (with backlight) : perfect


eReaderPro+ top page closeup (with backlight) : again heavy dithering



I notified Energy Sistem not to bother for a warranty exchange if their other devices exhibit the same issue, but again I got no (timely) reply, so the device will be collected tomorrow, Monday morning.

Witness the glacial pace at which the ES technical support department responds to email (two working days at least, hence a simple information exchange takes forever), I am curious how long the exchange procedure will take.

[V3t]

Ah I see the issue now with those close ups, my device definitely does not exhibit such behaviour. I was checking contrast to differentiate between Carta and Pearl as you had thought that might be the issue.

At least we know it was indeed the correct screen from both our findings, but in your case unfortunately most likely faulty.

Do they give a tracking number for returns or anything to help with the status of the return? Please keep us informed. Hopefully you will get either a timely refund or a working device!

[didierm]

Originally Posted by V3t

Ah I see the issue now with those close ups, my device definitely does not exhibit such behaviour.

Thanks for this confirmation (and your emphatic support) !

This more or less confirms I received a faulty device.
I'll report here on the exchange procedure.

[didierm]

Originally Posted by didierm

I'll report here on the exchange procedure.

My unit was collected Monday June 8th (they responded to my request for an alternative pickup location after the device was already collected ), and has been delivered to Energy Sistem last Thursday (5 days ago).

No communication from their technical support department whatsoever ; no replies to my e-mail inquiries.

[urbie]

What a coincidence Didierm. Same device, same pickup en deliver date for warranty purpose. Mine had an unresponsive spot just at the place of the keyboard what made it extra annoying. Also heard nothing from Spain. Its a small effort to send an acknowledge of receiving and give a prospect of completion. Lack of empathic feelings for the consumer will harm a company seriously on long terms cause the web is wide spread and doesn't forget.

[didierm]

Originally Posted by urbie

What a coincidence Didierm. Same device, same pickup en deliver date for warranty purpose. Mine had an unresponsive spot just at the place of the keyboard what made it extra annoying. Also heard nothing from Spain.

Hi urbie,

I too am quite fed up with their lack of support.
I sent them a final notification both through their customer service web form and through an Energy Sistem forum post.

As I don't really expect a timely answer from them, I guess I'll need to contact the credit card company during the weekend.

Maybe they're just having a go at tiring us out beyond the "36 month warranty" period ...


Everybody who is considering buying from Energy Sistem : caveat emptor (you have been warned).