Color JetBook Color 2 Review

[joblack]

There is a first review of the JetBook Color 2. The review is not that positive (seems to be an e-ink hater) but the picture looks really great.

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20.../#.UUXybVe2W-d

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/wp...olor-new-2.jpg

[Nate the great]

I don't hate E-ink. I only hate color E-ink because it will never live up to its claims.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I don't hate E-ink. I only hate color E-ink because it will never live up to its claims.

I agree that colour E-ink has fundamental problems and I also can't see how it would ever really work well as is. However, I don't remember any claims. Was that something that came up at trade shows?

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I don't hate E-ink. I only hate color E-ink because it will never live up to its claims.

Well, as you haven't published my comment. Is the screen non-glare?

I do own a JetBook Color 1 (and several other E-Ink devices like the Kindle Paperwhite) and I think the device is great. Do you know that newspaper paper isn't white either?

You do certainly have the right to your own opinion but I think to rate a device down because it has not Paperwhite white, which by the way is fake because of the active sidelight, is at least a little bit unfair.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by joblack

Well, as you haven't published my comment. Is the screen non-glare?

I do own a JetBook Color 1 (and several other E-Ink devices like the Kindle Paperwhite) and I think the device is great. Do you know that newspaper paper isn't white either?

You do certainly have the right to your own opinion but I think to rate a device down because it has not Paperwhite white, which by the way is fake because of the active sidelight, is at least a little bit unfair.

Sorry, but I think your comment may have gotten eaten by the spam filter. I certainly didn't do anything to it.

The claim that E-ink makes is that their color screen can display 4096 colors. That's not true. This screen cannot display anything even close to white or an off-white color.

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by joblack

I do own a JetBook Color 1 (and several other E-Ink devices like the Kindle Paperwhite) and I think the device is great. Do you know that newspaper paper isn't white either?

But it isn't as dark-grey as the screen of the JetBook Color 1.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

The claim that E-ink makes is that their color screen can display 4096 colors. That's not true. This screen cannot display anything even close to white or an off-white color.

Of course it's true. It's a 16 x 16 x 16 matrix (and reminds me little bit about my good old Commodore Amiga in HAM graphics mode with 4096 colors).

E.g. even with a very good tablet (like the Nexus 10) it's not possible to display real black but I don't see you complaining about the black color problem with LCD displays? So it's not a necessity to be able to display specific colors. Most display colors are an approximation, anyways.

Well it's obvious you don't like color e-ink displays. But back to the topic - is the display non-glare?

[joblack]

Originally Posted by ST-One

But it isn't as dark-grey as the screen of the JetBook Color 1.

That's a good question, I don't know about that.

I have a patched Kindle Paperwhite where I can disable the sidelights. If you do that it looks certainly more greyish than before. If I have the time I can put both devices on the table and take a photo.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by joblack

Of course it's true. It's a 16 x 16 x 16 matrix (and reminds me little bit about my good old Commodore Amiga in HAM graphics mode with 4096 colors).

E.g. even with a very good tablet (like the Nexus 10) it's not possible to display real black but I don't see you complaining about the black color problem with LCD displays? So it's not a necessity to be able to display specific colors. Most display colors are an approximation, anyways.

Well it's obvious you don't like color e-ink displays. But back to the topic - is the display non-glare?

That 16x16x16 matrix is fiction. Just because the software will let you set a hex color code doesn't mean that the screen is capable of producing that color.

I cannot see #0f0f0f on this screen, nor anything close to it. So at least one of those 4096 colors can't be reproduced and this the claim of 4096 colors is a myth.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

That 16x16x16 matrix is fiction. Just because the software will let you set a hex color code doesn't mean that the screen is capable of producing that color.

I cannot see #0f0f0f on this screen, nor anything close to it. So at least one of those 4096 colors can't be reproduced and this the claim of 4096 colors is a myth.

I'm not sure I understand. There are only 16 values per component, so you would likely only be able to set each RGB component to 0x00, 0x10, 0x20, ... ,0xf0, or perhaps 0x00, 0x11, 0x22, ... , 0xff. Not being able to set it to 0x0f isn't making the claim false. You'd only expect to be able to do that if 256 values per component were technically possible. Or did you mean something else?

[joblack]

0xf 0xf 0xf would probably be black? #0f0f0f would most probably be 0x1 0x1 0x1 (round up).

If you have picture with more colors (like 24 or 32 bit pixels) the software has to round every pixel color to one of the 4096 colors. So it can be that colors which are quite different in a 24 bit picture will be the same on a 4096 color screen.

I have tried colorful pictures with my JetBook Color 1 and they looked great. Of course you have to compromise in comparison to a 24 bit screen. Maybe I'll find a good test picture with just 4096 colors. I don't think the JBC2 screen will be in worse quality than the JBC1 one.

Btw. is the display non-glare? I do have to ask for the 4th time. ^^

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I'm not sure I understand. There are only 16 values per component, so you would likely only be able to set each RGB component to 0x00, 0x10, 0x20, ... ,0xf0, or perhaps 0x00, 0x11, 0x22, ... , 0xff. Not being able to set it to 0x0f isn't making the claim false. You'd only expect to be able to do that if 256 values per component were technically possible. Or did you mean something else?

Sorry, I was thinking of white (#FFFFFF) and got the sixteen (16==F) mixed up. You're right that #f0f0f0 or #ffffff would probably be more correct.

But it still cannot show that color.

Originally Posted by joblack

Btw. is the display non-glare?

The JBC2 screen is pretty shiny.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Sorry, I was thinking of white (#FFFFFF) and got the sixteen (16==F) mixed up. You're right that #f0f0f0 or #ffffff would probably be more correct.

But it still cannot show that color.

Okay, but this is true of every kind of display out there. None can show pure white, nor pure black, nor some theoretical distribution of colours over the RGB space. They all show something different given the same RGB value (even among identical models). So, I don't think it's fair to single out colour E-Ink for a "claim" that I think exists only in your mind. If it shows a different colour for each of the 4096 RGB combinations, then I'd say it's living up to it's claim of displaying 4096 colours. I do think it's fair to say that the contrast and colour saturation are poor compared to other kinds of displays. No need to bring claims into it at all.

[John F]

Originally Posted by joblack

0xf 0xf 0xf would probably be black? #0f0f0f would most probably be 0x1 0x1 0x1 (round up).

...

I take it you mean 0x10 0x10 0x10?

[rkomar]

It's confusing because most software takes the standard 8-bit form (0xHH) for the RGB components. That gets translated internally to whatever the hardware can handle. In this case, with 16 colours, the least significant 4 bits are probably just truncated (or something similar). So, setting a component to 0x10 is effectively setting it to 0x1 of the 0x10 hardware possibilities. I suspect that 0xf was just meant to signify white in the original post.