Current Kindle Reader Screens
 

I recently bought all three of the current Kindle readers. Comparing them it looks to me like, with screen lighting off/minimum per the sliding bar adjustment, that the Oasis 3 has the whitest background with the 2019 Kindle Basic in the middle and the current PW4 having the greyest screen background, at least in my examples.

The whitest of all seems to be the Kindle Voyage screen while the whitest of the old no light Kindle screens seem to be the Kindle NT and Kindle Touch which to my eye are both a bit greyer than the current Kindle PW. No touch sensor layer on the NT. Overall differences are subtle, particularly between the Oasis and Voyage screens and the Touch and NT screens. All are readable IMO dating back to the KDX and K2 readers.

I never read with the frontlight off. It's never lower than 9 and much higher in broad daylight. I want my screen to look as good as possible, or what's the point of spending 300 bucks on an Oasis? If I wanted a grey screen, I would still be reading on my old basic non-touch Kindles. No way.

I normally read with a color temperature adjustable reading lamp beside my easy chair or in bright light and find the internal light unnecessary. Normally read with reader communications and the reader light off, minimizing power use.

I get that. I don't read in complete darkness either. But imho the unlit screens just look ugly, no matter how bright the external light is. Older screens with no frontlight (Pearl) actually looked better than unlit modern screens (Carta). Even the Voyage looks pretty bad with the frontlight off. And I don't want to feel like I've wasted my money on an expensive reader that looks worse than my old cheapies. So the light stays on, always. Wifi is practically always off, though. Don't use it much and don't want updates sprung on me without knowing what they will change.

I sometimes read in bed, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes eating dinner at the kitchen counter and sometimes in various restaurants around town. Sometimes I read sitting in my easy chair. I can't decide any venue that qualifies for "usually".

In my opinion, it's like benchmarking a smartphone or a computer. Is the difference noticeable in normal use? For me, the screens on all Kindles from the first Paperwhite through the new Oasis are fine for reading. My preference for the PW4 isn't based on the screen.

Yeah having the frontlight set to 9 on a pw3 doesn't really make it look "bright" and normal light is still needed it just makes the pages look white. Without any frontlight on, the display looks terrible. It seems worse than my old non-touch nook in terms of contrast. Very grey screen. But luckily there IS a frontlight lol