Kindle 4 screen is THE SAME as K3.

[shinew]

Originally Posted by Papi

After seeing this well known optical trick (for those who don't haven't seen it yet, A et B squares are the same color), I don't trust my eyes only...

yep, or this one, the green & blue are the same color

our visual perception are so easily fooled by so many factors, we even see color/shades differently based on the time of the day, health, age & mood. And cameras are useful to distort the reality to what the photographers' inner eye sees, not a reference tool.

Originally Posted by Joy736

Keep in mind that the kindle 3 is available longer and has much more reviews.
When a device is just released, there are likely to be more negative reviews than a year after release, because of bugs that need to be sorted out in the begining. When the kindle 4 gets more (positive) reviews after that, the percentage 1 star reviews will lower.

Not just iron out the bugs, there're just simply lots of trolls. If you skimp through the actual 1-star "reviews" by clicking on "1 star", out of 21 reviews, 3 people actually bought it from amazon. The most "useful review" being the one complaining about spending 2-hours connecting to a wifi, and he/she finally "figured it out but it was clear to me that many, many people would not be able to do so..." took me a 1-min to connect to my WPA2 protected wifi.
lots of others are just complaining that kindle does not support ePub, kindle 2 sucks, kindle is more expensive in other country in US, quality is bad because it breaks when you drop it, etc... all sort of non sense that's it's kinda amusing for a short read

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

You know, I'm really skeptical that there are actually "different grades" of Pearl e-ink used on e-readers.

AFAICT, for 4 years no one has heard about these different grades. When Pearl came out, its 50% greater contrast was heavily advertised and featured, but no one talked about different grades of Pearl. If there really were different grades, anyone any company using a better grade of pearl would use that fact to beat their competition over the head with...and rightly so. But that never happened.

The only evidence we have for the different grades is from a second hand report we heard of from Tom's Hardware, who apparently called e-ink and learned this heretofore unknown fact. But we don't really know who they talked to, what questions they asked, or what kind of response they actually got. For all we know (and in fact, this is my assumption), they were asked how come some screens are better than others, and the response that there are different grades meant just that some are pearl and some are older vizplex. And not that there are different grades of Pearl.

And even if there were different grades of Pearl, I would be surprised if it were revealed in this way.

"Hello, E-ink, I have a question about Amazon? You know, your largest customer? How come some of their screens on the K4 look different?"

"Hello, random tech blogger. Well, we've never told anyone this yet, but there are are actually different grades of Pearl. And our largest customer - well, this is highly confidential, but they might be using Pearl B instead of Pearl A. Have a nice day!".

Anyway, for both of those reasons, I'm seriously skeptical.

I too am a bit skeptical about the idea from a supplier standpoint.

I have no doubt, however that there are:

1) Variances in batches during production-to tell the truth, the technology has always sounded both a bit magical and a bit rube goldbergesque to me-I'm amazed they actually got it to work so well. "There are these white balls and these black balls..."

2) Variances, both intentional and unintentional, in how various manufacturers calibrate/control the screens thru software and hardware.

One thing I'm curious about is how power management and CPU/GPU power play a role in the quality of the screen display/refreshing. One thing about the eInk devices to date-none of them have (need?) high powered CPUs/GPUs, and all of them have incredible battery life. And all the tech demos of full screen animation without ghosting/screen blanking are seemingly done with custom hardware with powerful CPUs and I assume, wired power, not battery power.

I have a feeling there may be a lot more life in the technology if this is the case, as CPU power goes up and prices go down-higher density, higher contrast screens with imperceptible refresh rates.

[boothy]

Hi All

I cannot see any difference between my K3 and K4 screen - there appears a difference in contrast initially but I think this is more due to enclosure design than screen spec - the higher contrast black trim around screen surrounded by a lighter plastic colour grey case - the overall effect of the K4 visually presents the screen much better and therefore appears sharper in contrast. Cut 2 windows in some white paper and compare section of both screens there seems to be no difference. Certainly there is no difference in glare to screen.

Boothy

[b0ned0me]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

But I don't believe that there are different grades of Pearl screens used in e-ink readers.

I was under the impression that binning into quality (or more often, variability) ranges was extremely common with electronics components. You can see it here for example with regard to LEDs

http://www.yegopto.co.uk/expertise/Intensity_Binning

I find it extremely easy to believe that there are different bins or 'grades' of Pearl screens at slightly different prices. That might not necessarily be for differences in contrast though, it might be by percentage likelihood of dead pixes, % failure rate, color tint etc. or indeed any combination of the above.

If a factory might be able to give you 1 million screens a month at $50 if you accept contrast variations of +/-10% and colour balance within 5% of spec, but only 700K screens at $65 each if you want contrast within +/- 7.5% and colour within 2.5%, what do you buy?

[Blossom]

In the past couple of days I've had a few people contact me privately about their K4 screen having issues. It seems to me there is definitely something going on with a bad batch of K4s out there. One person has two tone text. This is a very small percentage though compare to those happy with their K4s. I've encourage them to contact Amazon for replacements if they're not happy.

I think concerning screen contrast, the background should be a light color whether it have a gray or creme tint. It should look very light, near white when you are holding the K4 reading. The text should look black and sharp not jagged and not gray. You shouldn't be able to see the pixels on the letters because Pearl uses Anti-Aliasing.

