My Oasis has splotchier lighting than any early Paperwhite or Voyage I've seen.

[Bookworm_Girl]

The lighting is poor on my Oasis. It has what I call the stage-lighting effect. It reminds me of my older Paperwhites. I'm really disappointed. The lighting on my Voyage is definitely better. I also find the side-lighting more distracting than on the bottom.

[WilliamG]

Originally Posted by NullNix

Sure, though it'll do no good. Attached: one in lighted room with light at 13; one in a darker (but still lit) room, light at 8. No shots in full sunlight (because it's night here), none in a dark room (because the camera canna handle it without flash).

Note: shadow cones are clearly visible in the dark shot, but they're visible only to the camera: the same is true of the apparent brightness variation/shadow cone on the right of the light shot. To my eyes, both are entirely invisible and the screens are unvarying brightness fields: a clear consequence of the human eye's logarithmic intensity response versus a CCD's more nearly linear one.

This effect in particular is one reason why all such pictures should be more or less totally ignored, and posting them is a waste of time: the light you're seeing when you look at those images is the light from an almost-certainly-uncalibrated LCD screen with brightness response that depends mostly on screen age and manufacturing variation, after being picked up by a camera CCD with completely different optical properties to the human eye; the result bears little to no resemblance to the light being emitted by the actual Kindle and which your eye will thus see completely differently. To my eye, and I believe to any normally functioning human eye, the dark shot of my particular Kindle screen would look like an unvarying colour plane. I have extremely good night vision (perhaps to compensate for my crazy myopia!), normally go around with the house lights off, and routinely read on intensity zero on the PW1 after only a few minutes of adaptation time. If anyone can spot light intensity variations on this Kindle, it should be me. I can't. Amazon did not optimize their Kindle screens and lighting systems for cameras: it optimized them for human eyes. Unfortunately I have no way of detaching your eyes and transporting them here to see what I see... ah well!

As with all of biology, the degree of logarithmic response varies between individuals and can even vary between eyes in one individual (it is in part a property of both the neural architecture in each eye, and of the neural architecture of the visual cortex). It is quite possible that the people perennially dissatisfied with lighted Kindle screens simply have a less intense logarithmic response than those who are satisfied. I wonder if people who are dissatisfied have relatively poor night vision and are easily dazzled in bright sunlight? (Though this is also influenced by factors varying from rate and degree of iris dilation through to things in the higher levels of the visual cortex, so again shouldn't be taken as any sort of real evidence of anything. Vision is *complicated*.)

Some of what you say is true (though my iMac display is calibrated with an i1 Pro because I do photography).

However, I can easily see a similar issue with your Kindle that I see with mine, and in person I know I'd be able to see it, too.

Like I said, some people have different tolerances to this sort of thing. My tolerance is close to zero.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by positively4th

The Oasis really does feel great, but the lighting is such a disappointment. I really had high hopes that they finally figured it out. I'm having flashbacks to the first Paperwhite and when Voyage first came out.

I will exchange it because the ergonomics really feel awesome... but definitely disappointed. Guessing if I return it I'll have to wait until they come back in stock, too.

If you live in the US, then you could just return it to Amazon and then order a new one from Best Buy. They are shipping within the next week rather than deal with potential long waits with Amazon exchanges.

[chever]

Oasis on the left and Voyage on the right. You can clearly see the colour shift orientation.

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by chever

Oasis on the left and Voyage on the right. You can clearly see the colour shift orientation.

You'd almost think it was a bad joke -- if you don't like the discolored top we have just the thing for you, a discolored side. Amazon ought to be embarrassed.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by chever

Oasis on the left and Voyage on the right. You can clearly see the colour shift orientation.

Both those pictures look absolutely fine to me. What do you perceive the problem to be?

[David58117]

Originally Posted by chever

Oasis on the left and Voyage on the right. You can clearly see the colour shift orientation.

nooooooo =(.

I went through 5 PW1, 2-3 PW2, and got lucky with my Voyage. I just thought Amazon figured it out =(.

Some reviews showed a lighter colored screen, which was what I wanted..

I'll probably cancel my order now after seeing this thread..

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Both those pictures look absolutely fine to me. What do you perceive the problem to be?

Can you really not see the colour shift

[Josieb1]

Well my Kobo Glo HD arrived today (which I ordered direct from Kobo) and that's got yellow splotches and dark smudges on the screen. I knew it was a risk but it was worth a try. Now need to start the refund process. If anything is going to kill e-ink ereaders it's the inconstant screens making buying them a lottery so in the end we all give up.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Can you really not see the colour shift

What colour shift?

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Can you really not see the colour shift

To be clear, by "shift" you mean a change in colour within the same screen, not between the two?

What I see is two lit screens, each is pretty even but the colour is different. Neither looks like it has a "problem" but I prefer the one on the left.

This is an interesting problem because it's hard to say what's production quality variation and what's variation in eyesight. One is a quality control issue that ought to be fixed and the other means that the current level of technology isn't quite there yet for some people's eyes. I suspect what we have is a mixture of both scenarios.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What colour shift?

In the pictures the Oasis goes from white on the right side to some murky orangey on the left and the Voyage, although less pronounced goes from white on the bottom left to pinkish towards the top right.

Originally Posted by latepaul

To be clear, by "shift" you mean a change in colour within the same screen, not between the two?

Correct


I'm a photographer, we may be a tad more aware of things like that because it's part of the job

Oh and I'm glad to say that the Voyage I got last week is a good'un so were my PW3 and PW2 before that.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by latepaul

To be clear, by "shift" you mean a change in colour within the same screen, not between the two?

What I see is two lit screens, each is pretty even but the colour is different. Neither looks like it has a "problem" but I prefer the one on the left.

This is also what I see, although I have no preference about which one is better. Both look good to me.

[pagepack]

As someone who has worked in colour print for 20+ years, the light gradient or colour shift, whatever you want to call it on the Oasis is completely obvious. for 270 quid I would expect perfection.

[latepaul]

Was the Voyage (right in the image) supposed to be an example of a "good" screen? Because as I said I find it inferior (the white has a red-ish look to it).