IMAGES BY AN OWNER OF THE 2 E-INK NOOKS
*Click* on the top image or here to get the larger and clearer original photo that was used by mykoffee {MK), a BN forum member, to illustrate her message, which is still there although the accompanying photo isn't. She tried to get the current font face and size as close as she could, and this was as close a match as she found.
Since I own a NookColor, which is stunning for color magazine reading, I am often in the Barnes and Noble Nook forums and am a B&N member.
While I'm mainly interested in the NookColor messages there, I also saw the Nook Simple Touch at B&N the other day and reported in a blog entry Sunday that I felt the overall text for all books on the 2-page listing of the Nook Touch there struck me as too grayish and not dark enough for my eyes, which are used to the Pearl Screen as implemented for the Kindle 3.
The two images here are by the Nook owner mentioned above in a posting at the B&N Nook forum.
This 2nd image here of the two Nooks is as it appeared in that B&N Nook forum message thread.When trying the Nook Touch on June 4, I tried all font faces at normal sizes to try to get a darker one. The salesman said that what I saw was fine and the way it is.
MK took these pictures for the B&N Nook Forum to illustrate that the new Nook text didn't appear as dark on the older E-Ink Nook when the font is the size MK prefers for reading.
The reason the text of MK's old Nook-1 appears darker overall than what MK sees with the Pearl screen of the Nook Touch is that the older Nook text, although not quite as sharp as for the newer Nook, is a Fatter basic font which was implemented to be darker.
MK tried to get the newer Nook's font-face and size as close to the older Nook as possible, but this was as close as MK could get with the font choices.
To make the newer Nook text as dark as it appears on the older Nook, MK had to go to the next size up, but as I saw when visiting B&N, the NEXT step is *much* larger and MK doesn't want to read with a font that large.
You can see the jump in font-size to get the darker appearance wanted if you go to the two photos, one above the other, at the message thread. MK explains, "With the new Nook when you jump up to the next larger size font (second A from right) the jump is too big"...
You'll also see that most people probably would not be bothered by this and that the large majority of those posting at the Nook forum say they really love this touchscreen model.
One other customer, English Butterfly [EB], in that message thread had very much the same reaction as MT: "Thanks for the pictures,- I am glad I am not the only one who feels this way- hope they can correct it!", and I saw that in another thread EB mentions the following:
' I have all 3 nooks- the first edition, nook color, and the 2nd edition. Between the 1rst and 2nd edition [NookColor], I am partial to the first one... I like the fonts sizes better on the first nook, - it seems like the new fonts are either too small, or too big- seems like there is an error. I am quite fond of my first edition nook, and think it is classier with colored books on it. I also like the 3 G factor. I may buy an additional 3 G Nook version 1, in case anything happens to my current one. If I go on a trip, I depend on the 3G . The only upside for me on the new nook, is that it is lighter...'
Again, by far, most postings I saw were by people who love the new Nook, including the screen contrast. But I get asked about this a lot these days, and so I thought that in addition to my "Features comparison," which detailed the pluses of the Nook Simple Touch and then the missing features, and also the article on the not-visible and not-ready web browser, I should report this.
At the Nook e-Ink forums' message topic listings, you'll see there also are problems right now with being able to "sync" the new Nook with other devices. B&N Forum discussions for the Nook e-Ink readers are: General Discussion and Technical Support.
Many of us were somewhat bothered by some Kindle 2's having lighter screen contrast (and I wrote about that quite a bit), to the extent that Kindle customer Ted Inoue made a set of darker fonts that could supplement the Kindle 2's fonts, and this user-addable font-set made all the difference for Kindle-2 customers who were sensitive to less-strong contrast - it's a good read.
Update
More online screen comparisons with e-Ink touchscreens (Nook, iriver)
See Business Insider's look at Kindle 3 vs Nook screens, which includes a link to the thorough PC World (Melissa Perenson) review of iriver, another e-Ink touchscreen, which mentions the Nook touch screen also.
Update July 2011 - Nick Bilton of the NY Times described Amazon's TouchCo's challenges with making a touch screen that doesn't lose some degree of screen contrast.
ROOTING THE NOOK TOUCH - What's it like?
The ever-investigative Mike Cane has an interesting article on the (not intuitive) 'rooting' of the Nook Touch and what the "Kindle for Android" app is like on the e-Ink, Android-based Nook. It's illustrated with a video by zonyl. The black flashing is something to behold, and you can see that with this app, Cane points out, "page shifting is done by showing pages sliding across the screen," which isn't handled well by e-Ink displays.
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