Paperwhite Second Gen: First Impressions

[fearindex]

Excellent post again, jswinden. Big thanks!

Your sentiments are pretty close to my feelings with my PW1, although I do believe PW2 has improved things overall. PW1 too was worst with the light low and especially in dark. The bigger the light and ambient lighting, the better the screen. The problem with that, though, in very dark putting the light up too much made the text look "milky" and also bothering the eyes a bit like an LCD.

If I were reading in lighted situations I think PW1 would have been good. Looking forward to seeing the PW2 myself.

[levante]

I have cleaned and reset my PW2 and prepared to return it. At least this one is not better for reading that my PW1. No blobs, no shadows, no pinholes, homogeneus screen, whiter (a little yellowish) screen, all better than PW1 but with worse contrast and worse reading experience.

[sparklemotion]

Thanks for the detailed post, Jack! I'm glad you're happy and keeping yours. I think I may try one more at Best Buy this week and then call it a day if I'm not happy with it. I'd love to get a screen without pinholes and one that wasn't as yellow as the last one I had.

Here is a better photo to illustrate why normal weighted text on my PW2 is too difficult to read for long periods of time. I combined two paragraphs into a one page book. The top paragraph is normal weighted Caecilia Condensed size 3 and the bottom paragraph is bold Caecilia Condensed size 3. I simply placed the text inside <B> tags.

For my eyes, the normal weighted text blends too well with the screen's dingy/dirty looking background and begins to appear less dark (lighter). I found that making the text bold helps significantly.

In this photo the normal text appears to be lighter grey and have less contrast, whereas the bold text appears to be darker grey with greatly improved contrast. In reality I suspect the grey darkness level is the same for both normal and bold, but the thicker/fatter bold text makes it seem darker. An illusion that works for me.

[David58117]

I finally got a good one (Best Buy)!!!!!!!!!!

I had to return 3, and although the new one has a pinhole, it's not bothersome enough under normal conditions (in between lettering, despite being right in the center).

The first one was very nice, light cream coloring - but had an "indent" on the bottom right corner (about 1 cm from the bottom corner). I tried living with it since it was otherwise perfect, but it became too distracting. It wasn't quite a pinhole, but that one little spot would be off color at all light levels. So back it went, sadly.

The second one seemed to have a darker panel, and shone as light pink/green. It just felt "off," and looked pretty similar to my PW1. There were no defects on it otherwise, but the panel sucked. Also, the blacks weren't as vibrant as I remember, and seemed to have less contrast. So I bought another PW2...

This one showed the prior one as truly having a bad panel/lights. There was a night/day difference between them. The prior one DID have a greenish tint, and the lights were weaker, seemed like lower quality. The brightness level of the prior one was a few notches lower than the new one, which had a creamy color. The new one seemed perfect, however - 3 pinholes! In distracting locations. I immediately exchanged it for another.

This newest (the one I'm keeping) has a light, creamy tint. It has a pinhole (that I can live with), and also minor light leak about 1cm going up the right panel. It's very minor, especially after living with the PW1's light leak.

I'm keeping my PW1 as a backup, (selling the Kobo glo, mini, T1), but in comparison it looks like the PW1 was involved in a fight and lost. The bruising really stands out, and I'm happy amazon finally got some uniformity for the screen. I definitely prefer it over the Kobo Glo (blueish tint, less contrast than the PW, stronger light which is way too bright in dark rooms/hurts eyes at night), - but I'm curious why Kobo is able to get a uniform light without pinholes, light leaks, spotlights, while amazon still has these issues, or atleast hints of them.

Oh well, I'm reading much more and enjoying it quite a bit, so I'm very happy.

[fearindex]

Great to hear you finally got one you liked, David!

[sparklemotion]

That's awesome, David. Glad you got one you are happy with.

Jack - the bottom text is much more readable to my eyes too. I find it annoying that Amazon doesn't simply allow more font selections on the PW's. I'm baffled why they give such a skimpy selection.

