Amazon Customer Fixes Kindle-2 Dim-Font Plight

Ted Inoue's trial replacement fonts (a sort of beta-test, created and run by an Amazon customer) have brought ecstatic responses by other customers who had considered returning their Kindle 2s due to a strongly-perceived problem (backed up by photographs) on some units with too-faint fonts on a somewhat darker background than used with the Kindle 1.
  The strong lure of the Kindle-2 has been shown by the customers petitioning for darker fonts rather than returning their units.

See Inoue's animated image showing the effect of some of the replacement fonts relative to Kindle-2's basic font.  Click on the image at that page to start the animation showing rotation of pages displayed with various fonts from his trial font-set.

UPDATED PARAGRAPH - 5/2/09 - This was pointed to in an earlier blog entry but belongs here too: See See TechCrunch's article that makes Inoue's replacement-font results clear, using his webpage example.  But Inoue later found that it's not due to font-smoothing but to the amount of black that gets rendered on the surface that we see.

 Most of those wanting the font-changes seem to be customers who found their Kindle 1 displays beautiful but have been finding their Kindle-2 units difficult to read and a strain on their eyes.  (Most customers, of course receive units with good displays -- I am one of them but, I've seen photos of clearly substandard ones).

 Inoue and many other customers have seen quite a variation in the various K2 screens (with regard to lightness of gray and darkness of fonts), indicating some quality control problems with e-Ink's 16-shade screen affecting some customers.

 Amazon is aware of the problem and does replace the units until the customer gets one with a display that works for the customer and which doesn't fade in direct sunlight upon page-turns).  I imagine they get replacements from E-Ink in Cambridge.

 Amazon's replacement policy has been very good, though some of their customer service reps don't get that policy message until a customer asks for a supervisor.

 Also, too many customers have received units with fonts that failed in direct sunlight.  I've read that some Sony units have this problem too but that Sony doesn't replace the units, saying to at least one customer that the e-Ink display does not work in direct sunlight.

 Amazon does replace any unsatisfactory units and will, until the customer has a unit that works correctly; they do this because an E-Ink technology feature is that it works just as well in direct sunlight.  And they appear to have better customer service policies than Sony.
 Lightness of fonts may not be directly related to that sunlight exposure failure, but they often co-exist.

 As far as we know, this affects "only" several hundred people visiting the Amazon forums to ask questions, who have signed a petition requesting Amazon institute a simple fix, such as a font with more 'black' ink showing in the characters.  Customer Inoue has been able to do this, and he's provided customers with a variety of font-sets to choose from and they're extremely pleased about the results.

Caveat:   Problem?  Anyone testing these font-replacements must UNinstall them before any periodic Amazon Kindle firmware updates that come, so far, once a month.  But they can re-install them after the Amazon updates.

The history of this has been described in the original entries for 1) Screen Contrast problems for some users who had loved their Kindle 1 displays, which was further reported on by Wired.com) and 2) Ted Inoue's new findings, a few days ago.

  In mid-April, Inoue wrote to Amazon Customer Service Representatives at their official public Amazon forum topic, letting them know of his successful trial results and offering them font-sets to try from his tests making fairly easy font-replacements for the Kindle 2.
  Customer Service representatives on their own forum thread have never responded to Ted.
  It's as if users and this problem for many of them just don't matter to Amazon, which means it apparently doesn't matter to Jeff Bezos (or they would reply in a constructive way).

  The forum thread by users requesting darker fonts on the Kindle 2 now numbers about 800 posts.
  Since the topic-thread participants are very happy with Inoue's replacement fonts, they are now asking that Amazon do something like this, especially since Inoue has shown it can be done quite easily, possibly with options to choose the default set or a darker one. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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New Kindle-2 Screen Contrast Finding by Ted Inoue

This is an update to the original Kindle-2 screen-contrast story and updates, focusing on Ted Inoue's analysis.

While the original theories for varying screen-contrast of Kindle 2 screens involved thinner looking fonts and anti-aliasing that used the increased grayscales available to the Kindle 2, Inoue has done new tests from screen-grabs of the same page using both the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2, enlarged in Photoshop with examination of the pixel make-up of the characters.  They are the same.  Only 4-shades appear to be used for the basic font.

As Ted has explained, including on two forums following this, the variances in screen output of the same basic material comprising the font characters we see, indicates something seen in his earlier test of displays from his first Kindle 2 (Unit-A) vs his second Kindle 2 (Unit-B) - a difference in how both Kindle-2 units are rendering the same font.  What we see as less well-defined or less-sharp on Unit-A (which Ted notes as a unit that does not resolve well) shows less black brought to the 'surface' than we can see for the fonts from his second Kindle, Unit-B, when they're magnified.

  I have wondered if it was more a matter of seeing more black "brought to light" (that we can see) on the second unit so that his first unit's less-solid-blackened characters will appear less sharp then.  With Photoshop, we will tend to add contrast (more dark grays to black and more light grays to white) to enhance the perception of sharpness or definition of edges.

In the meantime, the screen-grabs from a Kindle 1 vs Kindle 2 mentioned above shows no difference in the basic font used for the devices.  Ted says that the differences that people can see easily in photographs result from how each unit renders the same basic combo of same pixels, and M. Matthews posted on March 28 that this might be related to the amount of voltage used to get the black portions to the surface and posted on April 28 that the variations we've seen indicate that the density of the black may be harder to control with the newer e-Ink screen with its 16-shades of gray vs 4 for the Kindle 1.  Whatever, it appears to be a quality control problem, especially with the seemingly unusual number of screens doing all right until brought into direct sunlight and fading under those conditions - a definite defect, since an advertised strength of the e-Ink screen (a feature I personally love) is how readable it is in direct sunlight.  There is an explanation, said to be given by an Amazon customer service representative, for the fading, having to do with faulty e-ink receptors.

Ted refers to some photo comparisons I made of my K1 and K2 and, in my own case, my Kindle 2 display is sharper and is black enough (though somewhat lighter in some lighting but good enough for me because it is definitely sharper than even my excellent Kindle 1).  I also took some photos last weekend of the Kindle2 vs the Sony PRS505 (using the older 8-shade e-Ink screen) and found the Kindle 2 looking very good in contrast (no pun intended).  They both have good displays.  But obviously, these screens can differ dramatically, though the large majority of owners appear to have units that meet the standards set for them.  The photos in my entry about problems for some users with bad screen contrast are repeated here for easier access.  These are some photo-comparison examples plus an added example and the most egregious one.
  In contrast, here are two examples of how the display should appear, taken with a cell phone last weekend while at Target:
Kindle-2 'Home' library listing and
Kindle-2 display of some text that I copied off a website to reference while shopping.

Amazon IS replacing units that are reported to have fonts that are too light to read, in connection with the warranty they do honor.  Customers have been very positive about how Amazon customer svc representatives have been handling this, with the exception of one official Communications executive who dismissed the concerns by telling Wired about a "few" customers wanting less gray shades!  From what I've read -- only as an offered option for pure-text reading where the font becomes gray instead of black.

As mentioned in the original screen contrast entry, customers who almost returned their Kindles have been ecstatic with the replacement fonts offered for trial by Inoue to Amazon Customer Service, at his site.

In the meantime, the long request-to-Amazon thread joined by new owners each day continues.  In between pleas for darker fonts displayed, they praise Inoue's new fonts (but which have to be uninstalled each time Amazon has a Kindle update). Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!