Libra Colour So far I love my Colour Kobo. What about you?

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by John F

It's interesting how people interpret things differently. I assumed "their" referred to actual owners. So post number 3 (and the next couple of posts) seemed a little strange. I guess with post 3, "their" refers to Kobo.

🙃

You know what’s a perfectly valid opinion? Somebody who purchased a KLC and didn’t like it for specific reasons. I don’t even mind if they post here. We’ve had some very polite people in this conversation.

Not wanting one for specific technical reasons is perfectly valid, too, but there were already a lot of discussions in this forum covering that very topic. I wish people wouldn’t be such killjoys.

I do believe that if somebody’s thing is to have the highest resolution with zero backlight with battery life measured in ice ages, then the KLC will disappoint. Yet I am thrilled to read comics, manga, light novels, and art books on my KLC—all color content. I have an iPad for comparison. I get that the KLC doesn’t match its brightness, hue fidelity, color saturation, resolution, speed, and utility, yet I am perfectly happy with my purchase.

(I fixed the bizarre autocorrect “tomoretext” typo in my previous post. Funny how I didn’t even notice it until you quoted my words back at me &#128518

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Cootey

Not wanting one for specific technical reasons is perfectly valid, too, but there were already a lot of discussions in this forum covering that very topic. I wish people wouldn’t be such killjoys.

A lot of people were very disappointed that Kobo ditched the b/w Libra and now only has a colour 7" device. If Kobo had kept both models, then the reactions would have been less extreme, at least I think so.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

A lot of people were very disappointed that Kobo ditched the b/w Libra and now only has a colour 7" device. If Kobo had kept both models, then the reactions would have been less extreme, at least I think so.

And there have been many posts about that. Why bring it up again when the OP of this thread is asking for opinions of people who own(ed) the Libra Colour. Sure there is thread drift, but on the second and third posts.

[mzel]

I did not own the Libra Color, but yesterday went to FNAC to see it firsthand, as my Forma started dying. I compared the LC to Forma side by side and was very unhappy with the Color screen. The brightness of Color at 100% is about the same as Forma at 30%. The side lighting across the screen was very uneven and showed rainbow "waves". Colors are what photographers call "pastel", i.e. very unsaturated.
Clara BW screen looked better than my Forma's, but 6" is kinda too small these days. I'd opt for 7 or 8

[JSWolf]

One reason a really dislike the color Kobos is that because of them, we no longer have the Libra 2. So there's no Kobo worth buying or recommending for anyone who wants larger then 6".

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One reason a really dislike the color Kobos is that because of them, we no longer have the Libra 2. So there's no Kobo worth buying or recommending for anyone who wants larger then 6".

They still make the Sage and Elipsa 2E. And the Libra Color is still a great eReader and an improvement over the Libra 2 with the exception of screen contrast. It's definitely still worth buying and recommending for some people. That might not be you, but for people that can live with the tradeoffs it's still a great reader.

I would recommend people find a unit they can see in person if they can.

[mzel]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

They still make the Sage and Elipsa 2E. And the Libra Color is still a great eReader and an improvement over the Libra 2 with the exception of screen contrast. It's definitely still worth buying and recommending for some people. That might not be you, but for people that can live with the tradeoffs it's still a great reader.

I would recommend people find a unit they can see in person if they can.

Besides the loss of contrast there is a loss of readability in bright light, and the loss of sharpness. The loss of sharpness is not as noticeable, but it is there.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by mzel

Besides the loss of contrast there is a loss of readability in bright light, and the loss of sharpness. The loss of sharpness is not as noticeable, but it is there.

What loss of readability in bright light besides the aforementioned loss of contrast??

B&W content appears about as sharp on my Libra Colour vs. my Boox Nova 2.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

What loss of readability in bright light besides the aforementioned loss of contrast??

B&W content appears about as sharp on my Libra Colour vs. my Boox Nova 2.

It may to you, but there is a mode to render B&W at 150 dpi because it can't support real 300 dpi. Certain white 1 pixel lines at 300 dpi mode will not render in white. Some ereaders call it "rainbow suppression".

So in reality true monochrome content can't be 300 dpi without artefacts. It may seem as sharp to some people, but the 2 x 2 patter of printed translucent dots that seriously reduce ambient brightness and contrast are always there. It's a physical fact the the sharpness is reduced.
Just like LCD or OLED at 96 dpi and the sub pixel addressing to make text sharper isn't anything like as good as a 192 dpi colour panel with no sub-addressing.

You need a 600 dpi eink panel for colour to be as sharp as 300 dpi and have no artefacts, but the contrast and ambient brightness is still rubbish.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It may to you, but there is a mode to render B&W at 150 dpi because it can't support real 300 dpi. Certain white 1 pixel lines at 300 dpi mode will not render in white. Some ereaders call it "rainbow suppression".

So in reality true monochrome content can't be 300 dpi without artefacts. It may seem as sharp to some people, but the 2 x 2 patter of printed translucent dots that seriously reduce ambient brightness and contrast are always there. It's a physical fact the the sharpness is reduced.
Just like LCD or OLED at 96 dpi and the sub pixel addressing to make text sharper isn't anything like as good as a 192 dpi colour panel with no sub-addressing.

