PRS-T1 inferior screen?

[AprilHare]

It's a little hard to do comparative analyses. Few people purchase Sony Readers here unfortunately so it's hard to find the T1 in the wild.

[carpetmojo]

I have noticed I have difficulty - well, it's an effort anyway - with the Browser page, which seems fainter than the book pages.

I can't remeber which font I have, but I've also customized the view so it'ds excellent for reading books - but this hasn't tranferred to the browser, and I can't find a way to adjust contrast , font, bright/dark or anything.

Which is, to my mind, and glasses, a Very Bad Thing.

[vxf]

I have seen two PRS 950s side-by-side with dramatically different screens. Mine had a lighter background and darker text than the one I compared it to (owned by a colleague). Both were purchased at release from SONY's store.

I also owned two PRS900s with very different screens.

My PRS350 actually has the best screen (most contrast) of all the ereaders I have so far owned. But even that screen was worst than the T1 I compared it to, side-by-side, at Best Buy. But the T1 had more flashing when turning pages.

Go figure...

I think there is much, much noise.

[seajewel]

Also, funny enough, the Kindle forum is full of posts about how the K4s have worse screens than the T1. and yet, here's a thread in the Sony forum that T1s have worse screens than Kindles.

I know that the Kindle forum also says the K4 seems to have a darker screen than the K3 and maybe that's why, but it's just funny! on the K forums they are saying how the Sony screen looks so white!

[JSWolf]

According the the screen shots, the T1 looks better then the K4.

[uboot]

K4 is definitely worse than K3.

The point of this thread was: T1 seems to be slightly worse than K3 too... But this is apparently mostly related to ghosting and might be fixed via firmware later on...

[kartu]

Originally Posted by Papi

Well, my point is there is no "special grade" !

Vladimir Levchenko, the "creator" of pocketbook mentioned numerous times (on the-ebook org) that there are different versions of screens. Whether they are manufactured in a different way/older/newer equipment doesn't change anything, important is, eink offers different grades at different price points. At some point higher grade screens were only for major customers, so pocket books couldn't get it at all.

This doesn't exclude the special grade theory, but makes it hard for me to believe.

It's rather hard for me to understand, what is so hard to believe in "special grade theory". Many noticed it and here is the comparison picture:



screens of the same series could vary, but not that much.

Originally Posted by Papi

I wonder why Amazon didn't answer to that

Because pro-amazon hype is second to only Apple's and hardly anyone knows, that K4 has worse screen than K3, let alone T1? (even on MR!!!) And what could they say? Deny obvious facts?

According to amazon, K4 has: "Amazon's 6" diagonal most advanced E Ink display, optimized with proprietary waveform and font technology, 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi, 16-level gray scale." I don't see them mentioning "pearl".

[seabee]

You must not just believe your eyes when trying to tell what's lighter/darker, just look at that illusion:

A and B squares background actually have the EXACT same shade of gray ! If you don't believe that, just put the picture in an image editor and look at the pixels' components: R=G=B=139 (except for some compression noise pixels).
The Sony screen background seems a little lighter and the darkest rectangle really darker on the picture (I checked with an editor) but there's some factors that can modify that, like uneven lighting (for the background) and software settings. I tried with the Customize View/Adjust View settings on the PRS-T1 and it can change both screen background and text/drawing shades of gray considerably.

[kartu]

Originally Posted by seabee

A and B squares background actually have the EXACT same shade of gray !

And that's why stuff surrounding both screens is hidden by a frame.
You can check how even were the lightning conditions, by comparing frame.

Originally Posted by seabee

I tried with the Customize View/Adjust View settings on the PRS-T1 and it can change both screen background and text/drawing shades of gray considerably.

You suggest Theonna has faked the photos??!?

[Ripplinger]

I couldn't say if there's different quality screens available from the same manufacturer, but owning 2 PRS-350s I can definitely say there is a noticeable difference between my 2 screens, which should be identical. And I can also say it's no optical illusion. When I noticed the difference on mine, the first thing I did was to switch positions of the readers to be sure it wasn't simply a lighting issue or illusion caused by the surrounding area or frames, and moved them around to various areas to double check even that. I'm sure all of us who noticed differences did that as a first step to rule it out.

There's most definitely differences, it's not imagined, but I still couldn't say whether it's a quality issue or just differences that happen between different batches of screens or when manufactured in different locations/different machinery. I'm going with the latter since in my case the 2 different screens are on the same identical reader, PRS-350. I really don't think Sony would have ordered different quality screens.

While I can adjust the brightness and contrast on my darker reader, I can never really get it to the look of the brighter one. It's just how the screens are made.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by seabee

You must not just believe your eyes when trying to tell what's lighter/darker, just look at that illusion:

A and B squares background actually have the EXACT same shade of gray

By bringing this illusion up you are comparing apples and oranges.

As kartu points out the surrounding area is covered exactly to prevent this type of illusion. If in your illusion you masked out everything but the A and B squares they would each look exactly the same shade.

Originally Posted by seabee

I tried with the Customize View/Adjust View settings on the PRS-T1 and it can change both screen background and text/drawing shades of gray considerably.

Again you are comparing apples and oranges the ability to customize your view is a feature of the T-1, this feature is also part of Sony x50 line of readers. If other ereaders don't give you this option it isn't Sony's fault and doesn't negate the side by side comparison above.

[graycyn]

Well, it's clear to me that different T-1s can have quite different screens. Hubby's device has a lovely screen, and great contrast. Mine has a darker screen and the contrast is not as good. His doesn't ghost. Mine ghosts pretty bad.

So if you compare a poorer T-1 screen to a good Kindle screen, you'll come away with the impression that the T-1 is worse. If you do the opposite, compare a good T-1 screen to a poor Kindle screen, the Kindle will come off worse.

When I was at Best Buy, the K4 screen looked awful compared to the T-1 and Nook readers. But the K4 screen at my local Wal-Mart looks very comparable to the Nook there.

Seems to me like it is a lottery whatever brand one chooses.

[uboot]

My guess is, that ghosting and contrast depends on how good the display driver / circuit is calibrated to the display characteristics. Also, surrounding temperature seems to affect display characteristics and the driving circuit seems to take temperature into account.

So, maybe this can be tweaked!

At least, B&N managed to improve contrast of their Nook Simple Touch via firmware update....

[YukonTrooper]

I have a T1 and a K3. The T1 has a noticeably darker/bluer background compared to the K3. Reading is nicer on the K3.

From reading posts here and reading reviews on the web, it seems that screens can differ on the same models. What a shame. This reminds me of panel lottery with certain LCD TV's and monitors.

[bibahbuzemann]

Now, finally I can get a good look at all the different devices in a retail store. This wasn't possible a few months or even a few weeks ago(FRG). So since I got the T1, a good two months ago, I've been looking for comparisons. At first there was only the K3, then they offered the K4 and finally the Kobo touch.

The niece got a Kobo touch for christmas and it's the only one that's as good.(still no Kindle touch in german retail). Since my niece also got a lot of other stuff, I had plenty of time to play around with her Kobo. It's damned good!

Fact is, I got lucky. Decided for the T1, and it's the best in any contrast match. I'm not sure but the Kindle seems to use a "heavy" font as a standard font, but the T1 has Amasis too. Mine, my t1, allways looked better!

I gotta admit, however that I've not had the lesser devices out in sunlight for comparison. (That Kobo looked pretty good, it had a much better searching funktion too)