Get rid of Kindle Paperwhite's backlight

[ProDigit]

Come to think of it, you only need 2 settings:

1- Off: the majority of the time, when reading in daylight
2- on: A faint backlight to make it readable in pitch black dark rooms.

Anywhere between pitch black environments, and daylight, one can either turn on or off the backlight. The weak backlight would be improved by environment light, so the lighter it gets, the less you need to depend on the backlight.

As long as you got these 2 bases covered, to be able to read comfortably in pitch black rooms, and to be able to turn it off in daylight; you have basically covered all possible situations.
I don't see the need for making the led backlight as bright as tablets or LCD's.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Come to think of it, you only need 2 settings:

1- Off: the majority of the time, when reading in daylight
2- on: A faint backlight to make it readable in pitch black dark rooms.

Anywhere between pitch black environments, and daylight, one can either turn on or off the backlight. The weak backlight would be improved by environment light, so the lighter it gets, the less you need to depend on the backlight.

As long as you got these 2 bases covered, to be able to read comfortably in pitch black rooms, and to be able to turn it off in daylight; you have basically covered all possible situations.
I don't see the need for making the led backlight as bright as tablets or LCD's.

It would seem so. Realistically you only need one setting. The problem is that that setting depends on personal taste. Mine is 12, my wife's is at 14. That is the only setting we need - it is too cumbersome to mess with the light level. It looks good in darkness, and when there is enough light it just simply disappears (gets less noticable). One setting fits all. We don't care that it could last longer - it is just the way it is - part of the energy consumption under normal usage. Because normal usage is really independent from the ambient light.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Come to think of it, you only need 2 settings:

1- Off: the majority of the time, when reading in daylight
2- on: A faint backlight to make it readable in pitch black dark rooms.

Anywhere between pitch black environments, and daylight, one can either turn on or off the backlight. The weak backlight would be improved by environment light, so the lighter it gets, the less you need to depend on the backlight.

As long as you got these 2 bases covered, to be able to read comfortably in pitch black rooms, and to be able to turn it off in daylight; you have basically covered all possible situations.
I don't see the need for making the led backlight as bright as tablets or LCD's.

The light makes a tremendous improvement in readability even in daylight, especially the rather weak daylight we get during a British winter. It significantly increases the contrast - and hence the readability - of the screen.

Please - I'm not trying to be picky, but it is NOT a backlight. A backlight is behind the screen. The PW has a frontlight. It's no harder to use the right word than the wrong one, is it?

[centhena]

I don't care about the battery issue that some people were talking about. I mean if it does lessen the strain on the battery and save energy that'd be great but I'm not pressed about that because I don't know that the difference is significant enough to get my panties in a twist about. I dislike that I can't rid myself of the light ever. I notice it still even at 1, 0, what ever the lowest setting is. I can still tell it's there during the daylight and would prefer if it wasn't. If I couldn't see it I wouldn't care... hehe Also I do like the slider and have found it useful to turn the light up in certain places where I'd prefer it lower in different lighting or lack there of. I wish someone smarter than I could add a long press option to the light bulb menu icon that toggles the light off and on while maintaining the slider functionality.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The light makes a tremendous improvement in readability even in daylight, especially the rather weak daylight we get during a British winter. It significantly increases the contrast - and hence the readability - of the screen.

Please - I'm not trying to be picky, but it is NOT a backlight. A backlight is behind the screen. The PW has a frontlight. It's no harder to use the right word than the wrong one, is it?

Technically, it's not a front light neither, because the light is inbetween the screen and the plastic layer, so it's inbetween the screen, rather than in front of it, or behind it.
Which makes both of us wrong.
I say back light, because the light is behind the touch screen.

[ProDigit]

Talking of which, why does it have a polarization filter built into?
Doesn't that reduce the amount of light hitting the screen?
(since the main function of a polarization filter is to block certain types of light, from certain angles).

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Technically, it's not a front light neither, because the light is inbetween the screen and the plastic layer, so it's in between the screen, rather than in front of it, or behind it.
Which makes both of us wrong.
I say back light, because the light is behind the touch screen.

