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

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The reason for the hate is discontinuation of the b/w Libra 2 (one of the best eink screens currently in existence) with nothing to replace it but the Libra Colour, which is a poorer experience when reading b/w novels.

Not everyone wants a Sage (which while 8" has stupid magnets for a dumb power cover and not a big enough battery, though I find it OK).
The 10.3″ is too big to read novels. A 7″ is a good size for people that want bigger than 6″. A Sage is good for notes (better than 10.3" I think), but a tablet with digitiser is better. The Sage is also more expensive.

It seems crazy to discontinue the B&W Libra (Libra 2) as the Libra Colour is a lot worse for people that read novels, which is the main reason to get an eink. My collection of PD novels was less than 100 in the 15 years of downloading them before I got eink. Now I have over 6000 PD novels and 600 bought ebooks over the last 11 years since getting eink. I read several novels a week. If I was a more occasional reader I'd just use the phone now (6″ plus with 512G storage vs 3.5" with a few 100 MBytes nearly 20 years ago).

[Quoth]

Also the Kobo is absolute best for subtitle, collections, series and exporting annotations with Calibre management.

Android isn't great, but Android on eink seems worse.

I've had or tested 8 models of Kindle. I still have 3. I'd never go back to Kindle eink. If deDRM fails and an ebook I want is only on Amazon, I'd sooner read it on a Kindle App than get I Kindle. I nearly got a Scribe for PDFs, but when I realised Amazon only wants you to have KFX versions of PDFs I abandoned that idea. Nebo on an Android Tablet is better. I'd used a reMarkable and also an Elipsa. I could easily afford a Libra Colour, but I can't see the point of it.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It seems crazy to discontinue the B&W Libra (Libra 2) as the Libra Colour is a lot worse for people that read novels, which is the main reason to get an eink.

I fully admit to having never seen a Libra 2 “in the silicon”, so perhaps my mind would be blown away by how much clearer it is than the Libra Colour. My only point of comparison is my Oasis, and subjectively, my Libra Colour is not a lot worse than my Oasis for reading novels. It is a bit worse. The technical details of the difference between color and b/w eInk panels are no doubt important, and I absolutely agree that there is place for both technologies in the market, however from personal experience using the color device, the tradeoff in real life usage is really not that bad, and I think it is a disservice to the people in the market for a new eInk device to make it sound like a bigger deal than it is.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

There would be a lot less hate if Kobo had kept the b/w Libra, like they kept the b/w Clara. Why they didn't is a total mystery to me and many others, and yes, a disappointment. Hence the bitterness

I think this has to be a supply issue, my guess would be that Kobo was not able to source enough 7-inch Carta 1300 panels for the expected demand. It makes no doubt in my mind that when this is sorted out they will release a new Libra BW.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

I fully admit to having never seen a Libra 2 “in the silicon”, so perhaps my mind would be blown away by how much clearer it is than the Libra Colour. My only point of comparison is my Oasis, and subjectively, my Libra Colour is not a lot worse than my Oasis for reading novels. It is a bit worse. The technical details of the difference between color and b/w eInk panels are no doubt important, and I absolutely agree that there is place for both technologies in the market, however from personal experience using the color device, the tradeoff in real life usage is really not that bad, and I think it is a disservice to the people in the market for a new eInk device to make it sound like a bigger deal than it is.

I'm sure the Libra Colour is not a lot worse than the Libra 2, but only a bit. I'm also sure I'd get used to it if it was the only eink device on the market. The point is, it's not the only eink device in existence (as were the first eink readers - yes, looking back they were quite poor, but there was nothing else at the time to compare them with, so we accepted their limitations) and objectively it's not as good for b/w novels as the pure b/w eink is. So lots of people who mostly read those b/w novels don't want to be content with something that, in their view, is a step back in quality.

If Kobo finally releases that b/w Libra (and unlike you I'm not at all sure they will), the whining and grumbling will die down, I expect.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

I think this community should be cheering at the fact that color eInk panels are now a real, viable option, instead of endlessly criticizing its downsides.

The problem is that Kaleido is an inherently flawed technology. If you put a filter on top of the screen, the screen gets darker. It's physically impossible to overcome this limitation, because Kaleido uses a flawed approach to begin with. Yes, having book covers in colour is nice, but you spend 1% of your time looking at covers and 99% of your time looking at text, so sacrificing contrast and clarity for cover art is a pretty bad tradeoff if you're the kind of person who cares about contrast and clarity. Some people don't care, and I do not begrudge their enjoyment of colour cover art. I also would never buy a Kaleido device, as I need high contrast to avoid eye strain when I read.

