LARGER versions of the pics below are at my PBase photos site. Essentially, the first 3 below are photo comparisons of my new Kindle 3, a white, not graphite one -- am I the first? :-)
The others show, at the New York Times:
. the Home page in vertical and horizontal modes with the new Webkit-based web browser and then a sequence of:
. zooming-in for options and choosing an article, and
. getting that article in Article Mode.
I took many more, so I'll be updating that photo site.
Reminder: You can (1) click here to see the page of larger versions of the shots below, or
(2) click on a photo to get the larger one.
SCREEN CONTRAST: Kindle 3 vs Kindle 2
 Kindle 3 and Kindle 2 with same screen-sleeper |
 Kindle 3's Birds screen-sleeper |
 Kindle 2's Birds screen-sleeper |
BROWSING WITH KINDLE 3 at The New York Times
 New York Times Home Page in Landscape mode |
 Portrait, w/ zoom-in box showing |  Zoomed-in area |
 Chosen article. selecting Article Mode. |  Article Mode version |
Hope some of that helped!
ADDENDUM - an older photo of the Kindle 2 screen image
Here, for commenter Anonymous who felt the K2 solo or close-up image was "just too poor" to be believed, is a smaller-sized version of the picture I took of the Kindle-2 birds screen-sleeper 1-1/2 years ago when I just enjoyed the image as it was.Note how close that is to the picture a week ago. The Kindle 3 contrast is so much better, it makes the Kindle 2 image look "just too poor" for the commenter. That older image is at the old Kindle-1 and Kindle-2 comparison page and was taken back in Feb. '09, which seems eons ago in this digital world.
Kindle 3 (UK: Kindle 3), DX Graphite
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Have you used the browser for basic email and mobile banking functions? If so, what were your thoughts on the Kindle 3's usefulness in these areas? Thanks!
ReplyDeleten.k.,
ReplyDeleteSince I use the Kindle 2 gmail often enough after it improved this year, I tried the gmail on the K3 and it's much faster. But there are bugs in connection with something that needs to be loaded sometimes and it stops.
Got a report today, in a Comments section, that Google fixed something on the two links that used to be fine but had been giving probs so i will try it again tomorrow.
I wouldn't use it for banking. Just not enough security on it.
Thanks for posting your pictures. The screen looks great.
ReplyDeleteI, like you, have also been surprised at the lack of white K3's in the reviews so far.
Really want to see some White v Graphite K3 reviews. Not sure which way to jump yet.
Andrys,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review. I just took my Kindle 2 back to Target (bought it the day before the new one came out). I cannot wait to get my hands on the Kindle 3. It looks as though one can use this for browsing the web, something that I did not really intend to do on the device. What is impressive though is the crispness of the print. It looks so much better than the the K2.
Thanks for the reply. Check your email for a question that I asked you while I was erasing my K2.
Thanks.
Rick.
Thanks for the photos. We (in the UK!) don't have the White Kindle available but of course, being just the kind of person I am, I wanted to see what the pictures look like anyway. It's really helpful to see the browser too - I'm still waiting on mine to arrive but hopefully it'll be here later this week!
ReplyDeleteVic15,
ReplyDeleteYes, I heard about the delays in the UK. Surely hope it is ironed out this week. Seems it's hard to keep enough of those new screens produced to meet current demand.
Thank you for the feedback :-)
hi andrys,
ReplyDeletethanks for the post with pics. just received the white k3 and have played with it a little. (i wanted white to go with a beautiful leather cover. i'm such a girl, i know. saddle tan or chocolate brown cole haan, that is the question!)
am so relieved, after all the kvetching on the kindle discussion site about the page turn buttons, that they are easier to use than those on the k2 or kdx. the buttons fall directly under my thumbs and advance the page with less pressure than earlier models. (i suppose this could be a matter of hand size.)
surprisingly, the screen contrast improvement is not as great as i had anticipated (this compared to the dx). nonetheless, there is a noticeable improvement in clarity that i believe will allow me to read comfortably with a smaller font. more words on the page is a big benefit.
happy reading, hugh
Not the first (see my unboxing photos from 8/26: http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b324/moriwriter/Kindle%20Unboxing/?albumview=slideshow&direction=reverse) but certainly more detailed and showing more aspects.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite improvements is very simple: the screen is now fully utilized with progress bar flush with the bottom and header info that disappears during reading.
Excellent photos. The contrast and sharpness are quite an improvement.
ReplyDeleteI've had no luck using the mobile version of Gmail or Yahoo Mail with the K3. Gmail loads the login page but when I try to type in my user name/password no characters (i.e. nothing) shows up in the input box.
Yahoo Mail accepts text in the username/password input boxes but upon trying to sign in it defaults back to the login page and both boxes are empty again--no error message. Needless to say I carefully triple checked the accuracy of my user name and password.
