Quote:
Originally Posted by Blossom
The problem is eInk varies so much some will have a good screen and maybe little to no yellow and some will have too much yellow and greyish text. So you can't go by anyone's posts here to make your decision. It's a gamble. You order and hope you get a good one that you are happy with.
Last year I waited till the third batch and I got a really good one on the first try. No color blobs and even lighting while others didn't have such good luck. It has nothing to do with me seeing things differently it has to do with Amazon's Quality Control which I know they could fix as they did it for the K4 when they released the improved version.
So it all comes down to do you want one bad enough to try it and return it till you get one you like if you're not one of the lucky ones.  |
I agree with your sentiment that there does seem to be un an unusual amount of quality variance in PW1/PW2. However, I do disagree this is the same thing as e-ink or improvements to e-ink on other Kindles (e.g. the improvements to Kindle 4 you mention around the time the black 4B or "5" version came out).
E-ink, by now, is mature technology. After some teething problems around the second generation of Kindle launch, these were sorted out and have been pretty much non-existent since then. Even those teething problems were nothing on the scale variance the PW1/PW2 and other frontlit readers seem to exhibit.
For example, I've had around three Kindle 3 Keyboards and four $79 Kindle 4/$69 Kindle 4B/5's (either for me or used them before giving to relatives etc.) and aside from the generational screen upgrade in the latter group (blacker text screen in late models), all have been equal in screen quality to their contemporaries. I am yet to see a single person report they have tried multiple PWs and consider the screens the same in direct comparison. Usually there is something different between the screens of two PWs... This difference isn't there between Kindle 3's and Kindle 4's with the same screen.
Pure E-ink readers, those without extra layers on top of the e-ink screen (even Kindle Touch doesn't have an extra layer since it uses IR touch, so it is pure e-ink), are probably one of the most consistent screen experiences you can get nowadays. I would argue it is much more common to see dead pixels, light bleed, unevenness in LCDs for example, than have any issues with a regular e-ink screen. That is one thing that makes regular e-ink so great for the demanding task of reading, which displays a very simple view that is very hard to portray "perfectly" - e-ink can do that. Most of the flaws in generic LCDs are usually hidden by the onslaught of moving image and the overall complexity of what is being displayed (not that there aren't still a lot of people that can't stand LCDs/LEDs with light bleed or dead pixels, a very common topic on related forums too).
Indeed, most of the issues people are reporting with PW1/PW2, the unevenness, pinholes, dust specks, shadows, milkiness, probably even the lack of contrast have to do with the added lightguide (and touch) layers over the e-ink screen. I bet if we'd get a regular e-ink version of the PW, without the touch layer and the lightguide, the screen experience would be very consistent and we'd be having none of this discussion.
On top of this apparent variance between PW1/PW2 units is another fact: People do see things differently. There have been multiple cases of people reporting "perfect" PWs and then posting images with pink and green splotches and whatnot. It's the same with televisions, very few average people care or see anything wrong with their sets, even if a more knowledgeable analysis can certainly point them out. Clearly PW1/PW2 is selling well and receiving good reviews, so overall people are liking the device a lot. Most people probably don't see anything wrong with the screen, even if there is something "wrong" with it.
It remains to be seen if frontlit e-ink can be brought to a higher quality level. LED/LCDs TVs are by now an old invention and that same unevenness still plagues them, because it would be too expensive to fix it all - some models are better than others of course, so it is a valid discussion to have amongst those who care about such things.
I think, for many of us old Kindle fans, this big thing here is that e-ink had gotten to such perfection in many ways - and now to have this uncertainty associated with a Kindle purchase in the PW1/PW2 age is a disappointment. And this isn't just about Kindle: similar concerns appear on other manufacturers with regular e-ink vs. frontlit e-ink models.
Luckily Amazon makes the baby Kindle, arguably one of the best e-ink experiences out there - the latest screen has inky blacks, very nice.