[David58117]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Here is a better photo to illustrate why normal weighted text on my PW2 is too difficult to read for long periods of time. I combined two paragraphs into a one page book. The top paragraph is normal weighted Caecilia Condensed size 3 and the bottom paragraph is bold Caecilia Condensed size 3. I simply placed the text inside <B> tags.

For my eyes, the normal weighted text blends too well with the screen's dingy/dirty looking background and begins to appear less dark (lighter). I found that making the text bold helps significantly.

In this photo the normal text appears to be lighter grey and have less contrast, whereas the bold text appears to be darker grey with greatly improved contrast. In reality I suspect the grey darkness level is the same for both normal and bold, but the thicker/fatter bold text makes it seem darker. An illusion that works for me.

I'm with you, although I generally prefer non-weighted text.

Maybe I'm nuts, but the weighted text just seems sloppier, less defined, whereas non-weighted seems cleaner and easier to read.

[Darkuul]

Well I finally received mine, it was from the first batch (preordered on Sept 15th) and I only just got it because it came all the way to Honduras. I must say I was rather worried about quality issues after reading so many posts about it, but... I'm glad to report that I find it absolutely perfect, no screen defects that I can see, love the lighting with the subtle warm tone, love the sharpness and contrast. Take in mind that I've never owned an e-ink device so I have no idea what a pinhole is, but I haven't seen anything resembling that in the 8+ hours of use I've put it through, and can't compare with the contrast of previous devices, but I've been reading for years on high ppi smartphones and tablet screens and none of those were as easy on the eyes as this little buddy. Anyway, highly recommended for those of you who have never owned one. Cheers!

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

That's awesome, David. Glad you got one you are happy with.

Jack - the bottom text is much more readable to my eyes too. I find it annoying that Amazon doesn't simply allow more font selections on the PW's. I'm baffled why they give such a skimpy selection.

I'm not a programmer, but it seems like it would not be difficult to allow users to add fonts. Sony offered that with their x00 and x50 readers.* Granted not all fonts will look good on an eInk reader. I see that from time to time with embedded fonts that are not optimized for the reader. But Amazon should at least offer us that ability with the understanding that some fonts will look like poop on the reader. There are plenty of people who would and have made available nice workable fonts.

Again, I'm not a programmer, but it seems like it would be possible to give us a setting to allow us to turn up the weight of the included fonts. One of the reader I had a while back had that feature. I think it might have been the Kobo Touch.

* Well sort of. You can add fonts to a font folder then use CSS to access them. Perhaps I should say Sony didn't prevent us from adding fonts.

BTW, last night I read a short time in a dark room without any lights except the one built into the PW2. I know a lot of you read that way. It isn't a good experience for me though, and I've never been able to do so on any front lit eInk or back lit LCD tablet/phone. After just a few minutes the sharp contrast between the bright screen and the dark room starts to cause eyestrain. But I tested it out so I could report back to you.

Here is my experience. In a lighted room my PW2 screen with light level set as low as possible has a cream colored background with a touch of very light grey. Ii looks like most Pearl screens on non-lighted readers. As I increase the light level to an optimum level for comfortable reading, the screen background color begins to take on a faint blue hue and the screen starts to look a little dingy in the middle. If I turn the light level way up until by retinas scream for mercy, the background does indeed turn white. But at that level I can no longer read without great eyestrain.

Now here is my experience in a dark room using only the PW2 light. I needed to turn the light level to about 7 before I could see the text well enough to start reading. The maximum level I could stand was 10. Anything above 10 and my retinas threatened to pack their bags and leave! Between 7 and 10 I noticed the screen background was more of a light cream color (not the blue hue i see in lighted rooms), and the background dinginess was not as evident. If I could get my eyes to read in a dark room with so much contrast between a bright screen background and darkness, it would be nearly perfect. For my eyes though I needed to turn on a dim lamp to keep the eyestrain from occurring.

