Kindle 4 screen is THE SAME as K3.

[kuklachica]

It is a textured skin from Skin It. The color might be different without the skin, but the sharpness and clarity would still be the same. The left one is much more blurry and the right one is considerably more sharp.

[Martyd]

OK I'll wrap this up now. Received a replacement Kindle and it looks the same as the first, so one went back. My last test was this, K3 and K4 in morning light just before sunrise. Set at not facing window. Observed from about 12 to 15 feet. The K3 looked whiter in the background. I don't see the bezel coming into play at this distance and light.
Now on to the real test and that's reading. Like the size and the ads are no problem. I think I'll be happy but I do feel there is a difference in the appearence of screens, and I am not saying don't buy.
Marty

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Martyd

OK I'll wrap this up now. Received a replacement Kindle and it looks the same as the first, so one went back. My last test was this, K3 and K4 in morning light just before sunrise. Set at not facing window. Observed from about 12 to 15 feet. The K3 looked whiter in the background. I don't see the bezel coming into play at this distance and light.
Now on to the real test and that's reading. Like the size and the ads are no problem. I think I'll be happy but I do feel there is a difference in the appearence of screens, and I am not saying don't buy.
Marty

Let's hope the next one is better. The other person in this thread went through 4 replacements till they got one to their liking. So keep trying till your happy!

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by kuklachica

It is a textured skin from Skin It. The color might be different without the skin, but the sharpness and clarity would still be the same. The left one is much more blurry and the right one is considerably more sharp.

I thought that is what is was. My first K4 was blurry like that. The one I have now is jagged in bright lights so switching the font really helped on that.

[Martyd]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Let's hope the next one is better. The other person in this thread went through 4 replacements till they got one to their liking. So keep trying till your happy!

I'm done Blossom. Just one try for me. I'll read the one I kept and then decide, but I suspect it will be a keeper. I really like the positive things about this model, and it will help me decide.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Martyd

I'm done Blossom. Just one try for me. I'll read the one I kept and then decide, but I suspect it will be a keeper. I really like the positive things about this model, and it will help me decide.

Okay if you change the font to a black font it will look so much better! I use Amasis that was modified just for the Kindle. It looks amazing!

[Martyd]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Okay if you change the font to a black font it will look so much better! I use Amasis that was modified just for the Kindle. It looks amazing!

Off topic, but where and how do you get this font? I don't see it listed.

[SchrodingersCat]

Maybe I'm missing the point, but why would you want anything but the sharpest contrast for reading books? Variable contrast makes sense when you're looking at pictures or printing black and white photography. But when you're displaying text, why wouldn't you want the darkest black against the brightest white, with crisp & smooth edges for the letters?

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

As a photographer [...] The eye always sees an average of 18% grey in any scene. If a scene is not average, the eye will compensate both brightness and color.

woah. just woah. You're a photographer and you seriously just said that???

If that were true, you wouldn't have to adjust the EV when taking pictures of 80% snow, because the photos at average exposure would still look exactly the same as our eyes expect it to. But our eyes are not cameras. When I'm outside and I look at a snowy landscape, I see bright white, more bright white, and some grey. If my eyes were averaging to 18% grey, I would just see a big grey landscape. Now, as someone living through my 30th prairie snow-filled winter, I can assure you: there's a lot of white looking stuff out there, it's not 18% grey...

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Strange... Shinew's tests (he must either be a photographer, or a DTP-guy to have such good grasp of this color management stuff) decisively and objectively prove that the K3 and K4 screens are similar enough to the point that they can be called the same, bar any defective ones of course.

These tests were a good start, but it would be more conclusive if he'd sampled 10-100 of each device. Any statistician will tell you that a sample size of 1 gives you poor statistics.

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I still think Amazon should check each Kindle screen before shipping.

Sure, if you want the price to go up by 2x or 3x.

