alt Hacker Newsfor anyone who already has a colored reader - is it better than ipad? i enjoy reading on my ipad and i can read for 2-3 hours on it daily without feeling any strain on my eyes.
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I have a Kobo Clara Color. I like the product but colors are mostly a gimmick. Useful for the occasional chart and for books cover and that’s pretty much it.
Don’t expect iPad quality color, they’re very washed out.
I think a dedicated e-reader is a great choice (I only read books, not comics or other graphics heavy documents) but for that grayscale would be more than enough and color is an extra.
I would recommend you to go to a store and have a look live at a color eink screen to get a feel for what they offer.
Personally no. I've been reading a lot on LCD screens (PDAs if you know what those were), way back before eInk existed.
First, eInk used to be glossy, and not backlit which sucked, since you needed a light source to illuminate it well enough, but not so much that it shone on the screen and caused weird reflections.
After they added backlight, it became much better, but I'm not sure how it's better than an LCD (I dont think it is).
The only thing that sucks both about the iPad and most ereaders is the lack of physical buttons to flip pages, which makes 1 handed operation clumsy at best.
Kindle's color tablets look a bit better than Kobo's, by my estimation. But neither is anywhere near iPad-level color saturation or contrast.
I think Amazon does some special stuff with the backplane or something. Seems like it's not 100% marketing gimmicks if it actually looks better.
I have a b/w page-sized Kobo, but I can tell you one nice thing vs the iPad is the weight. I don’t think the color (at lower resolution) is worth it for me.
Colors are as vibrant as late 90s cheap laptops.
Why is iPad even mentioned here? This is better than iPad in the same way as a printed book is better than an oled TV.
They're two different things for different uses, one blasts light and colour in your eyes, other has a paperly look.
> is it better than ipad?
Only you can answer that, “better” is a personal choice. A dedicated e-ink reader does less than an iPad (some see that as a bonus, others as a disadvantage). E-ink colours aren’t as vibrant and devices are slower, but the battery life, weight, cost, and reduced eye strain can more than make up for it.
If possible, I recommend grabbing one at a store nearby and playing with it a bit. You’ll soon understand if the weight, speed, and colours are enough for you.
I have a color eInk Android tablet and I greatly prefer my Kobo Clara BW for general readability. I ended up disabling color in the accessibility settings.
The contrast is terrible compared to b/w eInk. The front light is necessary under anything but bright sunlight. But the front light washes out the colors, so much so that it’s a readability problem. So I only take it out of black and white mode when I’m using it outdoors.
It sounds like this new version of color eInk might be better. But I think it really would have to be an enormous difference for me to prefer it over B&W eInk.