Paperwhite Second Gen: First Impressions - Page 63

levante · 10-09-2013, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

That's great. Enjoy it!

Uffff, after reading a few hours...
No blobs, no pinholes, homogeneus screen but poor contrast

The little yellowish screen doesn't disturb me but the text is less black than in my old PW1 with the same fonts, not blacker. My PW1 is better for reading.

I have asked a second PW2 to test it. If not satisfied, I'll ask my money back and forget the PW2. Until now and for me the best kindle screen is in the K4 black.

Sorry for my poor English.

sparklemotion · 10-09-2013, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Same with the big retailers in the Netherlands.

That's why I stick with forums and see what people are saying who really know the products. I go into places like Best Buy (and most other big box stores) and I know far more than they do. It's really painful listening to them talk about most electronics, particularly computers and cameras. Just utterly clueless.

sparklemotion · 10-09-2013, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by levante

Uffff, after reading a few hours...
No blobs, no pinholes, homogeneus screen but poor contrast

The little yellowish screen doesn't disturb me but the text is less black than in my old PW1 with the same fonts, not blacker. My PW1 is better for reading.

I have asked a second PW2 to test it. If not satisfied, I'll ask my money back and forget the PW2. Until now and for me the best kindle screen is in the K4 black.

Sorry for my poor English.

This was my exact experience too with the PW2.

Initially I was very pleased, until I started to read on it and got a headache from the poor contrast. Mine also had a pinhole. Hopefully the new one will be better for you. Best of luck!

jswinden · 10-09-2013, 02:01 PM

Okay, this is a very preliminary review as I just unboxed and set up my Paperwhite 2013 (PW2).

I attached a photo (see below) that very accurately portrays my PW2 the way I see it. The photo was taken with a Canon Powershot G1X in RAW format and post-processed in Adobe Photoshop CS6. When I place the actual PW2 next to this photo displayed on my computer monitor, they look virtually identical. So this is what I consider a highly accurate photo.

Screen Tint Light OFF: My PW2 screen tint when the light is at the lowest setting looks like most of the Pearl eInk screens I've seen. It is a bit dull with a light grey tint and perhaps just a hint of cream color. That is, it looks good. (Note: The light is not actually off but it is set to the lowest level possible.)

Screen Tint Light ON: My PW2 screen tint when the light is at the optimum setting for reading has a very slight blue tint. It does not have any blobs or pink tinting. This is definitely a slight blue tint rather than the yellow tint some have on their PW2s. So far it looks good. (Note: I set my light level to 16 in my lit room where I read, use the computer, watch TV. The room is not very brightly lit, but it is lit. Level 16 seems to be the optimum setting for this lit room.)

No color blobs or shadowy blobs! My first PW ever to not have these.

One of the demo models at Best Buy had horrible color and shadowy blobs, so I lucked out big time.

No noticeable pinholes or dust while reading. When the screen goes black during a reboot, I have a cluster of possible pinholes, or more than likely just dust particles, that appear apprx. near the beginning of the 5th line of text in the attached photo. I only saw them when there was a black screen in that area. They do not shine at me with text on the screen. The cluster was about the size of a lowercase letter i seen in the photo, but of course is not visible itself in the photo. So thus far the cluster does not appear to be problematic. I'll examinine and clean the screen later and perhaps it will go away then.

Text: The text does seem to be much darker than it was on any of the three PW1s I had. The text is still too thin, but that is a software issue with all Kindles. I think the text looks darker with the light OFF than ON. The brighter the light, the lighter the text looks, in general. The contrast level is still to low for my tastes though.

Light: The light is much better than on the three PW1s I had. The light falls a bit more uniformly across the entire screen than on PW1s, and there are no blobs or headlight shadows. However, there is light leakage around the edges of the screen. As someone else noted in a post, there is a faint, blue, horizontal line of light across the very top of the screen. You can see this in the photo. It doesn't bother me though. There is a 1/2 inch tall vertical light leakage line at the bottom-right side. Again this doesn't bother me as it is mostly noticeable when a black background is present. Over all, the screen looks lighter around the edges and a bit dark in the middle. By middle of the screen I mean the entire screen minus a perimeter band about 1/4" to 1/2" wide all the way around. So the text still seems to be in a shadow of sorts. I won't know how I feel about this until I read on it for an extended period of time. But it is kind of dark in the middle for my tastes.

