[Sunspark]

E-Ink apparently is quite sensitive to temperature and this can affect contrast. How much I hadn't realized until today. I was walking to my car in freezing weather and reading as I went (why not). I had noticed the edges of the screen fading out slightly before and wasn't sure what the cause was, but as I continued it faded more and more and I knew then that it was temperature related.

Basically the colder it gets the darker and cloudier the screen gets including white ghosting of letters from the previous page and the letters get very faded out (gray). Be careful, because apparently the specification of e-ink is 0 to 35 C.

Now here's something interesting. If I laid my finger across the cold screen, and then did a page turn, all areas surrounding it would be pale and clouded except the area under my finger.. which would have a white background and actual BLACK letters. The black letters weren't light related either, because it's been sitting here for a few hours indoors and under incandescent light you can clearly see that they're black letters.

Did a page turn just now, and whoosh, letters reverted back to their usual lower contrast medium to dark gray.

I wonder if it's even possible somehow in software to get it to do this more often. But these were unquestionably dark black letters in the times font just like an actual book.

Decided to try an experiment.. held the screen over an incandescent lightbulb for a few seconds.

A bit blacker letters.

So in conclusion, these screens are calibrated for the tropics not North America and you will get the best results during the summertime.