Paperwhite Second Gen: First Impressions

[Gameboy70]

Originally Posted by Barty

Tap on the bottom left to cycle through loc, page no, and mins left.

Ah, that did it. Thanks!

[sparklemotion]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

Is it different in the PW2? In the PW1, page numbers only display when you tap the top to bring-up the top menu bar (then page numbers display on the bottom of the screen).

Yes, it's different on the PW2. In the bottom left corner you can switch between time left in book, time left in chapter, location, and also they've added page numbers there. So you can tap it and have it always show the page number, if you prefer.

Whereas with the PW1, like you said, you have to tap the top of the screen to see the page number at the bottom.

[GoSharks]

@sparklemotion-
Thanks! (it may seem strange that I'm asking as I have a PW2 listed in my information -- the PW2 is actually my wife's and so far she has been unwilling to even let me touch it! She's certain I'll disappear into the Developer's Corner and let them dissect it!! )

[sparklemotion]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

@sparklemotion-
Thanks! (it may seem strange that I'm asking as I have a PW2 listed in my information -- the PW2 is actually my wife's and so far she has been unwilling to even let me touch it! She's certain I'll disappear into the Developer's Corner and let them dissect it!! )

LOL. I don't blame her for keeping it safe!

[OddCosine]

I got my Paperwhite 2 last Tuesday, so I've lived with it for several days. My previous eInk reader was a Kindle Touch. All-in-all, I'm pretty pleased with it. The firmware features, with the exception of the disabling of USE_ALT_FONTS, are terrific. The lighting on mine is even enough, with no color blobs or pinholes that I can see.

If I didn't own the Touch, I'd be even more pleased with it. My only real complaint is that the text isn't as dark or as sharp as my Touch. Here's a picture that shows both in full sunlight. I included a grey card as a color reference. The light was even; the gradient on the grey card was due to it curling in the sun.



This is a picture that shows a detailed view of the two screens from the image above, Touch on top. The font is Caecilla Condensed. In good light, I prefer the Touch's display. The good news is that I never read in direct sunlight, and in anything other than really bright light the PW2 is more readable. So the PW2 is an improvement for me, but not as much as I'd hoped for.



Here's a picture that shows the lighting in a dark room. The image on the left was at level 6 (the lowest my camera would take a picture at, even in manual exposure mode (gotta go read the manual)), and on the right at level 12, a pretty typical setting for me at night. I have no idea how to set the white balance on something emitting light in a dark room, so I set the background as neutral, which is pretty much how I perceive it. There are slight leaks in the top two and bottom right corners, and some shadowing at the bottom. The shadow at the bottom drew my eye at first, but now I don't even notice it. I can't believe they can get side-lighting that even.



So in the end I'm fairly happy with it. I don't think I'll try to exchange it in hopes of darker blacks, since there's so much that could be wrong with the replacement. When I read I'm pretty happy with the display, so I think I need to just read and stop comparing it with the Touch.

[kim1406]

Thanks everyone for sharing with us your experiences, and for the great pictures. The PW2 does really look fantastic .

[xendula]

OddCosine, thanks for your post and congrats to your new PW. Enjoy!

[Cap.T]

To the people who own the PW2: Is it possible to make the side-margins smaller? From most of the pictures posted here it looks like the margins are about 5 to 6 mm an the left and right side. I am using a Kobo Glo right know and the minmal margins here are about 1 to 2 mm. It seems like a lot of wasted space on the Paperwhite.
Thanks!

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Cap.T

To the people who own the PW2: Is it possible to make the side-margins smaller? From most of the pictures posted here it looks like the margins are about 5 to 6 mm an the left and right side. I am using a Kobo Glo right know and the minmal margins here are about 1 to 2 mm. It seems like a lot of wasted space on the Paperwhite.
Thanks!

Unfortunately, no. Perhaps someday we will be able to root and hack to fix the margins, as we could on the PW1. But for now, we have to deal with wasted side margin space.

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by OddCosine

So in the end I'm fairly happy with it. I don't think I'll try to exchange it in hopes of darker blacks, since there's so much that could be wrong with the replacement. When I read I'm pretty happy with the display, so I think I need to just read and stop comparing it with the Touch.

