[sweetbabyjames]

I happen to have three Kindle DX Graphites on hand, and I am noticing that all three exhibit different degrees of quality in their e-ink display with regard to saturation of "speckles" and effect on overall contrast. I've picked out the best and worst performer for the attached comparison photos. In particular, the top right quadrant seems to have the most variability, so I've focused on that area. The difference is most obvious against a dark background, still noticeable with a blank background, and more subtle with text, but still there. I'd describe the resulting effect as similar to turning up the ISO on your digital camera. For me, it really puts a damper on the "All New, High Contrast E-Ink Screen".

This doesn't really come as a surprise to me after having seen large display quality differences across different devices in both the Kindle and Kindle 2. But some of those could have been explained by later production runs which might have introduced better quality displays. The three devices I have on hand are presumably from similar runs, as the Graphite was just released. Now I'm starting to think Amazon is either not aware that there's a problem (doesn't seem likely...), or doesn't care enough to weed out the lackluster displays from their supplier, E Ink Corp. I believe the DX is priced high enough and its screen a big enough selling point that QC should be much better than it is.

(better quality display on the right. sorry about the lower exposure in the second pic...sun was going down)