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Old 08-21-2014, 07:44 PM   #131
mystika1
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Posts: 353
Karma: 1360168
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Louisiana
Device: IPad Air 2, , Kindle Voyage, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Aura H2Ov1, Kobo Mini
Quote:
Originally Posted by parkher View Post
I would never ever consider buying PaperWhite, Aura is the only with 6.8" screen, so I had no choice but to get it.

The bad things:

1. Lack of buttons. There is not even "next page" button.
I am currently reading with Aura HD and I hate it so badly because of that.
E-reader is a specialized device for reading books, not a general-purpose tablet.
It should have at least the buttons to turn pages.
There is still touch screen for those who don't want to use buttons.
On Sony T2 I have disabled in CR turning pages with touching screen, though.

There are two things:
- the lack of feedback when turning pages, sometimes I don't know if it worked correctly, if, perhaps I turned two pages instead or in the wrong direction.
- the terrible feeling each time when I need to touch the screen with a finger and leave a greasy fingerprint on it without any need.
Besides, I might scratch it.
I would never ever buy a phone without hardware buttons, that's for sure.

2. The glowing screen. It cannot even be switched off on PW.
And at the minimum setting it is probably still glowing a bit?

The real printed books do not glow in the dark. E-ink was invented for that purpose - so that the screen were not glowing.

All their fairy tales about the difference between back lit and reflected light are just a pile of BS.
The glowing screen certainly cannot be used in the dark, as in tv commercials they try people to use it. It is very harmful for the eyes, just terrible.
I tested on Aura, and Aura has better glowing screen than PW - absolutely even light and warmer at that. Still eyes hurt terribly at any setting.
Using a clip-on light with a longer neck is much better but still not good.
For reading e-books a good external lighting is needed, just as for reading printed books.

The only possible usage: to set the glowing level to < 5%, select a semi-bold font and read at a slightly away from perpendicular angle in a pretty well but not too well lit room - then you can have an effect when you don't yet feel that the screen is glowing but it becomes much whiter and contrast is increased. Still, the same effect can be achieved by reading outside in the sun or by having a proper lighting for reading books without any glowing screen.

On Aura, the screen glowing can be set to as low as 1% or switched off completely. Still there ar two other things to consider:

- the light distributing layer is not 100% transparent and the contrast would be better without it, when the lighting is not used. Although it is difficult to notice the difference, you need to compare identical screens with and without the light distributing layer, and even then the difference is barely noticeable. So not a big deal, but still.

- however, the other thing is more serious: we all know stories about scratches appearing sooner or later on that light distributing layer (about Nook Glowlight, especially, PW is perhaps too new still).
When the scratches appear, you no longer can use the lighting (on Paperwhite you can't even switch it off!) but the non-100% transparent layer remains, and some scratches might be even visible with lighting off.
So all the time I am waiting for the scratches to appear - there is no comfort in reading with that stupid glowing light.
Again, there should be a choice - if you are reading while commuting perhaps you need a glowing screen, but PaperWhite does not give that choice. Only one model.
Neither does Aura HD.

For me - glowing screen is a deal breaker, I would not buy a reader with a glowing screen given a choice.

I got Aura even with the glowing screen and without buttons because I wanted to experience the difference of 0.8" in the screen size.
I consider it a temporary reader, until normal readers with buttons and without glowing screen appear with the same screen. But will they ever?

3. PaperWhite went back from IR touch screen to capacitive touch screen.
It adds another non-100% transparent layer on top of the e-ink screen.
That was the reason why IR was used in the first place - to get rid of an additional layer. Now they are making a step backwards.
I have nothing against inductive touch screens where the additional layer is not on the top.
I guess, with two additional unnecessary layers on top of e-ink, the designers of PaperWhite felt they cannot afford to allow to switch off the glowing screen - they needed it always to look having more contrast than it really has.

I could mention another thing I don't like about PaperWhite, but it is not new, I don't like any Kindle for that - a lack of a slot for an SD card.

In all my readers I have 32 GB class 10 cards (except that in Aura it may be less useful, with its slow book indexing).
On hacked T1/T2 it is possible to switch off the native book indexing and large SD cards work fine.
For example, I have 10 GB of dictionaries and 20 GB of books on a card.

BTW, T3 still has buttons!!! So this is great. But T2 is so good already that I don't know if T3 can be any better. A higher resolution screen may give no noticeable advantage when using small 20 point font as I do. And until it is hacked - it is useless to me.
You don't like the front lighting. You hate not having buttons. You want a larger screen... Why not get the kindle DX? Luckily there is a wide enough selection of e ink devices to choose from. I greatly enjoy reading on my pw2 and I happily read in the dark with no eye strain at all. I have never had greasy finger prints either. I never eat while I am reading though.



Penny
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