It shouldn't matter if you're using 6 page refresh or 1 page refresh. The text should still look black, sharp and smooth, at least it does on mine. The other difference in the refresh settings I noticed is the background will start to look dirty when I do a 6 page refresh but that's normal. I've seen worst ghosting on my K3 when it's cold. It's really not that bad but I prefer a clean page each time so I use the 1 page refresh setting.

When you contact Kindle support they will ask if you have the latest firmware which is 4.0.1 so be sure to upgrade to that to see if it fixes your problems. They will also have you change the refresh settings and restart the Kindle.

I'm by means am no expert on this. I just speak from personal experience of my own Kindles. I agree that photos can be very misleading and often hard to capture what the naked eye is seeing. As someone who has worked in graphic and web design for years. I just may be picky when it comes to fonts and contrast.

[Jabby]

My wife's K4 (now mine) is ever so slightly darker than either my wife's or my K3. But I do see a faint tinge of green; which is weird.

Regards - John

[barth90]

I'm surprised that nobody referred to the Kindle Chronicles pod cast that Len Edgerly runs every week. Last friday's interview was with Sri Peruvemba, Chief Marketing Officer for E Ink Holdings, the supplier of the ePaper technology used in the Kindle and other leading e-readers.
In this interview, Sri clearly states that the display used on the K4 is the same as the K3. Both are Pearl display of the same vintage.

Interesting interview. I encourage you to listen to it.

http://www.thekindlechronicles.com/2...sri-peruvemba/

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Jabby

My wife's K4 (now mine) is ever so slightly darker than either my wife's or my K3. But I do see a faint tinge of green; which is weird.

Regards - John

I notice that on mine. It sometimes has a green tinge when reading. It doesn't bother me as much as my K3 sometimes does something similar.

I really got to sit down for the first time tonight and read on mine for a long time. I found the K4 is not the best in my favorite reading spot. I had to up the font size to stop squinting. It looks like I am going to have to get a reading light and a real case for it or maybe I will just wait for the Touch as turning pages one handed is near impossible on the K4. I find the buttons stiff and needs a little effort to be pushed. My thumb is a little sore now from the effort. lol Now if they had just reverse the buttons it would be perfect for one hand turning.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I have heard people saying the Nook Simple Touch doesn't have as good as contrast as a Kindle. So I believe you.

It's pretty subtle if so. My side-to-side comparison revealed no contrast difference, at most a very slight yellow cast on the Nook (maybe a coating for better fingerprint shedding). I think the main difference is the fonts. Amazon has really beefed up the smaller text sizes so they pop, whereas B&N has retained the 'pure', unadulterated letterforms that tend to dissolve a little due to antialiasing.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tomsem

It's pretty subtle if so. My side-to-side comparison revealed no contrast difference, at most a very slight yellow cast on the Nook (maybe a coating for better fingerprint shedding). I think the main difference is the fonts. Amazon has really beefed up the smaller text sizes so they pop, whereas B&N has retained the 'pure', unadulterated letterforms that tend to dissolve a little due to antialiasing.

That would makes sense. Fonts rendering and font styles vary which has nothing to do with the screen grade.

[shinew]

Originally Posted by Blossom

...I will just wait for the Touch as turning pages one handed is near impossible on the K4. I find the buttons stiff and needs a little effort to be pushed. My thumb is a little sore now from the effort. lol Now if they had just reverse the buttons it would be perfect for one hand turning.

One thing worth noting when transitioning from K3 to K4 is that you probably need to adjust the way how you hold the device with one hand and find your comfortable position. For me I'm happier holding a K4 than K3 with one hand because it's lighter. Below is the most comfortable & stable position i find for holding the K4.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by shinew

One thing worth noting when transitioning from K3 to K4 is that you probably need to adjust the way how you hold the device with one hand and find your comfortable position. For me I'm happier holding a K4 than K3 with one hand because it's lighter. Below is the most comfortable & stable position i find for holding the K4.

That is how I hold mine. I just can't change the page with my thumb unless I sit the K4 against something. The buttons are too stiff. I can click the previous button fine just not the next.

[shinew]

Originally Posted by Blossom

That is how I hold mine. I just can't change the page with my thumb unless I sit the K4 against something. The buttons are too stiff. I can click the previous button fine just not the next.

hmm... you'll just need to keep adjusting and find comfortable position then otherwise I would return it if it tires my finger.

I made a rough mockup of the K3 & K4 with their actual color(font, background & bezel) to get a feel of what their screens look like in relation to the bezels. That might make a difference to perceived clarity to some people. I figure I might as well share it in case others find useful.

p.s. unless your browser is color management capable and enabled, and have a calibrated monitor, the absolute color won't match actual one, but the color differences in relation among the font, background & bezel shouldn't be affected much.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by shinew

hmm... you'll just need to keep adjusting and find comfortable position then otherwise I would return it if it tires my finger.

I made a rough mockup of the K3 & K4 with their actual color(font, background & bezel) to get a feel of what their screens look like in relation to the bezels. That might make a difference to perceived clarity to some people. I figure I might as well share it in case others find useful.

p.s. unless your browser is color management capable and enabled, and have a calibrated monitor, the absolute color won't match actual one, but the color differences in relation among the font, background & bezel shouldn't be affected much.

Can you take the K4 and give it the K3 bezel and see if the screen contrasts changes any? I'm debating on if a black skin for my K4 would make the screen have better contrast.

[shinew]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Can you take the K4 and give it the K3 bezel and see if the screen contrasts changes any? I'm debating on if a black skin for my K4 would make the screen have better contrast.

here you go, attached are the bastards...

Edit: updated images