I suspect there would be much less negativity if Gallery 3 were on the rise, instead of Kaleido. ACEP uses a better approach that involves white, cyan, magenta, and yellow cells to form colour, much as a printer does. This avoids all the problems Kaleido brings to the table, but it has one major downside, and that's an abysmally slow refresh speed. If E-Ink were spending money trying to solve that problem, I think you'd see a lot more positivity surrounding colour devices, because ACEP can offer colour without compromising the quality of BW content the way Kaleido does. Unfortunately, Kaleido is a cheap and easy approach, so it's popular right now, and that's a bad thing, because it gives E-Ink a reason not to work on proper colour e-paper technology.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

I feel we should be excited about any progress being made in this area, even though imperfect. Color eInk panels today are certainly much better than the original eInk panels from the mid aughts, and nobody was complaining about them back then, except those saying it was just a fad.

Triton was the original coloured eink in 2010. Fourteen years ago and only 5 years after 1st Sony and 3 years after first Kindle. It was a total failure in the market. Far too dark and 1/3rd resolution in one direction because it used stripes.

Kaleido uses a 2 x 2 pattern and the dots don't cover the pixels, so 1/2 resolution both ways and not as dark. Still not usable indoors without a front LED light most of the time, so you might as well use LCD and a backlight. It's from 2019, so now five years old.

Both have a theoretical 4096 shades/colours, but because the kaleido is pastel and there are really only 14 in between levels as well as black and white, the real usable range is much less. Really poor for anything other than comics that simulate 1930s limited colour range on wood pulp paper.

Because of the coloured dots in the pixels the 300 dpi mono mode has not the sharpness of ANY 300 dpi mono panel and suffers two kinds of artefacts, the "screen door effect" and if a mono pattern aligns on pixels of one colour or misses pixels of one colour you get coioured patterns. The panels could be driven at only 150 dpi for mono and that would be avoided.

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

It is frustrating because the technology really is in fact quite good. The screen is darker…

It's inherently poor. It would need 600 dpi mono panels to be as good as mono 300 dpi. In over 11 years E ink Corp, nor anyone else has surpassed 300 dpi. LCD, OLED, QLED, Crystal LED etc only quote the colour resolution, they never quote the 2 x 2 or 3 x 1 higher underlying resolution (which for LCD and QLED really is mono).

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

Commercial adoption of color eInk in its early stages is a necessary step for the technology to progress, and I think this community should be cheering at the fact that color eInk panels are now a real, viable option, instead of endlessly criticizing its downsides.

Triton is FOURTEEN years old using stripes. Kaleido is a better use of the same mono panels as other eink using a 2 x 2 pattern and it's nearly FIVE years old.

ACeP is a completely different kind of eink that's subtractive, so inherently no resolution is lost and and it could be in theory brighter. Sadly it's x10 to x20 too slow for an ereader and may not be very high resolution. It's from 2016 so now nearly EIGHT years old.

Triton was abandoned years agg in favour of Kaleido, which is "better" on average if you don't mind worse colours. Both are simply printed patterns on regular mono eink. The light pipe layer is next. Kaleido has been gradually tweaked. It won't get better, that's physics.

It's taken them years to produce volume of ACeP and anyone that uses it to build an ereader is clueless. One company at least tried. It's only good for signs.

The big growth of eink isn't ereaders, or even Kaleido ereaders, but supermarket price labels, often using the red / black / white eink. They are lower resolution than ereaders, so likely better yield. The larger A5 size panels look like Pearl displays.

The ACeP can only compete for signage where power is an issue or sunlight. LCD, OLED and now 5x brighter QLED (really LCD with quantum dots and blue LED backlight) are winning.

Kaleido is a desperate ploy by smaller ereader makers to carve a niche. There is a bigger more secure niche for mono eink. The coiour eink based on Kaleido is a dead end and it doesn't look like ACeP will ever suit ereaders.

The great thing about mono eink with the front light off is that the "colour temperature" of the panel perfectly matches ambient because it's 100% reflected ambient light. Kaleido can't do that. A decent matt surface oled or lcd will beat Kaleido if the brightness is properly adjusted and is nearly as good as mono eink with the front light off. It's just as good or better when you have to use the eink front light due to lack of ambient light (power cut or camping). Battery used to be an issue for phones / tablets but isn't so much now, especually wiith "power banks".

I was looking at designing a product using eink in 2007. I played with a Sony eInk in Ireland a year before the Kindle was released.

We had great hopes for the Qualcomm Mirasol, invented in 2004, by 2007. By 2012 it was dead. One model of ereader sold by two brands in China that didn't live up to Qualcomm hype.

The future of colour isn't even OLED, it's "Crystal LED" (real LEDs, the OLED are electroluminescent dots with phosphors) and QLED (green and red emitting quantum dots powered by blue light on an LCD).

