Going from the Kindle 2 to, or adding, a DX

When Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February, many Kindle 1 owners decided to sell their Kindle 1's to get a Kindle 2.
  Soon, some Kindle 2 owners will move to or add Kindle DX units.

Amazon has a terrific feature which allows one person to share Kindle books purchased from Amazon with up to 5 other Kindle units IF the other Kindles are under that person's account -- meaning the account owner pays for all Amazon Kindle books ordered by any of the other Kindle users.

However, when it comes to subscriptions to Kindle versions of newspapers or magazines, this can't be done. Amazon explains that publishers have demanded that a newspaper or magazine be allowed on only one unit. A subscription owner can't share a morning newspaper with another household member, even, except to give up the Kindle for awhile.

Books purchased from Amazon are backed up and kept on their servers for owners to re-download when wanted if these had been deleted from the Kindle to save the mind from the sight of too many books in the listing.  Amazon even backs up (with approval) any highlighting or notes made so that these are also downloadable with the book as needed.

Preparation by Amazon
Amazon will need to address one area of confusion that will arise (and already has caused some unhappiness when an owner receives a Kindle replacement for a defective or malfunctioning unit).

The problem is the inability to open, for viewing on the replacement or subsequent Kindle, any older magazine or newspaper issues that were purchased more than 7 issues past.
  In the non-Kindle world, owners like to stack up older magazines to read individual articles later or to revisit them.

For Kindlers who buy magazines and want to keep them for reference (the library concept again, including the NY Sunday Times with its book reviews and its Sunday Magazine), the benefit is the ability to search their Kindles for references in those older book reviews or world news.

This traditional use of older periodicals is possible currently only if a Kindle owner keeps these older issues on the current Kindle and also keeps the current Kindle -- but it's not possible if wanting to view these on a replacement Kindle, even when upgrading and spending more for the next unit.

  When the old Kindle (even a malfunctioning one) is gone, so are the older issues.

The reason for the problem
Newspapers and magazines are kept on Amazon servers for only the last seven issues or so.  But these issues can stay on the original Kindle and of course they can be backed up onto the owner's computer(s) -- and therein lies a problem that will be seen more when customers add a DX to the household or move to the DX from the Kindle 2.

Why? Because many have decided to order a DX for reading the newspaper at home or for reading PDFs while at the office - while using the Kindle 2 as a more portable device outside the home for reading current news and books.  Or they are selling their Kindle 2, with old subscription issues on it.

Decision to be made
An individual who owns both a Kindle 2 and a DX will have to decide which unit will get the periodicals -- the one used when commuting to work?  Or the big one at home, which is marketed as better for newsreaders and PDFs?

As before, the DX is better for reading newspapers but older magazine articles won't be openable on the DX even if the user's Kindle 2 is sold.
  As mentioned, this happened to many when moving from the Kindle 1 to the Kindle 2.

There IS a solution, and I hope Amazon addresses this before the situation is a surprise to new DX owners moving from the older Kindles:

SOLUTION:
Allow Kindle owners to upload, to an Amazon area, the older magazine issues - those older magazine files have fields that give the specific ID of the older Kindle unit and, as a result, the older issues can be read only on the unit that has an ID matching the device ID number in those fields.

  Amazon could have a batch process in place that would replace the files' fields for device ID information with the ID for the owner's new current Kindle device.

This is a DRM (Digital-Rights-Management) or copyright issue - a very hot topic right now in the e-books area.  Respect for Copyrighted works is important to most creators of work, and to their publishers.
  However, there's such a thing as unnecessarily restrictive execution of copyright protection procedures that don't permit an owner of a purchased magazine to be able to read older issues except with one device which may no longer be functioning or which has been sold to another person.

  I've talked with customer representatives about this but they have received no information as to how this will be handled for the DX purchases.  I'm hoping Amazon will have a solution in place before the release though.

  A post to a forum today reminded me that Customer Service, while very responsive to any problems with individual Kindles, moves slowly on some issues important to Kindle owners such as the long standing one in which customer Ted Inoue has requested that Amazon let him know if his darker fonts installed by many happy Kindle owners might void the warranty.  He presented the recommended font-set sampes to the Developers via Customer Service some time ago.