Screen refresh and touch speed: I don't notice the extra zippiness Amazon claims. My PW2 is not indexing anymore as I only downloaded one book and it already indexed it. But if anything it seems less zippy than my Touch when I select a word to define or select text.

Preliminary Thoughts: While the PW2 seems much better in many ways than the PW1, I'm not sure yet whether I will keep it. To determine that I must read on it for quite a while to see how my eyes are affected. I'll get back to you on that decision in a day or so.

jswinden · 10-09-2013, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Same with the big retailers in the Netherlands.

Spoiler:

It may be just me, but I think it's a very bad practice to "go Apple" on this one. What purpose does it serve to NOT give a device a distinct name? In the photography world, Leica started to do the same after more than 50 years. Their new camera is just called "M". (All previous ones were called M2... M9.)

I think it's stupid. Amazon should have just called it the Kindle Paperwhite II.

Totally agree. They called the K1 "the Kindle". Then the K2, K3, and K4S and K4B were also called "the Kindle" at one time or another. They only produced one Touch, but naming this year and last year's Paperwhite the same is just as confusing.

Yolina · 10-09-2013, 02:12 PM

I can confirm that it doesn't get bogged down when indexing anymore - I've just transferred several hundred books from Calibre and I am currently allocating them to collections from the PW without any noticeable slow down.

fearindex · 10-09-2013, 02:16 PM

jswinden:

Excellent preliminary information! And very promising too. Yes the text looks like it is in shadow a little, especially the top part looks like more in shadow than the bottom and of course the extreme sides, but other than that very good. Thank you very much for taking the time.

Inverted image shows the light leakage on the sides, and and you can see the faint circular shadows where the LEDs are, but not nearly as bad as the inverted PW2 images here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/top...tml#msg2353392

Of course to really compare inverted images one would have to see a page without text on it. Then again, that is more for "scientific" analysis. For reading, what matters is how you perceive it with the text on there of course.

sparklemotion · 10-09-2013, 02:19 PM

Thanks for the detailed review, Jack! It looks good. I had some of the dust specks on mine, little tiny black dots, not glowing, which I assume is dust trapped between the layers. It didn't bother though, neither did the pinhole all that much really. I did have some light leaks too, but it didn't bother me much. For me, the biggest issue was reading with the light on, the contrast just wasn't good on mine. Much better on my PW1 and my touch. I may try one more at Best Buy. I guess I'll see. I hope you have a good experience reading on it!

jswinden · 10-09-2013, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fearindex

jswinden:

Excellent preliminary information! And very promising too. Yes the text looks like it is in shadow a little, especially the top part looks like more in shadow than the bottom and of course the extreme sides, but other than that very good. Thank you very much for taking the time.

Inverted image shows the light leakage on the sides, and and you can see the faint circular shadows where the LEDs are, but not nearly as bad as the inverted PW2 images here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/top...tml#msg2353392

Of course to really compare inverted images one would have to see a page without text on it. Then again, that is more for "scientific" analysis. For reading, what matters is how you perceive it with the text on there of course.

It does show up in the inverted image you posted. The good news is that the light leakage isn't too noticeable on mine when reading. At least it hasn't been yet. So that is good.

sparklemotion · 10-09-2013, 02:28 PM

I think the text looks really good on yours. Much darker than mine was. I wish I could get one that wasn't tinted so darn yellow.

sirmaru · 10-09-2013, 02:33 PM

All these technical tests are great but the only test I run is: how does it feel to read on a PW 2013. It feels great to ME and I'd rather waste my time reading eBooks than doing a close examination of the device. It reads better than the PW 2012 but that device is good for reading as well.

It appears there is a large segment of the posters here who enjoy analyzing every millimeter of the device. That is fine with me but we all have different tastes of what we enjoy.

Some folks enjoy jacking their cars up every weekend and running all kinds of tests with expensive equipment. I just enjoy riding in the car.

