Quote:
Originally Posted by fearindex
I thought I owed you guys one more report, so here goes...
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Turns out, I got a good one. The new screen isn't quite as bright as the first PW2, it is somewhere in-between my PW1 and the first PW2 in brightness, but that's actually a good thing - the light is more even. There is none of the bottom right corner light-leakage and overall the "stage lighting" on the bottom edge of the new unit is the least pronounced of the three. I mean, like on all PW2s I believe, the stage lighting still shows there when you look very closely, but compared to the glare in PW1 it has now practically disappeared. The screen is yellowish like the first PW2, but it is a nice shade. PW1 with the light on looks very blue compared to the two PW2's.
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I don't know, maybe I'll actually get to read some on the darned thing...  |
So, something I never properly (outside of testing runs) did with the first PW2 because I was too annoyed by the flaws on its screen, I actually settled in to read - in darkness - with the new PW2. My best comparison being the PW1 last year, which I also used to do some actual reading on, before settling onto the much nicer basic $69 Kindle for my daily Kindle for the past year.
Anyway, the first thing any pure e-ink lover probably faces with reading a lighted e-ink screen in the dark is trying to come into grips with the tablet or LCD-like feeling. I didn't get into e-ink because it looked like a screen, but because it looked nothing like a screen. The paperlikeness is the magic that attracts me to e-ink and has allowed me to embrace digital books in a way no tablet of mine has ever been able. Those reading in the dark probably know what I mean.
Put the Paperwhite 2 light to the max and no matter any clever frontlight trickery involved, it looks just like an LCD and nothing like electronic paper. I must sing a little praise at this point, though, the consistency of the lighting has gotten to such a level that it didn't give me any worries even when reading in the dark. The light is stronger around the edges than the middle, but it doesn't seem splotchy or patchy anymore. To say it is even or perfect would be a lie, but I do feel it is relatively consistent and personally I got into grips with it very quickly. This is high praise coming from someone who did NOT get into grips with my PW1's screen experience, even though it isn't anywhere as bad as some I've seen online.
So, it became a question of adjusting the PW2 light and could I read comfortably at a level that didn't feel like reading on an LCD in the dark. In the end I read a good hour+ on level 7 I think. It was pleasant enough to the point I forgot about the reader and I do like the touch interface, I already liked it on the PW1 even though I expected to hate the lack of page changing buttons. The touch became especially nice when I had to look up some words in the dictionary, the explanation opening in a nice big window on the screen much appreciated too. I put the new PW2 in my old PW1 official case, and the magnetic cover on/off feature is great too. Also, I appreciated the clearly less weight in my PW2 Wi-Fi compared to PW1 3G.
It is far too early days to say whether or not the PW2 can compete with my trusty baby Kindle, because even at level 7, when reading in the dark some of the e-ink feeling is still lost. Good news is, the screen quality itself was fine and didn't bother me anymore, what bothers me if anything if the principal limitation of this technology concept - it looks like a screen, not like paper. Reading in lighted rooms PW2 works much better because you can actually use the light to control the whiteness of the screen while still looking like electronic paper, the darkness reading scenario continues to be the one area where frontlighted e-ink has a hard time competing with regular e-ink in an integrated lighted case.