Testing a Flip-Pal mobile scanner on my Kindle.The one-day sale on the Kindle DXG ended at midnight last night of course, but I suspect there'll eventually be another sale on it. In the meantime, I used mine today as an item for testing to see what kind of job the Flip-Pal mobile scanner, which I received this week, can do. Better than expected. The Flip-Pal is a very portable scanner, which scans photos or documents in place -- in albums, magazines, etc.
Clicking on the image at the left will get you the larger, clearer version. Many have asked whether Kindle books include photographs and, if so, what to expect in quality.
I also wanted to see how effective its scanning is, relative to the drawbacks of taking photos close up and doing screen-captures, the latter not displaying what the screen looks like to us in ambient light and showing only a screen-capture 'gif' file. I use these images in the blog quite a bit, and that's why I'm writing about it.
Other Kindlers may be interested in the Flip-Pal's capabilities, as it averages 5 stars out of 25 reviews so far.
Most of us have snapshots going way back, for which we've lost the negatives or we don't want to fuss with them. And some are glued onto pages in albums, so taking them off and putting them back on later can be a drag.
I didn't think of doing a scan of a Kindle screen itself until today.
It's difficult to get a good, representative photo of the e-reader screens, and even this type of scanning doesn't get the text as well as it might, as the text display in 'real' life actually looks etched and is thinner, sharper, and darker, but it gives an idea and doesn't warp the image the way taking a photo with a camera close up can.
The photos in this book on the Beatles, The Beatles: Fifty Fabulous Years, look as good on the Kindle 3 (UK: K3) also, but of course they're smaller on the K3.
More details about the scanning are at the PBase page if anyone's interested in other aspects of this easy-to-use portable scanner.
You can get a free Sample of the Kindle book, which is generous with photos, to get an idea of what the photo quality can be on a Kindle, though many publishers don't use higher-resolution photos in their e-books.
Images in Kindle books
As mentioned, forumners have asked about the quality of photographs, in general, in Kindle books. This varies widely, depending on the person's expertise with image files and with Kindle formatting, but many use lower-resolution images because earlier Kindles didn't handle images that well.
The new Kindle 3 screen (August 2010 - Pearl display) does. High resolution photos are denser and will take longer to load though, so some might wonder if their Kindle just froze if the photograph is a bit too dense.
The Kindle 2 display is not bad, but the newer Kindle 3 screens have considerably more contrast. The Kindle 1 uses only 4 levels of gray while the Kindle 2 and 3 models use 16 levels.
Here's a page of what that means to your eyes when viewing photos with only 4 levels of gray or 8 (previous e-Ink Sony) and those with 16. Of course, color images are in the millions of shades, but the Kindle display is an e-Ink one and uses only black and white, with shades in-between displayed by combining those.
The Beatles Kindle book itself is a fun read, but it's not a long book although superfans of the Beatles find it quite good, judging from reviews. However, the print version (twice as expensive) has a DVD with videos and interactive menus, while the Kindle-edition of course does not.
Update - Found another book about the Beatles, pre-Beatle days, and receiving raves from long-time Beatle fans for new information. This one is only $2.99.
Kindle 3's (UK: Kindle 3's), K3 Special, $114 DX Graphite
Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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