If you choose to get that "technical", the light comes from LEDs mounted at the bottom edge of the screen and not some mysterious light source that is between the top plastic layer and the eink layer. That "plastic layer" of which you speak is a light guide that directs the light from those LEDs through itself, and it evenly redirects some of that light inward toward the eink layer.

Because the light intentionally leaks out the back of the front plastic layer, it really is a front light (or perhaps a side light if you prefer to take into account only the LEDs and not the light guide layer).

In fact, damage to the front plastic layer can cause some light to leak out of the FRONT of that light guide layer, causing annoying light pinpoints to be all too visible.

The position of the light is relative to the active pixel layer, not the touchscreen layer. The location of the touchscreen layer has no relevance to whether the PW has a frontlight or backlight.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Technically, it's not a front light neither, because the light is inbetween the screen and the plastic layer, so it's inbetween the screen, rather than in front of it, or behind it.
Which makes both of us wrong.
I say back light, because the light is behind the touch screen.

*sigh* No actually not. The E-ink layer (the actual screen itself) is on the bottom, the touch screen layer is directly over the e-ink, and the light guide is on the top of the screen. So no the light is most definately not sandwiched between the e-ink and touch layer. Plus what GM said a post before me.

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Talking of which, why does it have a polarization filter built into?
Doesn't that reduce the amount of light hitting the screen?
(since the main function of a polarization filter is to block certain types of light, from certain angles).

The Paperwhite does not have a pol filter. The screen technology that depends on 2 pol filters is the back lit lcd screen. There is light behind it, which is non-directional - or more correctly contains light-waves in all kind of directions. The bottommost pol filter only lets the light through in one direction (e.g. only horizontal swinging). That directional light hits the lcd part. Depending on how much voltage is applied to each sub-pixel, the more the light gets turned around. For white it doesn't get turned - stays horizontal. For the black parts it gets twisted as far away from horizontal as possible - think of it as going vertical - or up and down. Somewhere in there is a colorfilter for the red, green, and blue subpixel. On the top of the screen is another pol filter that lets the white part through and blocks the black part. Anything inbetween gets partially through. The angles vary from one lcd to next.

Just checked one of my tvs - and the light is diagonally from bottom left to top right. On my notebook it is diagonally from top left to bottom right. On my phone it is even more complicated - one direction it is reddish, and orthogonal to it it is greenish.

On the paperwhite the light is uniform in every direction - checked with my sunglasses. (my sun glasses have a directional pol filter themselves)

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

*sigh* No actually not. The E-ink layer (the actual screen itself) is on the bottom, the touch screen layer is directly over the e-ink, and the light guide is on the top of the screen. So no the light is most definately not sandwiched between the e-ink and touch layer. Plus what GM said a post before me.

*Shigh x2* No actually not.
The light is emanating from the leds, and is radiating between the e-ink substrate and the touchscreen layer, not on top of the touch screen layer, since it's capacitive, the touchscreen layer must be the most top layer of the screen.

but anyway,

I wondered why someone mentioned about a polarization filter on the PW, and I asked about it, because I haven't yet found much stuff online about that.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

*Shigh x2* No actually not.
The light is emanating from the leds, and is radiating between the e-ink substrate and the touchscreen layer, not on top of the touch screen layer, since it's capacitive, the touchscreen layer must be the most top layer of the screen.

No no no. Capacitive touch layer does NOT have to be on top. Go to Amazon and look at their own pictures.

[GoSharks]

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

+1

I opt for "bottom light"

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

*Shigh x2* No actually not.
The light is emanating from the leds, and is radiating between the e-ink substrate and the touchscreen layer, not on top of the touch screen layer, since it's capacitive, the touchscreen layer must be the most top layer of the screen.

Nope. The capacitive layer is NOT the topmost layer, as this picture shows:



As the picture clearly shows, the light source is above the touchscreen.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by HarryT

As the picture clearly shows, the light source is above the touchscreen.

Exactly but the light originates from the side. So it's a sidelight.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by joblack

Exactly but the light originates from the side. So it's a sidelight.

I'm absolutely fine with calling it a sidelight, if that's what floats your boat. Just (please!) don't call it a backlight .