Glo Dark Line at Bottom of Glo Screen

[thusly]

Hi everyone,

I purchased a Kobo Glo tonight, and have generally been quite pleased with it. One thing I kept seeing throughout reviews, though, was how even the Glo's light distribution is.

While the upper portion of the display looks flawless, near the bottom I have a fairly noticeable darker-coloured band:



This photo was taken with the brightness almost at the very minimum, but at max brightness it's still there. With the "light indicator" section at the bottom set to solid, the gray line isn't noticeable of course, but I much prefer not having that black band there.

I'd love to hear from other Glo owners ― is this present on your device as well? I can live with it if it's the norm, but if it's not, I'll likely do an exchange.

Thanks for your time.

[buffaloseven]

Yes; it's normal. It's a small shadow that's relatively unavoidable with the technology.

[thusly]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

Yes; it's normal. It's a small shadow that's relatively unavoidable with the technology.

Okay, great, thank you.

[robko]

As Buffaloseven said it's normal. There are LED's buried in the bottom bezel to light the screen and it takes them a bit up the screen to cover it all. Much less noticeable on the Kobo than the pics I've seen of the Kindle Paperwhite (where they show up as dark cones). In fact, covering this was the purpose of the black bar across the bottom and Kobo added the option to remove the bar before release likely based on feedback from people that saw it in preview videos.

[Quexos]

From what I've heard the Kobo Glo has one of the best even light available so the problem should be a bit worse with other readers.
In the meantime you should justify your text and decrease the line spacing so that it feels more like a paper book

[mururoa]

Yeah it's normal.
But I still would prefer one or two more text lines and a customizable status line.

[Polly7]

I was wondering whether the screen really does appear as yellow as it does in the picture, or whether its just me, the picture or something else, as my glo screen looks the same with the light at 50%. I thought it look to look a blueish/white colour, but it now looks yellowish to me, just like in the picture.
Please Help!

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Polly7

I was wondering whether the screen really does appear as yellow as it does in the picture, or whether its just me, the picture or something else, as my glo screen looks the same with the light at 50%. I thought it look to look a blueish/white colour, but it now looks yellowish to me, just like in the picture.
Please Help!

My Glo lighting is also more blueish white than yellow. Nothing wrong with that at all. The 'yellow' in the picture above can be due to all sorts: the camera, the camera settings, the lighting in the room, etc...

[stewacide]

They all have that dark line at the bottom; presumably unavoidable given how the frontlight works. I assume this is why Kobo went with the dark bar at the bottom by default when the light is on, since it hides it quite well. If it bothers you turn the dark bar back on.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

My Glo lighting is also more blueish white than yellow. Nothing wrong with that at all. The 'yellow' in the picture above can be due to all sorts: the camera, the camera settings, the lighting in the room, etc...

Yes - if the RL Glo is anything like mine, that photo is really showing up colours that aren't there to the eye (and I'm quite sensitive to colours, for those following the Paperwhite threads...).

My Glo appears white with ambient light present, or very faintly greenish in the dark. Which I find rather soothing!

[ib4l]

Ah, that explains the black bar they used along the bottom. I never noticed this until I turned it clear so I could compare it to yours. To my eyes, it almost makes it look like an old book with a slightly blackened bottom edge. I kind of like it

The Paperwhite has the same issue, but I found it very distracting (it's a lot more pronounced, looks like bleeding ink more than a shadow). Clever of Kobo to hide it with the default UI setting, although it really isn't that bad.

[belowzeros]

Originally Posted by stewacide

I assume this is why Kobo went with the dark bar at the bottom by default when the light is on, since it hides it quite well.

i was thinking the exact same, no other reason for it really

[robko]

Originally Posted by ib4l

Ah, that explains the black bar they used along the bottom.
Clever of Kobo to hide it with the default UI setting, although it really isn't that bad.

Originally Posted by belowzeros

i was thinking the exact same, no other reason for it really

Yes, that is it's only purpose in life (covering the LED shadows). When the 1st pre-release photo's of the GLO came out there were a lot of negative comments about the bar. So Kobo kindly gave us the option to turn it off in the firmware when the device came out. From what I've seen of pictures of the Kindle PW, the shadows would drive me nuts, but I leave the bar off and the shadows don't bother me at all on the Kobo.

[TechniSol]

The area near the LEDs on a Nook Glowlight looks much worse. I saw 8 bright points from the LEDs and on the unit I had it also had a grayish splotch above the text and to the right of the rightmost LED. It went back. It wasn't terrible, but just enough to be annoying. Without adjustable stroke width on the fonts they looked too skinny and contrast seemed reduced. No shelf support for Calibre either. Who wants to deal with manual shelf building and organization?

I drove 60 miles round trip today, paid full retail for a Kobo Glo and am a far happier camper as a result. I've had a Kobo Touch for several months, and all I can say is if anyone is on the fence regarding upgrading to a Glo, go for it. The lighting appears pretty uniform and the hotspots from the LEDs are minimal, nearly non-existent -not as uniform as backlighting on my tablets, but not nearly as hard on the eyes and quite comfortable with the stroke width cranked up on the right fonts. Any lack of background uniformity sort of reminds me of paper a bit.

BTW, the black bar at the bottom while the lighting is on works very well to cover any minor areas that don't look perfectly uniform, but I'm thinking I may leave it set to clear.

I'm off to add a few wider stroked fonts, and whistling while I work.

[thusly]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

... I've had a Kobo Touch for several months, and all I can say is if anyone is on the fence regarding upgrading to a Glo, go for it. ...

As the one who originally created this thread, I thought I'd hop back in here just to echo these sentiments. I hope noöne who reads this thread gets the impression that the small shadows at the bottom were a dealbreaker for me, nor even really hard to adjust to, I just wanted to make sure they weren't only being experienced on my own device.

I've had the Glo for over a month now, I read with the black bar turned off (like in the original photo), and I couldn't be happier. In fact, the worst shadows I've experienced while reading on the device are those created by external lighting (e.g., an overhead light casting a small shadow of the bevel onto the upper part of the display).

As for the colour in the photo ― my backlight is on the bluer side of things, the yellow tint in the photo is probably just due to the auto white balancing of my camera. Under warm ambient light the result is a very neutral white.