You need a 600 dpi eink panel for colour to be as sharp as 300 dpi and have no artefacts, but the contrast and ambient brightness is still rubbish.

You can turn that off on the Libra Colour, it's the "reduce rainbow effect" in reading settings.

It's not something you will see on text either. Rainbow artifacts occur because the whitespace is SO small, the only "white" is where the color filter is. Even on the smallest possible font setting you can't see it in places like the interior of the letter 'e' because there's enough whitespace. I've only ever noticed it on extremely fine mesh screentone in manga.

So, no it's not 150 ppi for the zillionith time.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

You can turn that off on the Libra Colour, it's the "reduce rainbow effect" in reading settings.

…

So, no it's not 150 ppi for the zillionith time.

The setting is not needed if it was a real 300 dpi. It can only do 150 dpi perfectly.

It's basic mathematics and physics.
Pixel layout, where the R G B, unlike all other displays, don't cover the dots.
[R][G]
[G][B]

Thus a diagonal line pattern at 300 dpi resolution can be green or magenta, and black not white and black (or a slanted skinny font).

Some OLED displays, though few LCD displays, use the same 2 x 2 pattern. The mono resolution quoted is the same as the colour, 1/2 of the real pixel density. The stripe based LCD and OLED do something eink can't do, the actual pixels are not square, but a 3:1 shape so that the overall R G B is square.

Each dot R, G or B surrounded by white is on a 300 dpi grid. The colour print doesn't fully cover the pixel so that the display isn't too dark, that's why it can't do saturated colours.
Skinny white italic or oblique text on black will look the worst. It's better than Triton, which used simple stripes entirely covering the pixels, so vertical resolution was unaffected but horizontal was 1/3rd.
R G B
R G B

Just because marking claim it's 300 dpi in BW & 150 dpi in colour, and you are happy with it, doesn't make it really 300 dpi mono. It's impossible unless you take apart the screen and scrape the coloured printed dots off.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The setting is not needed if it was a real 300 dpi. It can only do 150 dpi perfectly.

It's basic mathematics and physics.
Pixel layout, where the R G B, unlike all other displays, don't cover the dots.
[R][G]
[G][B]

Thus a diagonal line pattern at 300 dpi resolution can be green or magenta, and black not white and black (or a slanted skinny font).

Some OLED displays, though few LCD displays, use the same 2 x 2 pattern. The mono resolution quoted is the same as the colour, 1/2 of the real pixel density. The stripe based LCD and OLED do something eink can't do, the actual pixels are not square, but a 3:1 shape so that the overall R G B is square.

Each dot R, G or B surrounded by white is on a 300 dpi grid. The colour print doesn't fully cover the pixel so that the display isn't too dark, that's why it can't do saturated colours.
Skinny white italic or oblique text on black will look the worst. It's better than Triton, which used simple stripes entirely covering the pixels, so vertical resolution was unaffected but horizontal was 1/3rd.
R G B
R G B

Just because marking claim it's 300 dpi in BW & 150 dpi in colour, and you are happy with it, doesn't make it really 300 dpi mono. It's impossible unless you take apart the screen and scrape the coloured printed dots off.

It is really 300 dpi B&W. It's still 1264x1680 Black &"White" cells. It just has an added color filter sticker. When cells are set to black, you see black regardless of the color filter, and the SAME number of black cells are used to construct a letter at the same font size as a Libra 2. When you make mono-colored text (not black, not "white", something like red) there is an obvious clear sharpness loss compared to black mono text.

I suppose dark mode (aka white text) looks like crap is a fair point, but I still don't understand the rational for dark mode on eInk to begin with.

And sure, there is a minor sharpness loss because of the color filter, but that's also true of flush glass screen layers, pen digitizers, frontlights, etc. It doesn't come ANYWHERE close to looking like 150 B&W ppi.

[Quoth]

So you have in reality admitted it's not at all 300 dpi in the sense that means on a pure monochrome 300 dpi screen. Thus while the underneath panel is 300 dpi, that is lost when you print the dots. You've admitted Manga isn't as good.

LCD panels are also inherently monochrome. No-one quotes the mono resolution, because that is effectively "damaged" by the coloured dots or stripes. Only the effective resolution without artefacts is quoted.

If you want no artefacts ever, then it's exactly 150 dpi, like my Kindle DXG, except you can read it in ordinary ambient light, you can't do that with Kaleido. That's the biggest remaining advantage of eink lost.

[PeterT]

I know it's fascinating to YOU but maybe could the posts on the screen resolution and clarity move away from a thread on why people LIKE their device into a new thread just for discussions of screen technology....

[mzel]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

What loss of readability in bright light besides the aforementioned loss of contrast??

B&W content appears about as sharp on my Libra Colour vs. my Boox Nova 2.

It looses both the level of black, and the level of white, so not only letters appear gray instead of black, but also the pages are not white enough, meaning bright enough to offset the brightness of the ambient light.

And yes, I do see the pattern of squares over the letters which makes them less sharp. Yes, I do need to wear glasses to see that, but those are the same glasses I use to read the normal text. I may be too picky here, as I am a photographer used to discern sharp vs blury