BTW, last night I read a short time in a dark room without any lights except the one built into the PW2. I know a lot of you read that way. It isn't a good experience for me though, and I've never been able to do so on any front lit eInk or back lit LCD tablet/phone. After just a few minutes the sharp contrast between the bright screen and the dark room starts to cause eyestrain. But I tested it out so I could report back to you.

Here is my experience. In a lighted room my PW2 screen with light level set as low as possible has a cream colored background with a touch of very light grey. Ii looks like most Pearl screens on non-lighted readers. As I increase the light level to an optimum level for comfortable reading, the screen background color begins to take on a faint blue hue and the screen starts to look a little dingy in the middle. If I turn the light level way up until by retinas scream for mercy, the background does indeed turn white. But at that level I can no longer read without great eyestrain.

Now here is my experience in a dark room using only the PW2 light. I needed to turn the light level to about 7 before I could see the text well enough to start reading. The maximum level I could stand was 10. Anything above 10 and my retinas threatened to pack their bags and leave! Between 7 and 10 I noticed the screen background was more of a light cream color (not the blue hue i see in lighted rooms), and the background dinginess was not as evident. If I could get my eyes to read in a dark room with so much contrast between a bright screen background and darkness, it would be nearly perfect. For my eyes though I needed to turn on a dim lamp to keep the eyestrain from occurring.