My No-Hands-On Photos of Kindle DX at Work

There are about 20 photos at my KindlePlus page.  The link goes to a gallery of thumbnails, and you can click on any one of them for the larger version.

  It's easier, after clicking on a thumbnail photo, to continue by just pressing "Next" (or "Previous") at the top-right of each image. Going back to the thumbnails takes more time.
  Sometimes the photo-hosting site is slow; if so, it's better to try another time.

  If you have a question about any image, you can leave a note in the lower left-hand area of the image page.  Email addresses are not needed, but there's a delay on the postings of questions to minimize spam.

  If you are using Windows, you can toggle the F11 function key to get full screen by temporarily hiding the toolbars.  When you're finished, press the F11 key again to get the toolbars back.

I took pictures of the Kindle DX screen displays when browsing the web, as I wanted to see how much of a help the Landscape mode is. As with some PDFs, quite a help!

  But it re-loads the page from scratch!, so I won't be doing it that much.

I neglected to take a shot of one key PDF page (one that's in tiny print) in Landscape mode to show how much larger the text can be under the right cirumstances. Will add that later.

We've seen enough photos of the DX by now, but I've also added a couple of pictures showing it displaying the same book or web page as either the Kindle 1 or the Kindle 2 though I can't begin to do justice to the very solid dark, clear font of the DX.

UPDATE: 7/7/09 - 3:25 PM - I finally realized that since I had the DX in a smaller font when presenting it next to the K2 and K1, that was not an especially good way to show it.  The DX's default #3 font is larger than the Kindle 2's (which does make the DX look even bolder too) so I had gone down to #2.

  I will take a couple of more images later so that it'll be a fairer representation of spacing, instead of the very crowded page I showed.  In person, the #2 font is so sharp it didn't occur to me that it was too small for photographing.
  Also, will add a couple of night-time pictures with the Mighty Bright light attached to the Kindle. Should be up in a couple of days.

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Earlier related postings:
. Kindle 1 vs Kindle 2 comparison photos on same material.
. The Kindle 2, out and about.

Sidenote:  PBase also has my travel images, from near and far, at http://www.pbase.com/andrys, for any that might enjoy that kind of thing.

Photos: Kindle-2 vs Sony PRS-505 grays - M-Edge cover

I was putting together a set of cell-phone photos of a Kindle in the wild, to be used later on in this blog, but I decided to make a pointer here to the Kindle-related picture set now, for those who've been curious about any of the following:

Sony PRS-505 and Kindle-2 gray screens, at Target.  It's been said the Sony gray is lighter, but not particularly so, although it seems bluer while the Kindle leans more to a greenish tint.
  UPDATE: 4/24/09.  PC World's Melissa J. Perenson presents a "visual tour" contrasting the Sony PRS-700 and Kindle 2 units.

Posting a reply to a forum (to Ned-san).
The process is slow, and when you're through typing, the web-process tells you that you were unable to connect with the site, but the posting does goes through.  Same false error-message happens with Gmail-sends.


M-Edge Platform cover - upright on my lap in a dark, cool restaurant lobby on a hot day.  The food took so long I thought I'd take a pic of the Platform jacket in action, with a colorful background.  Not an uplifting news story though.


The M-Edge Platform, closed.
  Like the Amazon cover, it lies very flat but is 3/4" longer to provide the webbing that allows the front cover to be used as a stand.  As the pics indicated, it's also nicely padded.  The left-ledge is meant for an integrated light (separate purchase) when the new version is ready, but that edge makes it less fatiguing to hold with one hand, so I'm rethinking the separate light.
 While I like Amazon's notebook-style cover a lot, the M-Edge's stand-up feature is a real Plus. :-)  So I alternate the covers.  Their other covers.

A Photo Comparison of Kindle Klassic and Kindle 2

I'll just start this off with a photo comparison I did quickly when receiving my Kindle 2 after having enjoyed the Kindle 1 (dubbed 'Klassic' or 'KK' or 'K1' by enthusiasts) for about half a year. Many wanted to know what the visual differences were and there had been some discussion (which continues) of not only the more photo-like grayscale capabilities but also the relative degree of grayness of screen backgrounds and the basic font's black density. The Kindle 2 has a somewhat thinner font that some perceive as 'crisper' or 'sharper' while others see it as 'lighter' and providing less contrast. It can be like comparing a fine-point pen to a medium one (as seen with the home page listings, which I have not photographed yet).

The K2's directness of access to the dictionary and to links without added pop-up boxes is a real plus.   I wish, though, that the 5-way were not anchored by the dictionary lookup for each word hovered over while passing through.  But web browsing is much faster.

TEXT and book preview images.  I used the same Amazon store page used by PC World in its recent K1 and K2 comparison.

    *CLICK* on images that don't quite fit on this page to see full original images.




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Here's a shot of both units displaying a page with very basic fonts for periodicals sent to the Kindle via plain-text RSS feed once a day from Kindlefeeder.




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OUR PERSONAL PICTURES UNDER 'PICTURES' FOLDER




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I chose text LINE spacing that was modified using the key-combo Shift-Alt-5 to match more closely K1's spacing between lines. (We can choose from Shift-Alt-[1-9], with '3' the somewhat cramped default.
Sample:    Leslie's The Amazon Kindle FAQ



 
    I used this sample to confirm that the fonts can be just as dark if they are specified as black somewhere in Amazon's coding.


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PLAIN TEXT FROM A BOOK ("The Spell of Egypt") - CLOSER UP
Again, modified the default Font '3' by pressing Shift-Alt-5 to expand line distance more similar to K1's line spacing

The Kindle Klassic first, followed by the Kindle 2.  This close-up pair had to be taken separately, to get that close, and my shadow looms over them.


 


    Most of the rest below were taken by lamp light, with the lamp at the left, closer to the K1, but aimed across the K2.  No scientific review here!

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WEB PAGE interpretation by K1 and K2
+ ESPN as example



The rows of links are quite sqeezed together by K2 browser.
They underline each link and highlight certain links.

  Someone or something does a terrific job dithering the 4-shades for the header image.

Here's a zoomed-in area to show what the text looks like if we're reading the page.


And here's a separate shot I took closer up of the K2 screen.  I used only the top part of the shot.



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WEB PAGE interpretation of
PEOPLE MAGAZINE -   



  Text with images are shown quite differently on these two.

K1's 4 SHADES and K2's 16 SHADES - using this People magazine page




  This was not a bad job of dithering for 4-shades (using diffusion to blend the dots). 


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MORE on K1s 4-shades vs the K2's 16 shades
using People Magazine still.  This one was for a big fan of Hugh Jackman   :-)



 


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JUST AN EXCUSE to put "Slumdog Millionaire" folks in this thread.



One last comparison -the K1 image is pretty nicely dithered:
 

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MY KINDLE 2,  AT REST ON THE LOUNGER



I hope this helps with the conflicting reports about less clarity vs the K1 while others say the screen is crisper and sharper.

  The 16 shades capability of the K2 will cause it to interpret colors as different shades of gray.

  You know how they say, "Just give me the basics - no grays"?

    The large differences from using only Black and White plus 2 other shades made up between them (for the K1) leads to inherently good contrast for the eyes at a loss of shading.  The 11 additional shades of gray (for the K2) means that some text will be in a lighter shade, depending on what the publisher or formatter decides to use for the font.

Nevertheless, a few Kindle 2's  (as with the Kindle 1's)  have seemed to have unreadable fonts in sunlight (which shouldn't be), so, for display anomalies do check with Amazon customer reps at 866-321-8851.

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Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.