Ghosting

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by hermes

I observed this with my kobo touch. It is quite annoying/obvious. One wants to turn one's head away for a second. I mentioned it to the Chapters store manager. He replied 'All ereaders have this.
"My Sony doesn't." was my reply to his reply.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nonsense; the Sony most certainly does have a "flashing black" screen refresh.

May I ask which "My Sony" this'd be? You returned yours. You don't own a Sony.

That said, Harry is right, the do have a flash. Sweet and short, but flash they do.

[baronrus]

Originally Posted by hermes

I observed this with my kobo touch. It is quite annoying/obvious. One wants to turn one's head away for a second. I mentioned it to the Chapters store manager. He replied 'All ereaders have this.
"My Sony doesn't." was my reply to his reply.

I have used the sony extensivly (prs-650) and it certainly does flash.

[Shopaholic]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

May I ask which "My Sony" this'd be? You returned yours. You don't own a Sony.

I was going to point this out. His Sony doesn't flash because he doesn't have it anymore to use it or see it therefore he's quite correct HIS Sony doesn't do it.

The rest of the Sony's on the planet, do however flash.

[remcdonald]

Ah yes the infamous the other ones don't do that retort. I have had people try telling me that kindles don't flash, that sonys don't flash, that it must be something only Kobos due because they are horrible. Yet, every time I have challenged one of those people to bring in this mysterious other reader and show it to me (I have a standing bet $100 if they can bring me an eink screen that doesn't flash) and not a one has come back and done so. Though many have come back to grudginly admit they were wrong, some even bought kobos and have been back to chat since then.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by remcdonald

Ah yes the infamous the other ones don't do that retort. I have had people try telling me that kindles don't flash, that sonys don't flash, that it must be something only Kobos due because they are horrible. Yet, every time I have challenged one of those people to bring in this mysterious other reader and show it to me (I have a standing bet $100 if they can bring me an eink screen that doesn't flash) and not a one has come back and done so. Though many have come back to grudginly admit they were wrong, some even bought kobos and have been back to chat since then.

While all e-ink device do have a flash there certainly are big differences in how long the flash is. When I changed from the Italica (a netronix device) to the Sony I was amazed how fast it is. It is perfectly possibly that those who argue with you are referring to the Kobo taking longer than their reader.

[FJames]

Page turns are as quick as I would ever want them to be with firmware 1.9.4, and I don't see any significant ghosting while reading, so I'll just stick with the default 6-page refresh. The only time I see any problem is when moving from a screen with graphics (like the home page) to a text book page, where it looks like there are faded patches on the screen until I go to the next page.

Overall, good job Kobo!

[Lordvic]

The Wifi does it every page. It helps prevent that "ghosting" by ensuring a proper Clear of the page every turn.

I heard the Touch is set to do it every 6 pages intsead of every page, This makes it far more noticable to the eyes since it's not a regular occurance.

I know with the Wifi, having it go every page turn becomes unnoticable. In fact, by the time my eyes jump bak to the top of the page, the new page has already loaded, screen refresh and all!

[m_bisson]

I set my touch to do it every page. And it is a noticeable difference compared to 6 pages, even with 1.9.4.

[EldRick]

I've finally seen the ghosting that others have been vocal about, and I believe that it is due to use of a poorly-designed refresh technique on the KT.

On my Nook Touch, when you turn the page, it is obvious that they rewrite the text by inverting/overwriting each character with a thicker-stroke character - black then white - you see an instantaneous flash of "hollow" letters, which then disappear before the new page is written.

This completely eliminates the ghosting issue on normal text, although it still occasionally appears when you go to a graphic page, such as the library.

The KT does not appear to do this, and the result is horrible broken appearance of letters where the previous test overlapped. IMHO, this is completely unacceptable, as it destroys the appearance of the text after a page turn - even once.

To get around this, I've set the page refresh interval to each page (1). You get the black flash (which I don't mind much) which slows down page refresh somewhat, but at least the text remains readable.

I sure hope the Kobo guys can fix this issue, as it does not compare well to the Nook Touch in this respect.

[Joe563]

On my Nook Touch, when you turn the page, it is obvious that they rewrite the text by inverting/overwriting each character with a thicker-stroke character - black then white - you see an instantaneous flash of "hollow" letters, which then disappear before the new page is written.

You may have a defective unit since this is exactly what I see on my Touch. I also do not see any degradation before a full page refresh. However, I prefer a full page refresh after every page turn because I find the every sixth page refresh too distracting since it is so different.

[jackastor]

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[jackastor]

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[EldRick]

Isn't Jack amazing? He knows everything about everything, and he can even see what's on the screen of both my KT and NT from many, many miles away.

And, he is unfailingly polite and respectful - a real Boy Scout.

Thanks for sharing the bounty of your knowledge with us Jack! You're a real gent. We're glad you're here defending the reader you bought against any critical comments - I don't know what I'd do without you to tell me the facts.

[montsnmags]

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[EldRick]

Here is an image of the negative ghosting that I see on the KT after a single page turn. Notice the blotchy appearance of the first few lines of (Rockwell) text and the last couple, compared to the darker appearance of the line or two starting at ATHENA.



There are chunks of letters that are visibly lighter than they should be, and pieces that almost drop out on some. I have satisfied myself that these are in fact lighter-toned negative images of the text on the previous page, overlaying the text on current page.

Ghosting on the KT is sometimes VERY obvious when you go to a graphic page, as in the settings or library pages - on some graphic pages you can read some of the previous-page text.

This Does Not Happen on my NT or my K3 - not at all, not ever. It is the reason why I have set the KT Page Refresh to 1 = refresh every page as a (hopefully temporary) expedient.

I'm hoping that the Kobo guys can improve on this issue with future software changes - it's obviously possible to do better with the e-ink Pearl screen, as Kindle and Nook have demonstrated with their current products.