I got a matt OLED phone just today and it beats my 5″ and 4.7″ eink ereaders for paper like quality, but I'll stick with the 8″ Sage for regular novels.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

The problem is that Kaleido is an inherently flawed technology. If you put a filter on top of the screen, the screen gets darker. It's physically impossible to overcome this limitation, because Kaleido uses a flawed approach to begin with. Yes, having book covers in colour is nice, but you spend 1% of your time looking at covers and 99% of your time looking at text, so sacrificing contrast and clarity for cover art is a pretty bad tradeoff if you're the kind of person who cares about contrast and clarity. Some people don't care, and I do not begrudge their enjoyment of colour cover art. I also would never buy a Kaleido device, as I need high contrast to avoid eye strain when I read.

ABSOLUTELY

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

I suspect there would be much less negativity if Gallery 3 were on the rise, instead of Kaleido. ACEP uses a better approach that involves white, cyan, magenta, and yellow cells to form colour, much as a printer does. This avoids all the problems Kaleido brings to the table, but it has one major downside, and that's an abysmally slow refresh speed. If E-Ink were spending money trying to solve that problem, I think you'd see a lot more positivity surrounding colour devices, because ACEP can offer colour without compromising the quality of BW content the way Kaleido does. Unfortunately, Kaleido is a cheap and easy approach, so it's popular right now, and that's a bad thing, because it gives E-Ink a reason not to work on proper colour e-paper technology.

I'm sure E ink Corp has done its best. ACeP was first demoed nearly 8 years ago. It's older than kaleido.

It's in reality tragically slow, maybe worse than the 1.5 second refresh, which is TEN TIMES slower than regular eink.

The faster Regal mode invented with Carta (not on Pearl) nearly 12 years ago can maybe do only about 8 shades/colours or less at 150 dpi as it doesn't do the greys. A full tone mono image is much slower to change on any Carta model.

I'd not hold my breath for faster ACeP even should Apple and Nvida and Amazon jointly fund it.

[cellaris]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

I have to say I’m quite surprised at the hatred here for color eInk readers. Mobileread is the primary forum on the internet where e-reader enthusiasts get together and share their love for this technology.

I don't think there is a hatred of colour e-readers and I don't think it is widespread on Mobileread. There is a small group of people who repeatedly express their (negative) opinion about them. But the majority (which I don't think is a lot of people, to be honest, because the e-reader forums are very limited) I think is just sitting on the sidelines, weighing up the arguments of those who have and don't have colour e-readers. And only a few of us are openly in favour of them. But in the end it is always the individual, with his or her own tastes and preferences, who decides. Other people's opinions, in one way or another, have a very limited influence on our decision making.

I do like colour e-readers. I recently bought my second colour device and I doubt very much that I will ever buy a monochrome one again. I hardly use the ones I have. And, frankly, I don't miss them at all. As I have said before in certain situations (which coincide with my usual way of using them) the differences between a colour e-reader and a monochrome one are virtually unnoticeable to the eye. I have not changed my opinion on this. And I'd rather have colour than not have it, because I find colour very pleasant in my regular reading (which, contrary to what is argued here, goes far beyond the covers of books, at least in my particular way of using it). But I think it's fine for people to read wherever they like. The important thing is to enjoy reading on your device. And I enjoy reading on my colour e-readers immensely.

[Quoth]

Most people use eink ereaders for novels that are 100% black & white text (so Regal mode works well) and few or no illustrations and would spend maybe less than 0.15% of the time looking at the cover.

I've no objection to colour eink being sold as well as mono, but it's not a substitute for mono and will be replaced by LCD/OLED/QLED with matt screens. It's also misleadingly described and marketed. Few people buying colour eink will be negative as they likely would not have bought it. So those happy with colour eink are not representative either of the majority of ebook reading people (who don't use eink at all) or of those reading on eink.
I doubt more than a couple of the last 1000 books I read had any colour content. The Beatrix Potter omnibus has colour, but a 7″ colour ink wouldn't do it justice.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Most people use eink ereaders for novels that are 100% black & white text (so Regal mode works well) and few or no illustrations and would spend maybe less than 0.15% of the time looking at the cover.

I've no objection to colour eink being sold as well as mono, but it's not a substitute for mono and will be replaced by LCD/OLED/QLED with matt screens. It's also misleadingly described and marketed. Few people buying colour eink will be negative as they likely would not have bought it. So those happy with colour eink are not representative either of the majority of ebook reading people (who don't use eink at all) or of those reading on eink.
I doubt more than a couple of the last 1000 books I read had any colour content. The Beatrix Potter omnibus has colour, but a 7″ colour ink wouldn't do it justice.

I object to a color Reader taking the place of (IMHO) a much better non-color Reader. The Libra Colour is no replacement for the Libra 2.

