An abundance of Claras, a derth of Libra(s)

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by jlinear

least to my eyes, the BW Carta 1300 wasn’t an improvement on the Carta 1200.

You're not the first person to make this observation. Perhaps the Libra BW doesn't exist yet because Kobo themselves realised that the prototype looked worse than the Libra 2.

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by John F

What about the larger battery?

And my impression, from reading posts on this forum by members who actually own the Libra Colour, like the Libra Colour.

I own a Libra Colour and a Libra 2. In comparison, the LC's battery lasts longer than the L2 even with a +5-6 percent increase in light setting of the LC. FWIW, the text and contrast is nice and sharp on my LC, comparing side-by-side using my 20/20 eyeballs.

[John F]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes the LC has a larger battery, but because of the higher light %, the battery drains faster. This is from owners, not my opinion.

Originally Posted by DNSB

Going by the battery life of my Libra Colour compared to a Libra 2, the Libra Colour has a slightly longer battery life. Not nearly as long as I was hoping for but still a slightly better battery life than a Libra 2.



Perhaps you could refrain from such comments? Do I need to make this a formal request?

Originally Posted by Skydog

I own a Libra Colour and a Libra 2. In comparison, the LC's battery lasts longer than the L2 even with a +5-6 percent increase in light setting of the LC. FWIW, the text and contrast is nice and sharp on my LC, comparing side-by-side using my 20/20 eyeballs.

Boy Jon, that is pretty embarrasing.

[DNSB]

Depending on how you use your Libra 2/Colour, you could get the opposite results. How high do you set the front light, do you always have WiFi and Bluetooth enabled, etc. And of course, the Libra Colour has a battery with 37% higher capacity than the Libra 2 while the battery life I'm seeing is about 10% higher on the Libra Colour.

[Aleron Ives]

Another potential factor is the LC battery itself: you posted a screenshot once of my battery script that said the maximum voltage was 4.4 on the LC, rather than 4.2 on the L2. If that's accurate and not just sysfs being silly, then it would indicate that Kobo is trying to avoid using a physically larger and heavier battery by pushing the existing L2-form-factor battery harder, which means you might expect the LC battery to wear out faster. Of course, since Kobo is advertising the LC as being easy to repair, Kobo may not see this as a problem.

[DNSB]

The Libra Colour battery is rated at 3.87V, charging limit voltage is 4.45V. Rated capacity is 2050mAH, typical capacity is 2085mAH. At least that's what the label on the battery says. Looks just like the image on ifixit.com.

By comparison, the Libra 2 battery says the rated voltage is 3.7V and the charging limit voltage is 4.2V. Rated capacity is min 1420mAH, typical 1500mAH.

[Quoth]

So the much bigger capacity (39% more) likely more than compensates for the extra front light power needed for most people.

My newest phone achieves ereader reading time performance by having a 5000 mAh cell! Most of the insides must be battery. I had a 10" tablet with only 4,800 mAH, though my Lenovo Yoga with the bulge was 10,000mAh! The replacement 10.9" tablet is faster, longer run time and only 8,000 mAh. So it's not just about battery (cell) capacity but many factors.

The big advantage of a mono eink is being able to use ambient light, so colour temperature always matches and no unexpected brightness changes. Without a front light it's most like reading on paper. Also with no front light, no WiFi and no BT on eink the total power consumption is almost at sleep / off levels while you read a page.

I'd like to see a new Sage with no power cover magnets and a new Libra, both with bigger batteries so you could read for nearly a week at 8 hours a day. Right now some phones and tablets are catching up with eink ereaders if you have front light, BT and WiFi on. Certainly the phones win on run time for audio books or music as they power down screen and backlight and the eink ereader is using about as much power to do audio (which needs BT earbuds / headset). My newest phone still has the power saving and higher audio quality 3.5mm jack (and good €12 wired earphones can beat €70 BT and don't need charged).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

You're not the first person to make this observation. Perhaps the Libra BW doesn't exist yet because Kobo themselves realised that the prototype looked worse than the Libra 2.

Why would it? The only difference would be the Carta 1200 (2) vs Carta 1300 (BW). The same as the Claras now. And while the BW isn't a huge improvement over the 2, nobody would say the BW looks worse.

[Aleron Ives]

Did you not read the post I was responding to? It says Carta 1300 does indeed look worse than Carta 1200.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Did you not read the post I was responding to? It says Carta 1300 does indeed look worse than Carta 1200.

Yes. And I own both and have first hand experience.

The jump from Carta to Carta 1200 was marked. Carta 1200 to 1300 is much smaller. But it is definitely not a step back.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yes. And I own both and have first hand experience.

The jump from Carta to Carta 1200 was marked. Carta 1200 to 1300 is much smaller. But it is definitely not a step back.

Mature technology. The 1200 and 1300 are tweeks to layers for touch.
Biggest jump (without touch or light) was Viziplex to Pearl. Pearl with no layers is nearly as good as Carta with extra layers for capacitive touch and lightpipe.

So hardly surprising that Carta 1300 is a marginal improvement. Kaleido 3 is a step back if you only want mono.

Going from 167 dpi to 300 dpi is a big change, though the various 2xx dpi are not bad. The 150 dpi is poor.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Mature technology. The 1200 and 1300 are tweeks to layers for touch.
Biggest jump (without touch or light) was Viziplex to Pearl. Pearl with no layers is nearly as good as Carta with extra layers for capacitive touch and lightpipe.

So hardly surprising that Carta 1300 is a marginal improvement. Kaleido 3 is a step back if you only want mono.

Going from 167 dpi to 300 dpi is a big change, though the various 2xx dpi are not bad. The 150 dpi is poor.

TBH, I don't think you could really tell the difference between 267DPI and 300DPI. My Aura H20 (6.8") is 267SPI and the Libra 2 is 300DPI and there's not a lot of difference if you could even notice it.

[Quoth]

The Aura H20 (6.8") @ 267 dpi looks better than the Kindle PW4 @ 300 dpi side by side. But the PW3 looks better than the PW4 side by side.

On its own the PW4 looks fine (a friend got it to replace a K3).

Compared with ambient light, and front lights off or minimum on Kindles.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The Aura H20 (6.8") @ 267 dpi looks better than the Kindle PW4 @ 300 dpi side by side. But the PW3 looks better than the PW4 side by side.

On its own the PW4 looks fine (a friend got it to replace a K3).

Compared with ambient light, and front lights off or minimum on Kindles.

Even on its own, I do think the PE4 looks rather muddy and not clear enough. The PW3 does look good. The H20 uses IR touch so it's one less layer on the screen.

The PW4 was a big mistake. The way the flush screen was designed, the top layer was too far away from the screen and that made it look poor.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The PW4 was a big mistake. The way the flush screen was designed, the top layer was too far away from the screen and that made it look poor.

Some later flush screens seem to be part of the eink panel, which means the screen is custom to that model, though replacing eink panels isn't as successful and a lot more expensive than LCD due to lack of competition and a calibration factor.