I've never had a problem with Gmail on the K1 and have had no problems accessing either Gmail or Yahoo Mail on WiFi with my iPod Touch. I just tried mobile Yahoo Mail on the K1 and repeatedly get:"The website you requested is not responding. Please try again later." So, I guess access to Yahoo Mail has been a problem for awhile--as I recall I didn't use it on the K1.
Won't complain about Google, however, since I just downloaded and tried their software for making free telephone calls in the US and Canada to any landline or cell phone--worked fine. (I had Grand Central for more than a year and a half which later became Google Voice--I liked having just one telephone number for incoming calls which would work at home at the vacation home and on the cell phone.) The new addition is very slick--poor Ma Bell must be turning over in her grave.
My2¢worth,
ReplyDeleteThanks. I wrote the following in a comments are today at Wired, which used my pictures. gmail is the one thing that doesn't work as well as it has on the Kindle 2 the last half year.
It can't load something at the mobile versions, and while the gmail.com bookmark that Amazon puts on our Kindles looks good, it doesn't accept our user input, as you saw.
The sites that use more of the GMail images will use more memory for certain features, and I found that a clean-Restart (at Menu/Settings/Menu) fixed the problem of messages telling me the Kindle couldn't load a page.
The following URL has been recommended by a few people in the last few days and is said to be working best (when it is working) and it did work for me today after the Kindle had a fresh start.
http://mail.google.com/mail/x.
There was a report here that Google may have fixed the problem but I had some trouble with it Monday, and then I discovered that the Kindle needed a fresh start -- which is like a soft-reboot or restart of a computer. I tend to experiment with the web browser quite a bit so I probably tax the Kindle on that more than usual.
"Bill" posted another URL, which works even better for me. It's a long URL, which I made a shortcut for. Try this:
http://bit.ly/g_mail
That uses an underscore, not a space, so it's "g_mail" ...
Hugh, I got too used to the Cole-Haan when I got it at 50% for my Kindle 2, so I used a large bonus credit I got, toward the Cole-Haan for the Kindle 3 too and I love that it's not so stiff and it's lighter and easier to hold, though I thought the design of the Anazib cover with built-in light that needs no batteries was a master stroke.
ReplyDeleteI'm partial to the saddle tan and that's what I got. I felt it would be a good color combo too :-)
Like you, I was struck by the fact that the contrast change is not like that of the DXG which remains stunning to me. But it's still MUCH better than the Kindle 2, good as mine is. It's so much easier to read with even this smaller improvement which, as you might see in the bird pictures, is still substantial.
The buttons are easier for me and there's a lot of space to hold this Kindle on the bezels as they are but the 5-way is lower on the Kindle than I like and even flatter than I like. But it works. I use the side of the finger more to press down and only the fingertip on the directional ones.
Anonymous/Moriwriter,
ReplyDeleteNice! But I meant that I think it's the first white-colored one that's used in an online-comparison with the white Kindle 2. Not that this would be that meaningful but I used the word 'comparison' and yet was not very clear.
A lot has been made about the Graphite border making the screen results just look different in contrast, but it's the same when you remove the borders for these (and for a pair of DX's earlier) and, in fact, the birds on the Kindle 2 are surrounded by a black border.
Andry's,
ReplyDeletehave you seen this? Staples to start selling Amazon's Kindle
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67U23V20100831
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteNo, have some urgent things to take care of today before I search news and blog again, but I have some plans and then this is GREAT news, as Staples is two blocks from me !!
Thanks!
Andrys, thanks for the advice and the Gmail bit/ly--worked on the first try.
ReplyDeleteAfter restart I was able to log into the main Yahoo portal (K3's installed bookmark) then get my mail (I selected Classic Mail because there was a message that the newer mail version might not work on my operating system).
Re covers: I'm using the free K1 cover temporarily. It's not a bad fit and seems to keep the K3 secure. Since I'm going from K1 to K3 I have rationalized that with all the money I saved not buying the K2 and will save on batteries I can splurge. So, I ordered the Amazon cover with built in light for reading in bed and the brown Cole-Haan hand-woven patent leather cover for trips to the coffee shop. I hope I won't have to use a tacky rubber band around it to keep from losing the Kindle.
Glad the Gmail link worked right off. Yahoo is said to be sometimes, yes, sometimes no.
ReplyDeleteGREAT idea to use the K1 cover. I have similar rationales for the saddle Cole Haan + bed-reading cover (!)
I'm also having some problems with the browser freezing up. I've been playing with it a lot the last couple of days and when it works, it's faster than I expected, but when it doesn't, it freezes solid and it's happened a number of times. The biggest problem has been with Yahoo mail and a 3G connection. It's frustrating and I hope they find a fix for it soon.
