Quote:
Originally Posted by Blossom
 Wow okay so the bezel does come into play largely on this.  I am getting me a black skin when they come out. |
As a photographer I can say for sure that the frame around an object makes the object look different and cause it to seemingly have different colors. The eye always sees an average of 18% grey in any scene. If a scene is not average, the eye will compensate both brightness and color. So.... Put a very bright red bezel around your kindle, and your screen will look as if it's dark green. On the other hand... Put a jet black bezel around the kindle and the screen will start to look bright white. The black bezel therefore improves the contrast of the screen.
That is also why pictures look best on very dark grey or black websites. Contrast is perceived to be better and colors pop more and look more saturated as compared to the same picture on a white page.
If my Kindle Touch that arrives tomorrow does not have a good enough contrast (I owned a black Cybook), then I will look into jet black skins for sure.
That guy earlier in the thread (post 35 and 41) that used the spectrometer actually did a very, very good test. The readings of his device suggest that the screens are very close, with the kindle 4 screen being the best with regard to contrast and neutrality. My calibrated monitor confirms this; the Nook screen actually looks a Tad greenish compared to the kindle screen, and I can see the contrast / black level differences clearly. Still, I think that they are so very close that used fonts and rendering, and the devices bezel color (which should ALWAYS be black, imho) will have a bigger impact on readability than the production differences between the individual screens.
Blossom: doesn't the K3 have a darker bezel than the K4? Don't know on top of my head. If so, you may just see the K3's as being brighter, while it actually isn't, as explained above. Getting a black skin may be your solution. The only way to see if the K3 really *is* brighter, is to objectively measure it.