The way they do it, you get people who say "meh, it's good enough, I'll just get used to it" and so they still get to sell a unit that would probably fail thorough QC.

There are three ways to sell electronics.

First is to have a very high standard of manufacturing so that most of the units coming off the line are within 0.5% tolerance of specs. That's what they do with most computer components and high end cell phones.

The second is to have a low standard of manufacturing and to put the units into different bins depending on quality, and sell the lower quality ones at a discounted rate. That's what they do for resistors.

The third is to have low standards of manufacturing and to just send all the units out, and let the customers sort it out. I suspect that's the method Kindle chose. It keeps the price low, and since they readily exchange units until the customer gets what they want, they can still keep customer satisfaction up.

I'm actually OK with that. In other words, I'm willing to save 50-75% on the device in order to do the quality control myself. If I wasn't, I'm sure there are other brands with lower tolerances that I could have paid more to purchase.

[madmaxmedia]

Originally Posted by SchrodingersCat

These tests were a good start, but it would be more conclusive if he'd sampled 10-100 of each device. Any statistician will tell you that a sample size of 1 gives you poor statistics.

Yeah, if anything we know there is variability within each model anyway. So to go the Nth degree analyzing 2 units is not very productive.

Your rundown of QC and costs is great. People have to keep in mind that these things cost over $300 jus a couple of years ago. As it stands I'm sure there is some sort of QC, but the acceptable variance is obviously wide enough that some users will notice the difference. But the great majority won't, because in the big picture we are really talking about minor differences.

As long as Amazon continues their great customer support on this, I will take the current pricing as well.

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by madmaxmedia

As it stands I'm sure there is some sort of QC, but the acceptable variance is obviously wide enough that some users will notice the difference. But the great majority won't, because in the big picture we are really talking about minor differences.

Not only that, but it's become obvious to me that many of the people who do notice the difference are willing to live with it for some reason not understandable to me. If you had to pay return postage, or send it back before you get the new one, I could understand being tolerant of poor quality.

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE! If you're anything less than 100% in love with the screen contrast GET A REPLACEMENT!

The last model I received solved every problem I've heard people discuss, without having to change the font (I'm using the default), or ignore my old one, or shine a lamp on it to read, or any kind of fussing on my part. I can now turn it on and read under any reasonable lighting conditions (except -30C weather, but that's a separate issue).

Amazon pays the return postage, they send you the new device first, and this issue is known by them so they put up zero objection to replacing it over and over. The more you replace it, in fact, the more apologetic they get that you're having problems. In fact, in the amount of time you've spent reading this and deciding to keep the one you have, you could have had Amazon phone you and send out a replacement.

[Yomat]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Okay if you change the font to a black font it will look so much better! I use Amasis that was modified just for the Kindle. It looks amazing!

I'm trying to find that font too, but the only thing I've found is that post:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...sis#post984650

¿Is that the one that you have? I've donwloaded the file and it only has the regular font inside. ¿Shouldn't it has the bold and italic font too?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by SchrodingersCat

woah. just woah. You're a photographer and you seriously just said that???

If that were true, you wouldn't have to adjust the EV when taking pictures of 80% snow, because the photos at average exposure would still look exactly the same as our eyes expect it to. But our eyes are not cameras. When I'm outside and I look at a snowy landscape, I see bright white, more bright white, and some grey. If my eyes were averaging to 18% grey, I would just see a big grey landscape. Now, as someone living through my 30th prairie snow-filled winter, I can assure you: there's a lot of white looking stuff out there, it's not 18% grey...

I concede that I could have been more precise indeed. Saying that your eyes always see everything as 18% grey is indeed too lackluster, and not every scene will become grey. It should be: "When looking at an average scene with many different colors and brightness levels, the eye will see that scene as average (18%) grey." This is the reason why a Kindle looks brighter in a dark case, and why it looks green in a pink case; the eye will try to average everything out. It sometimes can't do that, with the snow landscape being a good example.