prs 600 and colorblindness

[John1997]

The 600 had gotten cheap enough that I bought one yesterday.

The screen is even harder for me to read than even the worst of the reviews lead me to expect. It reminded me of a PDA I had bought many years ago to use as an ereader. It was as hard for me to read as the PRS 600. But when I showed it to several co-workers, they looked at it and said "Looks fine."

Then on a hunch I showed it to a co-worker who is, like me, seriously color-blind. His comment. "That's awful, no one could read that!"

I infer that these screens aren't black and white or even shades of gray, but rather two (hopefully) contrasting colors. But for people with color-blindness, the colors don't contrast and so are hard to read. So for us, not only is there the issue of the touch screen physics, but also the colors don't contrast.

Anyone have any thoughts? Do others who have serious trouble reading the screen have color vision problems? Do people who find it comfortable to read have normal color vision? Or is there really no pattern?

[eric11210]

I'm partially color blind (red green deficiency) and have no major problems. However I do like to keep the text a little larger than the standard size. For some reason I find the contrast against that background (which definitely does look more like a PDA than an E ink display) requires a larger font. Other than that though, I'm quite comfortable with it. . .

Anyway, if you aren't happy, just return it and look at something else. There are currently over a dozen readers on the market and many are in the same price range so it's worth switching if you can't read this unit.

Eric

[John1997]

eric11210, glad to hear you like the 600 even with a red-green deficiency. I've seen several people say they didn't like it at first but got used to it over time. I'll give it a few more tries, but I think it's going back.

>> Anyway, if you aren't happy, just return it and look at something else.
>> There are currently over a dozen readers on the market and many are
>> in the same price range so it's worth switching if you can't read this unit.

I already have a Jet Book Lite, and am really pretty pleased with it. Also use an Eken M001 and an HP TC1100 depending on the situation. I was attracted by the ability to borrow library books easily on the Sony machines. Maybe I'll try a 505, although they get pretty pricey on eBay auctions.

Edit: Apparently the latest (16b) firmware for the JBL also supports borrowing library books. I'll have to get that installed tonight and give it a try. That would be great.

Still interested in whether color perception affects the reading ability.