Now that Kobo is releasing new ereaders with coloration E Ink screens, individuals are asking questions on coloration E Ink and need to know extra about it.
E Ink’s coloration “Kaleido” display expertise has been round for a number of years, however it’s gone by means of three generations now and units that use the most recent Kaleido 3 screens simply began popping out final 12 months.
When you’re questioning how coloration E Ink screens examine to common black and white E Ink screens, see my Kaleido 3 display comparability assessment from final 12 months between the Onyx Tab Extremely C and the Kindle Scribe. It exhibits a bigger display than what Kobo is providing, however it’s the identical display expertise with the identical decision of 300 ppi for black and white and 150 ppi for coloration.
I’ll submit some evaluations and comparability of Kobo’s new coloration ereaders after they get launched. Within the meantime, listed below are some issues to think about with regards to coloration E Ink screens on the whole.
Colour E Ink – Issues to Know
1. Colour High quality: Colour E Ink helps 4096 colours, which could sound like lots however it’s really far decrease than a typical LCD display. Colours are inclined to look softer and extra subdued with E Ink, and coloration accuracy isn’t nice, particularly with sure colours, and it has extra of a printed newspaper look.
However like common E Ink screens, they’ve low energy necessities and present much less glare underneath vivid gentle, they usually may even be simply learn in direct daylight, not like LCD screens.
2. Darker Display: The primary downside with coloration E Ink screens is they appear darker than common B&W screens due to a coloration filter layer that’s utilized excessive of the display, which makes the distinction seem decrease. Kaleido coloration screens are actually simply common black and white E Ink Carta screens with a elaborate passive filter excessive (that’s why coloration decision is decrease than black and white decision).
Nonetheless, when utilizing a frontlight the difficulty of a darker display is essentially mitigated. However should you’re the kind of person who likes to learn and not using a frontlight then will probably be more durable to look previous this.
Colour E Ink screens even have slightly little bit of a grainy look to them due to that added coloration filter layer. It’s much less noticeable than it was once, however it’s nonetheless there on Kaleido 3 screens should you look intently.
3. Ghosting: Afterimage results are extra noticeable on coloration E Ink screens, the place you’ll be able to see a faint impression of the earlier web page. Colour content material could require extra full web page refreshes and flashes to look clear. It actually simply comes right down to how well-optimized the software program is; some early coloration ereaders had loads of ghosting points.
Onyx affords completely different refresh settings on their coloration ereaders and eNotes to assist decrease ghosting underneath completely different circumstances, however it may nonetheless be a problem at instances.
4. Efficiency: As acknowledged above, Kaleido screens and common black and white screens are the identical so the general efficiency isn’t any completely different between them. Colour E Ink actually isn’t appropriate for issues like movies or video games, though some individuals use Onyx’s units for that to some extent (Onyx’s units with BSR are specially-designed for quicker and smoother refreshing and scrolling, like on the Notice Air3 C).
5. Battery Life: Individuals are all the time asking how coloration impacts battery life, however in principle it doesn’t have an effect on it in any respect since Kaleido screens are precisely the identical as B&W screens. Nonetheless, coloration content material tends to require extra web page refreshing than fundamental textual content, and also you often have the frontlight turned up larger due to the darker display, so in follow it most likely does require utilizing slightly extra battery energy.