ProfCrash · 10-09-2013, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jswinden

Totally agree. They called the K1 "the Kindle". Then the K2, K3, and K4S and K4B were also called "the Kindle" at one time or another. They only produced one Touch, but naming this year and last year's Paperwhite the same is just as confusing.

I don't think they ever numbered the Kindles. There was the Kindle, the International Kindle (when they had two chips), the DX and DXG, and then the Paperwhite.

Users refered to them as K1, K2, K3 (KK), K4 PW1, PW2. I cannot recall seeing Amazon using those terms. Whatever was currently being sold was the Kindle and then they had WiFi, 3G, SO or no SO. That was it.

ProfCrash · 10-09-2013, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yolina

I can confirm that it doesn't get bogged down when indexing anymore - I've just transferred several hundred books from Calibre and I am currently allocating them to collections from the PW without any noticeable slow down.

I transfered over 400 books when I got mine. It took less then 5 minutes and there were no issues. When I imported collections, it took under a minute to bring in the collections and sort the books. I think it took me a whooping 30 minutes to set up my PW2. It only took that long because I didn't realize how easy it was to move books into collections and was doing each book individually.

soulfuldog · 10-09-2013, 02:40 PM

Good to see some of the so-called naysayers have got what look to be pretty good PW's this time round.

jswinden · 10-09-2013, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I don't think they ever numbered the Kindles. There was the Kindle, the International Kindle (when they had two chips), the DX and DXG, and then the Paperwhite.

Users refered to them as K1, K2, K3 (KK), K4 PW1, PW2. I cannot recall seeing Amazon using those terms. Whatever was currently being sold was the Kindle and then they had WiFi, 3G, SO or no SO. That was it.

I never said they did. I was merely using the MR names to associate the various models with the official Amazon names.

10-09-2013, 02:01 PM	#934
jswinden Nameless Being	Very Preliminary Review Okay, this is a *very preliminary review* as I just unboxed and set up my Paperwhite 2013 (PW2). I attached a photo (see below) that very accurately portrays my PW2 the way I see it. The photo was taken with a Canon Powershot G1X in RAW format and post-processed in Adobe Photoshop CS6. When I place the actual PW2 next to this photo displayed on my computer monitor, they look virtually identical. So this is what I consider a highly accurate photo. Screen Tint Light OFF: My PW2 screen tint when the light is at the lowest setting looks like most of the Pearl eInk screens I've seen. It is a bit dull with a light grey tint and perhaps just a hint of cream color. That is, it looks good. (Note: The light is not actually off but it is set to the lowest level possible.) Screen Tint Light ON: My PW2 screen tint when the light is at the optimum setting for reading has a very slight blue tint. It does not have any blobs or pink tinting. This is definitely a slight blue tint rather than the yellow tint some have on their PW2s. So far it looks good. (Note: I set my light level to 16 in my lit room where I read, use the computer, watch TV. The room is not very brightly lit, but it is lit. Level 16 seems to be the optimum setting for this lit room.) No color blobs or shadowy blobs! My first PW ever to not have these. One of the demo models at Best Buy had horrible color and shadowy blobs, so I lucked out big time. No noticeable pinholes or dust while reading. When the screen goes black during a reboot, I have a cluster of possible pinholes, or more than likely just dust particles, that appear apprx. near the beginning of the 5th line of text in the attached photo. I only saw them when there was a black screen in that area. They do not shine at me with text on the screen. The cluster was about the size of a lowercase letter i seen in the photo, but of course is not visible itself in the photo. So thus far the cluster does not appear to be problematic. I'll examinine and clean the screen later and perhaps it will go away then. Text: The text does seem to be much darker than it was on any of the three PW1s I had. The text is still too thin, but that is a software issue with all Kindles. I think the text looks darker with the light OFF than ON. The brighter the light, the lighter the text looks, in general. The contrast level is still to low for my tastes though. Light: The light is much better than on the three PW1s I had. The light falls a bit more uniformly across the entire screen than on PW1s, and there are no blobs or headlight shadows. However, there is light leakage around the edges of the screen. As someone else noted in a post, there is a faint, blue, horizontal line of light across the very top of the screen. You can see this in the photo. It doesn't bother me though. There is a 1/2 inch tall vertical light leakage line at the bottom-right side. Again this doesn't bother me as it is mostly noticeable when a black background is present. Over all, the screen looks lighter around the edges and a bit dark in the middle. By middle of the screen I mean the entire screen minus a perimeter band about 1/4" to 1/2" wide all the way around. So the text still seems to be in a shadow of sorts. I won't know how I feel about this until I read on it for an extended period of time. But it is kind of dark in the middle for my tastes. Screen refresh and touch speed: I don't notice the extra zippiness Amazon claims. My PW2 is not indexing anymore as I only downloaded one book and it already indexed it. But if anything it seems less zippy than my Touch when I select a word to define or select text. Preliminary Thoughts: While the PW2 seems much better in many ways than the PW1, I'm not sure yet whether I will keep it. To determine that I must read on it for quite a while to see how my eyes are affected. I'll get back to you on that decision in a day or so. Last edited by jswinden; 10-09-2013 at 02:16 PM.