That's exactly where I'm at with my PW2: fairly happy. When I directly compared it to my K4 (or even my K3), the lower contrast (more grey text) was obvious. Once I fine-tuned the light level and got immersed in a book, I stopped noticing.

I was apparently lucky to get a screen with even lighting (warm but not "yellowish") and no pinholes, so I don't plan to exchange.

One thing I am a little disappointed in is battery life. Even after indexing completed and freshly charged, reading at light level 7 or 8, it seems to run down more quickly than even my K4. I had hoped for better.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bwaldron

One thing I am a little disappointed in is battery life. Even after indexing completed and freshly charged, reading at light level 7 or 8, it seems to run down more quickly than even my K4. I had hoped for better.

Do you have WiFi switched on? Turning it off will significantly extend the battery life.

[markbot]

Originally Posted by OddCosine

I got my Paperwhite 2 last Tuesday, so I've lived with it for several days. My previous eInk reader was a Kindle Touch. All-in-all, I'm pretty pleased with it. The firmware features, with the exception of the disabling of USE_ALT_FONTS, are terrific. The lighting on mine is even enough, with no color blobs or pinholes that I can see.

If I didn't own the Touch, I'd be even more pleased with it. My only real complaint is that the text isn't as dark or as sharp as my Touch. Here's a picture that shows both in full sunlight. I included a grey card as a color reference. The light was even; the gradient on the grey card was due to it curling in the sun.

Attachment 112935

This is a picture that shows a detailed view of the two screens from the image above, Touch on top. The font is Caecilla Condensed. In good light, I prefer the Touch's display. The good news is that I never read in direct sunlight, and in anything other than really bright light the PW2 is more readable. So the PW2 is an improvement for me, but not as much as I'd hoped for.

Attachment 112936

Here's a picture that shows the lighting in a dark room. The image on the left was at level 6 (the lowest my camera would take a picture at, even in manual exposure mode (gotta go read the manual)), and on the right at level 12, a pretty typical setting for me at night. I have no idea how to set the white balance on something emitting light in a dark room, so I set the background as neutral, which is pretty much how I perceive it. There are slight leaks in the top two and bottom right corners, and some shadowing at the bottom. The shadow at the bottom drew my eye at first, but now I don't even notice it. I can't believe they can get side-lighting that even.

Attachment 112937

So in the end I'm fairly happy with it. I don't think I'll try to exchange it in hopes of darker blacks, since there's so much that could be wrong with the replacement. When I read I'm pretty happy with the display, so I think I need to just read and stop comparing it with the Touch.

From your pics, the PW2 looks better than the touch to me. The contrast is higher in the PW2.

[ersott]

Originally Posted by markbot

From your pics, the PW2 looks better than the touch to me. The contrast is higher in the PW2.

That's the same for me, in the first picture seems that better contrast in pw2.

[ProfCrash]

I got my PW2 on Saturday. I had family in town and a 15 month old in the house so I have not been able to use it for actual reading so far. I am coming from a K3 and also own a DXG and K1.

My impressions so far:

My god is it small
My god is it light

On its actual use:

I have no problems with my screen. I have used it in the dark with the light fully up and did not notice any issues. I have not spent any time reading on it but I have set it up, added my books, imported my collections, and sorted books not in collections into collections. I think I would have noticed a problem if there was one but who knows.

It is so easy to use. Adding books was far easier then it was with the K3 or DXG. Faster to add, smoother, and faster to upload. There was hardly any down time and I added 423 books in a space of 10 minutes.

Collections are much easier to navigate now. The import was easy, after I added my books, I imported my K3 collections and the books were sorted. I had 6 pages of unsorted books that were not in my K3 collections (I read on the DXG more and those collections are arranged differently due to the larger screen). It took me about 10 minutes to sort my books into the collections. It was insanely easy and fast.

I did find that the swpiing motion requires a heavier finger then I am used to using on my iPad but that will be easily enough solved.

The light is wonderful. Easy to use and adjust. The screen looked great and evenly lite.

Overall, I am a very happy camper.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I did find that the swpiing motion requires a heavier finger then I am used to using on my iPad but that will be easily enough solved.

It's perhaps worth noting that the only place that swiping is needed is to turn pages on the home screen. When you're actually reading you can simply tap the screen to turn the page.