New Kindles announced (2024-10-16)

[TheSmitty]

Looking at the video with the 4 color readers side by side I thought the Kobo looked a little more washed out than the others. The Colorsoft did look pretty good. Having recently bought the new iPad mini I have been happy with the Kindle app on that when reading comics. Fortunately, I am not someone who sites and reads for hours at a time so I do not have to deal with eye strain like many do. I am still interested in the Colorsoft but do not see myself buying one unless it is a impulse buy when/if it goes on sale.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by TheSmitty

Looking at the video with the 4 color readers side by side I thought the Kobo looked a little more washed out than the others. The Colorsoft did look pretty good. Having recently bought the new iPad mini I have been happy with the Kindle app on that when reading comics. Fortunately, I am not someone who sites and reads for hours at a time so I do not have to deal with eye strain like many do. I am still interested in the Colorsoft but do not see myself buying one unless it is a impulse buy when/if it goes on sale.

Didn't you notice the loss of detail on the Kindle vs the Kobo?

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Didn't you notice the loss of detail on the Kindle vs the Kobo?

At least in the video shared by kript96, the Kindle seems to have more details than the kobo, e.g. in the cloud areas of some of the displayed pictures.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

At least in the video shared by kript96, the Kindle seems to have more details than the kobo, e.g. in the cloud areas of some of the displayed pictures.

Have a look at this screen grab from the video. There is a lot of detail lost on the Kindle vs the Kobo. It's been that way with BW Kindle vs BW Kobo. Kobo has always dithered graphics better then Amazon.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

^ amazon doesn't list current amazon file types as supported since they assume that all of them are created and delivered by amazon.

PDFs "sent" to a Scribe get converted to KPF, which can only be read on a Scribe. Users can run a PDF through Kindle Create themselves to make a KPF which can be copied and presumably read on a Scribe. The KFX output calibre plugin can convert KPF to KFX. It seems to me that the situation is likely similar with the Colorsoft, but no one will know until someone starts playing with it.

I tried this method out of curiosity, and while the Scribe won’t directly open the print-replica KPF file, it will open the KFX file converted from it, and allows writing on that KFX. Therefore I suspect that converting source color content (PDF or others) to KFX before sideloading should enable the Colorsoft to display those colors (i.e. Amazon presumably implemented colors only in the KFX renderer.)

But indeed we won’t know until people with the actual device in their hands start playing with it.

[JoeC]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Have a look at this screen grab from the video. There is a lot of detail lost on the Kindle vs the Kobo. It's been that way with BW Kindle vs BW Kobo. Kobo has always dithered graphics better then Amazon.

Attachment 211747

I kind of see what you mean but earlier in the video the text in comics looks clearer on the Kindle. There are a lot of variables to mess with - I think a real side by side will be tough.

I did think the buttons on the Kobo were beautiful.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Have a look at this screen grab from the video. There is a lot of detail lost on the Kindle vs the Kobo. It's been that way with BW Kindle vs BW Kobo. Kobo has always dithered graphics better then Amazon.

Attachment 211747

When I look at these picture the kobo looks the worst of them all. Looking at the rock face in the background all the fissures and cracks show up on the kindle and don't on the kobo.

[hondabf]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

When I look at these picture the kobo looks the worst of them all. Looking at the rock face in the background all the fissures and cracks show up on the kindle and don't on the kobo.

Yes but you also can't barely see any details under the shadows in the Colorsoft, the pile of rocks on the bottom right corner are way too obscure to see.

In Chalid's review of the Colorsoft he shows a couple of pages of The Lower Decks where the background was somewhat dark and you couldn't even see most of the details without him setting the brightness to max.

[Hollow Man]

We cannot make any good assessment based on a YouTube video, which is compressed by design. If we add to that the fact that the user who made the video is making their own judgments on what the brightness settings should be for the device, never mind limitations with their own camera which affects color and contrast...

The best this can do is give us an idea of the general differences between the devices under a certain set of circumstances, allowing each person watching to subjectively state an opinion (mine would be that the Kobo shows the different color gradients more clearly, but at the detriment of appearing blown out and "over exposed"). But it would be unwise to definitely state one is better than another.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

We cannot make any good assessment based on a YouTube video, which is compressed by design. If we add to that the fact that the user who made the video is making their own judgments on what the brightness settings should be for the device, never mind limitations with their own camera which affects color and contrast...

The best this can do is give us an idea of the general differences between the devices under a certain set of circumstances, allowing each person watching to subjectively state an opinion (mine would be that the Kobo shows the different color gradients more clearly, but at the detriment of appearing blown out and "over exposed"). But it would be unwise to definitely state one is better than another.

I think we can make assessments based on this video. And I expect there will be more comparisons videos.

This is basically the way the Kindle looked compared to the Kobo before color.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by kript96

Guided view is the panel by panel thing? personally i can't find it really useful. I don't like it and most pages in comics today have an irregular structure that's hard to just crop small rectangular and display them. I'd just never bother with comics till we talking about a 10" to be honest.

It is much better to have guided view than not to have it, if you are working with smaller displays (including smartphones). I agree it's preferable to have a larger screen, but those are less portable and usually more expensive. It's rare when there are no tradeoffs to consider.

Ironically I sometimes like to use it on my iPad Pro, where the transitions can be animated.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

I tried this method out of curiosity, and while the Scribe won’t directly open the print-replica KPF file, it will open the KFX file converted from it, and allows writing on that KFX. Therefore I suspect that converting source color content (PDF or others) to KFX before sideloading should enable the Colorsoft to display those colors (i.e. Amazon presumably implemented colors only in the KFX renderer.)

But indeed we won’t know until people with the actual device in their hands start playing with it.

Converting to KFX will preserve color. One can confirm this by side loading to the Android or iOS Kindle app.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to generate a fully functional print replica KFX for side-loading with KFX Output plugin. For example, you cannot select and highlight text. Those features only work if you use Send To Kindle to do the conversion. But if 'write on' is all you care about, maybe it is okay.

[NNolan]

My Colorsoft was supposed to be delivered today, but the local USPS has dropped the ball yet again.

[LDB]

Originally Posted by NNolan

My Colorsoft was supposed to be delivered today, but the local USPS has dropped the ball yet again.

That stinks. Hopefully they get their act together in time for tomorrow.

[Avwriter]

Originally Posted by NNolan

My Colorsoft was supposed to be delivered today, but the local USPS has dropped the ball yet again.

Don't know if this applies to you, but it seems to me things are going wrong with Amazon shipments more frequently. In the last month or so. I have had three packages get lost in shipment, resulting in having to refund the products, and then reorder them. Before that kind of think rarely happened more than once a year or so.