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of people on the message board complaining about reboots even when just reading a book, but that hasn't happened to me yet.
Could you post screenshot with an identical picture (exactly the same file), please? Your screenshots show the same motif, but are not the same file. Therefore you don't know, how much image optimization has been done with the image on the K3. Especially on eInk screens, there are huge differences depending on image optimizations. The screeshot showing the K2 is just to poor, to asume both versions of the image are on one optimization level.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, we all have screenshots of that screen sleeper on K2 and K3.
ReplyDeleteBut I can provide them, nevertheless, on the pbase page later, since I am busy right now and I don't even have a name for you.
The idea is to get what the images are like to the EYE when reading the Kindles with whatever degree of contrast range there is in real life for them and how the various dot combinations interact with the space/light betwen the screen and our eyes, and that includes being seen within the white bezels and also the black bordering rectangle of the K2.
Not the same file? Look again at picture number one. The two Kindles are taken *together* at the same instant in one photo, which is something I prefer to do.
That is definitely "the same file," as you put it.
Now if you say the added close-ups are not the same photo file, of course they're not.
Note how they are close in relationship to each other the way they are in the first main shot though.
ANY optimization in that first shot affects BOTH images or both Kindles at the first time.
And you are seeing the K2 image as "just too poor" because you're seeing it in relationship to the K3 image which has much more contrast.
Here's one I took of the birds on the Kindle 2 when I felt it was a GOOD image back in February 2009. Note the contrast in the surface details of the chair. Then notice the relative lack of contrast in the image, which at the time I really liked.
http://andrys.com/mImg_2581.jpg
That comes from a page of comparisons done in Feb 2009 with 2 Kindles together again since it's my preference to photograph them together for the reasons you cite.
http://bit.ly/k1andk2
Notice I ended the comparison with that shot because I happened to like the image very much. THEN note that it is definitely "poorer" than the one I took care to focus on this week to bring out as much contrast as I could, with a spot meter.
Because of that care, it has more contrast than the one I took for pleasure back in Feb 2009 when I first got the Kindle 2.
Again picture-1 in this article has both versions of the image on -one- optimization level because they were done at the same instant and I did no individual optimizations of either side.
First: calm down.
ReplyDeleteSecond: calm down.
Third: you simply don't understand, what I'm talking about.
I'm not talking about image optimization on your side, I'm talking about optimizing the screen saver pictures stored in the kindles.
Have you ever made images for use on an eInk screen? Most likely not. I've made hundreds and I can tell you: this huge difference is due to the fact, that the image used on the k2 isn't optimized. Copy the birdie image from your k3 to your k2 and you won't believe what you'll see.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYou're the one who's upset by a mere photo comparison. And, with point 3, perhaps you could write more clearly.
Maybe you might even talki about this in context. Many of us have everyday experience with what the Kindle 2 screen looks like and I have posted here a couple of times that the Nook has better screen contrast than the Kindle 2.
This picture merely goes along with what we've experienced, for whatever reason. Today I picked up my Kindle and started to read something and thought, the letters are gray, what happened? Then I thought of having to report it and send for a replacement as they'd been nicely black since I'd gotten the device.
And then I looked to see if anything was different about the lighting or angle. But, mainly, it was dismaying to see the fading of the dark fonts.
Then I realized I had picked up my Kindle 2, which I haven't used for days.
Whatever they did with the K2 screens, some choice they made, maybe speed vs contrast in how they chose an e-ink setting, the DX (pre-Pearl) has better contrast and that also shows up in comparisons.
Those with K1's know that they chose something that did not optimize blacks, since the K1 contrast is considerably better than the K2 screen contrast.
The difference with the K3 may be that the Pearl eInk screen allows them to provide better contrast while not losing in speed...
One big bonus to the white seems to be that the keyboard does not fade. I have sent back two Kindle 3's for this reason--and I am purchasing a white one. Not one person posted that they had any problems w/keyboard fading on the white kindles. LOTS of complaints of that w/the graphite gray.
ReplyDeleteCan you explain the difference between the 2 and 3 wireless systems. I've had my 2 for a long time and it will go on wireless about anywhere without signing in or passwords. We got a 3 for a relative and had to go through the signing in and passwords. What changed?
ReplyDeleteTim,
ReplyDeleteThey added WiFi capability The product page will explain it. If you're near a WiFi network, then the Kindle asks if you want to connect to it -- it's faster and it doesn't cost Amazon for the cellular network web access that others charge $35/mo.++ for.
You may have bought your relative the less-expensive one for $139 and that one does -not- have the 3G that you are used to. Only WiFi. The $189 model has both Wifi and the 3G that you can access almost anywhere.
Also, see http://bit.ly/kw3gwifi.
Photographs looks very natural. Well sharing information to all.
ReplyDelete