  The Kindle-1 customizable-screensavers-installation (similar in scope of external modification) received assurances from Customer Service that the install would not void the Kindle 1 warranty.   Inoue is still awaiting word on his recommended font-sets (they exist as trials or tests) for use by Amazon, as are other Amazon customers, hoping to keep using the added fonts that help with screen-contrast issues for some.

New Kindle-2 Screen Contrast Finding by Ted Inoue

This is an update to the original Kindle-2 screen-contrast story and updates, focusing on Ted Inoue's analysis.

While the original theories for varying screen-contrast of Kindle 2 screens involved thinner looking fonts and anti-aliasing that used the increased grayscales available to the Kindle 2, Inoue has done new tests from screen-grabs of the same page using both the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2, enlarged in Photoshop with examination of the pixel make-up of the characters.  They are the same.  Only 4-shades appear to be used for the basic font.

As Ted has explained, including on two forums following this, the variances in screen output of the same basic material comprising the font characters we see, indicates something seen in his earlier test of displays from his first Kindle 2 (Unit-A) vs his second Kindle 2 (Unit-B) - a difference in how both Kindle-2 units are rendering the same font.  What we see as less well-defined or less-sharp on Unit-A (which Ted notes as a unit that does not resolve well) shows less black brought to the 'surface' than we can see for the fonts from his second Kindle, Unit-B, when they're magnified.

  I have wondered if it was more a matter of seeing more black "brought to light" (that we can see) on the second unit so that his first unit's less-solid-blackened characters will appear less sharp then.  With Photoshop, we will tend to add contrast (more dark grays to black and more light grays to white) to enhance the perception of sharpness or definition of edges.

In the meantime, the screen-grabs from a Kindle 1 vs Kindle 2 mentioned above shows no difference in the basic font used for the devices.  Ted says that the differences that people can see easily in photographs result from how each unit renders the same basic combo of same pixels, and M. Matthews posted on March 28 that this might be related to the amount of voltage used to get the black portions to the surface and posted on April 28 that the variations we've seen indicate that the density of the black may be harder to control with the newer e-Ink screen with its 16-shades of gray vs 4 for the Kindle 1.  Whatever, it appears to be a quality control problem, especially with the seemingly unusual number of screens doing all right until brought into direct sunlight and fading under those conditions - a definite defect, since an advertised strength of the e-Ink screen (a feature I personally love) is how readable it is in direct sunlight.  There is an explanation, said to be given by an Amazon customer service representative, for the fading, having to do with faulty e-ink receptors.

Ted refers to some photo comparisons I made of my K1 and K2 and, in my own case, my Kindle 2 display is sharper and is black enough (though somewhat lighter in some lighting but good enough for me because it is definitely sharper than even my excellent Kindle 1).  I also took some photos last weekend of the Kindle2 vs the Sony PRS505 (using the older 8-shade e-Ink screen) and found the Kindle 2 looking very good in contrast (no pun intended).  They both have good displays.  But obviously, these screens can differ dramatically, though the large majority of owners appear to have units that meet the standards set for them.  The photos in my entry about problems for some users with bad screen contrast are repeated here for easier access.  These are some photo-comparison examples plus an added example and the most egregious one.
  In contrast, here are two examples of how the display should appear, taken with a cell phone last weekend while at Target:
Kindle-2 'Home' library listing and
Kindle-2 display of some text that I copied off a website to reference while shopping.

Amazon IS replacing units that are reported to have fonts that are too light to read, in connection with the warranty they do honor.  Customers have been very positive about how Amazon customer svc representatives have been handling this, with the exception of one official Communications executive who dismissed the concerns by telling Wired about a "few" customers wanting less gray shades!  From what I've read -- only as an offered option for pure-text reading where the font becomes gray instead of black.

As mentioned in the original screen contrast entry, customers who almost returned their Kindles have been ecstatic with the replacement fonts offered for trial by Inoue to Amazon Customer Service, at his site.

In the meantime, the long request-to-Amazon thread joined by new owners each day continues.  In between pleas for darker fonts displayed, they praise Inoue's new fonts (but which have to be uninstalled each time Amazon has a Kindle update).

Amazon is considering K2 screen contrast issue

Which inner gray box has a lighter gray?  Why does one seem lighter?

  Posted 3/24/09 at 3:57pm   (Updated 4/9/09, at the bottom)
  I called Customer Service a couple of times to ask what Amazon is saying to us these days about the screen/font issue with the Kindle 2, in that some customers have felt that the thinner new font, used with a lighter weight than is used for the Kindle 1, is not as easy on their eyes.