10-09-2013, 02:19 PM	#938
sparklemotion dangerous when cornered Posts: 1,855 Karma: 22891237 Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: USA Device: Kobo H2O, Kindle Paperwhite	Thanks for the detailed review, Jack! It looks good. I had some of the dust specks on mine, little tiny black dots, not glowing, which I assume is dust trapped between the layers. It didn't bother though, neither did the pinhole all that much really. I did have some light leaks too, but it didn't bother me much. For me, the biggest issue was reading with the light on, the contrast just wasn't good on mine. Much better on my PW1 and my touch. I may try one more at Best Buy. I guess I'll see. I hope you have a good experience reading on it! Last edited by sparklemotion; 10-09-2013 at 02:22 PM.

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10-09-2013, 02:12 PM	#936
Yolina Wizard Posts: 1,179 Karma: 11573197 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: London, UK Device: Voyage	I can confirm that it doesn't get bogged down when indexing anymore - I've just transferred several hundred books from Calibre and I am currently allocating them to collections from the PW without any noticeable slow down.

10-09-2013, 02:16 PM	#937
fearindex Addict Posts: 207 Karma: 279043 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kindle(s)	jswinden: Excellent preliminary information! And very promising too. Yes the text looks like it is in shadow a little, especially the top part looks like more in shadow than the bottom and of course the extreme sides, but other than that very good. Thank you very much for taking the time. Inverted image shows the light leakage on the sides, and and you can see the faint circular shadows where the LEDs are, but not nearly as bad as the inverted PW2 images here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/top...tml#msg2353392 Of course to really compare inverted images one would have to see a page without text on it. Then again, that is more for "scientific" analysis. For reading, what matters is how you perceive it with the text on there of course.

10-09-2013, 02:28 PM	#940
sparklemotion dangerous when cornered Posts: 1,855 Karma: 22891237 Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: USA Device: Kobo H2O, Kindle Paperwhite	I think the text looks really good on yours. Much darker than mine was. I wish I could get one that wasn't tinted so darn yellow.

10-09-2013, 02:33 PM	#941
sirmaru Wizard Posts: 2,426 Karma: 6561538 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: Kindle PW 2013, HDX 2013, Galaxy S5 2014	All these technical tests are great but the only test I run is: how does it feel to read on a PW 2013. It feels great to ME and I'd rather waste my time reading eBooks than doing a close examination of the device. It reads better than the PW 2012 but that device is good for reading as well. It appears there is a large segment of the posters here who enjoy analyzing every millimeter of the device. That is fine with me but we all have different tastes of what we enjoy. Some folks enjoy jacking their cars up every weekend and running all kinds of tests with expensive equipment. I just enjoy riding in the car.

10-09-2013, 02:40 PM	#944
soulfuldog I ♥ Calibre Posts: 2,073 Karma: 5678911 Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis, Voyage, Sony PRS-350, Hudl2	Good to see some of the so-called naysayers have got what look to be pretty good PW's this time round.

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