[Arcadian]

It's been interesting to read all of these first impressions of the PW2. From my point of view, my PW2 is better than my PW1, but the difference is subtle. With the light off, it's actually difficult for me to tell which one is the new PW2. The PW2 has a slightly more yellowish tint on the background, which I actually prefer, but I only really notice this difference under certain lighting conditions. Text clarity seems the same to me, and I certainly don't notice the purported 25% increase in contrast. Font thickness and darkness seems the same on both units. With the light on, however, there is a big difference between my units. I basically considered my PW1 as my PaperBlue, not Paperwhite, but I didn't have the color blotching on the screen that others have reported. I did have some faint "thumbprints" at the bottom of the screen where the lights are. My PW2 has a much "whiter" look to the light, especially at higher levls, and is perfectly distributed across the entire screen - at least to my eyes. I don't have any pinhole issues at all. Actually, the biggest change I have noticed is the speed. My PW2 is noticeably faster at almost all tasks than my PW1 was. My new PW2 also seems to have less of the "dirty screen" effect between refreshes. Overall, I believe my PW2 is definitely a superior unit, but my hopeful expectations when I ordered it haven't been totally fulfilled...

[Barty]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

Can anyone with a PW2 please tell if theirs does this. When you turn a page, does the font start off thicker for a brief second and then get thinner? My PW1 doesn't do this, but my second PW2 did.

Mine does this with graphics. Maps, illustrations etc

[Barty]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I'm not a programmer, but it seems like it would not be difficult to allow users to add fonts. Sony offered that with their x00 and x50 readers.* Granted not all fonts will look good on an eInk reader. I see that from time to time with embedded fonts that are not optimized for the reader. But Amazon should at least offer us that ability with the understanding that some fonts will look like poop on the reader. There are plenty of people who would and have made available nice workable fonts.

Again, I'm not a programmer, but it seems like it would be possible to give us a setting to allow us to turn up the weight of the included fonts. One of the reader I had a while back had that feature. I think it might have been the Kobo Touch.

* Well sort of. You can add fonts to a font folder then use CSS to access them. Perhaps I should say Sony didn't prevent us from adding fonts.

The pw1 allows you to load your own fonts for all books, so no need for embedding. The kobo allows you to adjust the font weight to make text darker.

On the KK, I can adjust margin to really small by editing reader.pref.

Why do we have only 8 fixed font sizes? Why can't the font be changed by one
point increments. Because they want to keep the UI as simple as possible.
This is the case of the UI dictating function rather than the other way around.

It's not a technical problem. They could make small changed to the Aa page. They could keep it as is and add an advanced page for more tweaking. They could put the settings in an editable text file so people who want fine adjustment can get what they want. They just don't want to bother. Because touting "any font size / margin / line / you want" isn't as sexy as stuff like X-ray or social media.

Originally Posted by Barty

The pw1 allows you to load your own fonts for all books, so no need for embedding. The kobo allows you to adjust the font weight to make text darker.

On the KK, I can adjust margin to really small by editing reader.pref.

Why do we have only 8 fixed font sizes? Why can't the font be changed by one
point increments. Because they want to keep the UI as simple as possible.
This is the case of the UI dictating function rather than the other way around.

It's not a technical problem. They could make small changed to the Aa page. They could keep it as is and add an advanced page for more tweaking. They could put the settings in an editable text file so people who want fine adjustment can get what they want. They just don't want to bother. Because touting "any font size / margin / line / you want" isn't as sexy as stuff like X-ray or social media.

Unfortunately, it looks like Amazon is going to shut the door on the font hack for the PW1 the way they did on the PW2. And earlier Amazon shut the ability to force smaller margins like the K3 allowed. But the truth is that Amazon never allowed any of those things. They just happened because hackers figured out how to do them. Amazon moved to shut the doors on those hacks.