  Some customers are driving a petition for a gray screen that is a lighter gray because their Kindle 1's have a somewhat lighter gray and a darker basic font.  For others, the differences are slight, and I find I can read full-width webpages because of the new fineness of the fonts when it's decreased. It's that sharp.

  But the relative lightness of the thinner K2 basic font, along with a somewhat darker gray perceived by a percentage of users moved to write to forums and to comment-areas of review columns, raises an issue (readibility) which is important and Amazon had earlier been a bit tone deaf to the concerns.

 The complaints are from people who prefer high contrast and who want to keep their Kindle 2's but want them to be as easy on their eyes as was the Kindle 1.  There have been odd choices by Amazon, such as changing the HOME item-listing from a dark medium-size font of the K1 to the wispy non-bolded thinner font weight of the K2.  Some people prefer to read output from medium-point pens to that from fine-point pens. And vice versa.

That's what Amazon seems to be taking into consideration.  I was told they do take customer feedback seriously and are working on a way to modify the darkness/lightness of the screen but that it's important to find something that will work for most of it customers.  As we've seen, many magazine reviewers have mentioned the 'sharper' and 'crisper' lettering.  Customers who read for longer stretches of time in different lighting situations may have quite different responses.

  I'm somewhere in between. I often wish for the more defined K1 weight for the font but I don't think about it much when I don't have the K1 nearby. But I do notice I used to be able to read for hours without noticing any eye strain whatsoever (new to me).

However, it was good to see they ARE working on a solution that can work for more customers, though it may take a while.  This is better than the silence we'd heard or the idea that there was no real issue there.  So, I'm encouraged.

UPDATE - 4/9 - 4/12/09 At the Amazon forums, Ted-san (Ted Inoue) describes running private tests using the native Kindle 2 fonts, comparing the display of a tweaked set he made against that of the native font set.  It involves using a more bolded font as the basic one and making normally "bolded" fonts even more bolded to keep the differences.  He proposes that users have the option of choosing between 'normal' and 'enhanced' display while reading, so that those who like the current fonts setup as-is are not affected.

The perspicacious :-) and meticulous Inoue has reorganized his test reports, and his full set shows what the relative lack of contrast can look like for some users on some Kindle units and what effect modifications in font properties can have.  (However, my own Kindle 2 has far more contrast than shown and is very sharp too, but units in the same home have been reported to show noticeable variances in contrast ratio.)  Also, he has found an even better example (Michael Bach's) of an optical-illusion having to do with the perception of lightness and darkness of objects with constant luminance, their brightness values perceived as changing when seen against the luminance values of surrounding objects (simultaneous contrast).

 As for a fix, my own wish is simpler: that they just provide a darker-effect basic font similar to what they did for the Kindle 1 and that the e-Ink folks have a better quality control process over the relative lightness/darkness of the screen's gray.  Luckily, I have no problems with my Kindle 2 and I find mine a real joy to use (constantly), but my eyes are still more comfortable with the Kindle 1 font and I'm mindful that some other customers have a tougher time of it with the current-font to gray-background contrast ratio.  For balance, it appears most customers are quite happy with the current state, but enough aren't so that Amazon should do something, and I was told they were working on this very carefully, as mentioned, keeping in mind all customers need to be happy with the results.

UPDATE - 4/17/09 (late update) - On April 13, Wired's Gadget Lab posted an article about the screen font/background problem experienced by many K2 users.  By Priya Ganapati, it's an unusually accurate and thorough summary of the issues -- citing Ted Inoue's extensively detailed work on the anti-aliasing factor plus information from this blog and via a phone discussion).  It also references a busy Amazon forum thread that is a heavy request for darker fonts.  The story was picked up by most of the online computer and gadget sites, some listed at Inoue's "Kindle Optimizer" pages.

UPDATE - 4/26/09: Ted Inoue offered Amazon Customer Service representatives results of private tests with font replacements that would help the screen contrast issue for those having it.  It's a simple fix for those who want it or need it (there is a reason Amazon is doing easy Kindle 2 replacements) and the people who've been unhappy with their K2s are ecstatic over the change the fonts make.  Crunchgear writes today about the problems and the test results.