[cellaris]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Most people use eink ereaders for novels that are 100% black & white text (so Regal mode works well) and few or no illustrations and would spend maybe less than 0.15% of the time looking at the cover.

I've no objection to colour eink being sold as well as mono, but it's not a substitute for mono and will be replaced by LCD/OLED/QLED with matt screens. It's also misleadingly described and marketed. Few people buying colour eink will be negative as they likely would not have bought it. So those happy with colour eink are not representative either of the majority of ebook reading people (who don't use eink at all) or of those reading on eink.
I doubt more than a couple of the last 1000 books I read had any colour content. The Beatrix Potter omnibus has colour, but a 7″ colour ink wouldn't do it justice.

I do not claim that my opinion is representative of anything. I am simply explaining how I use my e-reader and why it is interesting for me to have colour. All pages of 100% of my books have colour because the header, footer and progress line have colour. The notes have colour, the quotes have colour, the chapter titles have colour, the underlines have colour, the dictionary has colour, the translator has colour, Wikipedia has colour.... And I could cite a good number of elements of the text in which I have colour. I set the colour and I choose it myself because that's why I bought a colour e-reader: to have colour. If I had a monochrome e-reader, which most people have, I wouldn't be able to do that.

People want to read novels in black and white? That's fine by me. We are children of the printing press and the mass dissemination of culture. We are used to it. Just as we are used to seeing magazines or the calendar we have hanging on the wall in colour and not in black and white. It's a question of habit and the impossibility of doing it any other way. It is not so clear to me that it is a personal decision.

One of the things that has always attracted me to e-readers is the possibility of going beyond what physical books offered me. To be able to change the font and its size, the margins, the line spacing. Being able to use a dictionary and a translator. To be able to do things I couldn't do before. And one of the things I've always wanted to do is to give colour to certain elements of the text. And that's something that a colour e-reader now allows me to do. I find it very nice to use and see colour in my books. Is it necessary for reading? Of course it is not. Nor is it necessary to use an e-reader to read novels. In fact most readers still read physical books. But I have long since stopped being guided by the majority's criteria in these matters.

[talaivan]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It seems crazy to discontinue the B&W Libra (Libra 2) as the Libra Colour is a lot worse for people that read novels, which is the main reason to get an eink.

I have the Libra Colour and find it is as good for reading BW books as the Sage or the Elipsa. I wonder if the people complaining about it have actually tried using it. In fact, I can't tell the difference in the image of text except for size.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by cellaris

It's a question of habit and the impossibility of doing it any other way. It is not so clear to me that it is a personal decision.

For me, it IS a personal decision - I don't want colored paragraphs, quotes, headings etc in the books I read - they distract me. I want the whole text to be black. I don't highlight or take notes either, and I prefer list view to cover view. So for me, a color ereader would be totally unnecessary, and given that the screen is darker than that of a b/w reader, a step backwards.

I'm not saying the same applies to everyone else, of course - tastes differ. But for me personally it's disappointing that Kobo discontinued the Libra 2 and there's only the Libra Colour as the replacement.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by cellaris

People want to read novels in black and white? That's fine by me. We are children of the printing press and the mass dissemination of culture. We are used to it. Just as we are used to seeing magazines or the calendar we have hanging on the wall in colour and not in black and white. It's a question of habit and the impossibility of doing it any other way. It is not so clear to me that it is a personal decision.

Being "used to something" is another way of saying that's what we expect. I expect that my eReader will have good contrast, with a black font and a whitish screen. I see colored (and grayish) fonts inserted in Internet texts all the time. To me they're, at best, a distraction or, at worse, cause me to squint because (especially with grayish text) the contrast is not as good and the text is not as clear.

I've got nothing against color eReaders for those who want them. I understand that not everyone has the same taste (or the same eyes). But to say I prefer black text on whitish background because I'm "stuck in my ways" or "I don't think it can be done another way" is simply not the case. There's a reason why paper books are not (often) printed with a non-black font and it's not because black is the only choice. It's because black on white creates the best contrast. And good, dark contrast in fonts is what I'm looking for — in both an eReader or in a paper book.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by talaivan

I have the Libra Colour and find it is as good for reading BW books as the Sage or the Elipsa. I wonder if the people complaining about it have actually tried using it. In fact, I can't tell the difference in the image of text except for size.

You don't actually have to try a Libra Colour to see the "screen door" effect or the darker screen (at least at low light) — plenty of pictures and videos have demonstrated it. But even if the the screen was as crisp on the Libra Colour as it was on the Libra 2, you've still got the matter of paying more for a feature not wanted (at least a feature not wanted by me).

I'm all for choice but, right now at least (if you want a 7" Kobo), you don't have a choice. It's the Colour or nothing. Hopefully a new Libra BW is on its way.