MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Kobo has color e-readers coming out in April

Quoth · 07-17-2024, 08:23 AM

Only ambient lit mono ink (with usual matt surface) is better, because you never need to adjust brightness or colour temperature to match surroundings. The colour eink will need LED front light indoors.

Automatic brightness (and rarer auto-colour temperature) only seems to be much use outdoors.

A front lit colour eink is just as emissive indoors as a properly adjusted OLED or backlight LCD, which can have a very matt screen. My matt OLED and matt LCD screens are more matt (less reflection / glare) than any of my eink. One eink I gave away just on Monday has actually a glossy film that can't be removed. It's better than most small phones, but far worse than a Nxtpaper 40 (the regular model, not the 4G).

The article is full of advertising copy that's inaccurate and doesn't match the paper. A heavy reader will not get more than a week on any eink. Some phones and tablets are as good now for reading (on charge) as some eink and better than Oasis or Sage.
The eink is at a disadvantage for audiobooks etc, as the CPU can't sleep and the phone screen blanks. Also Kindle will really only work for Audible and Kobo only for Kobo. A phone can give longer running time, some new ones still have 3.5mm jack (best run time and quality), any audio book source or music, or any streaming audio (lower power on WiFi, but mobile possible).

So article mentioning of audio books and BT is irrelevant and so is colour (because it needs front light and is poorer by far than any matt OLED/LCD). Only mono eink for reflowable novels in ambient light has an advantage over a good screen (not retina, but matt) and high capacity battery phone/tablet.

I've plenty to compare and don't need to buy a colour eink to understand how inherently inferior it is to current mono ink or decent LCD/OLED with matt screen (more than one brand and possible for decades, just costs more).

The matt top layer on eink isn't anything inherent to the eink Viziplex / Pearl / Carta technology, but a decision to improve quality that adds more to cost than shiny screen, possible long before OLED on any kind of LCD and some have been nearly matt. Shiny is a fashion / marketing decision that saves on cost.

07-17-2024, 08:23 AM	#85
Quoth Still reading Posts: 14,437 Karma: 107078855 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper	Only ambient lit mono ink (with usual matt surface) is better, because you never need to adjust brightness or colour temperature to match surroundings. The colour eink will need LED front light indoors. Automatic brightness (and rarer auto-colour temperature) only seems to be much use outdoors. A front lit colour eink is just as emissive indoors as a properly adjusted OLED or backlight LCD, which can have a very matt screen. My matt OLED and matt LCD screens are more matt (less reflection / glare) than any of my eink. One eink I gave away just on Monday has actually a glossy film that can't be removed. It's better than most small phones, but far worse than a Nxtpaper 40 (the regular model, not the 4G). The article is full of advertising copy that's inaccurate and doesn't match the paper. A heavy reader will not get more than a week on any eink. Some phones and tablets are as good now for reading (on charge) as some eink and better than Oasis or Sage. The eink is at a disadvantage for audiobooks etc, as the CPU can't sleep and the phone screen blanks. Also Kindle will really only work for Audible and Kobo only for Kobo. A phone can give longer running time, some new ones still have 3.5mm jack (best run time and quality), any audio book source or music, or any streaming audio (lower power on WiFi, but mobile possible). So article mentioning of audio books and BT is irrelevant and so is colour (because it needs front light and is poorer by far than any matt OLED/LCD). Only mono eink for reflowable novels in ambient light has an advantage over a good screen (not retina, but matt) and high capacity battery phone/tablet. I've plenty to compare and don't need to buy a colour eink to understand how inherently inferior it is to current mono ink or decent LCD/OLED with matt screen (more than one brand and possible for decades, just costs more). The matt top layer on eink isn't anything inherent to the eink Viziplex / Pearl / Carta technology, but a decision to improve quality that adds more to cost than shiny screen, possible long before OLED on any kind of LCD and some have been nearly matt. Shiny is a fashion / marketing decision that saves on cost.