John Goerzen: Photographic comparison: Is the Kobo Libra Colour display worse than the Kobo Libra 2?
I ve been using E Ink-based ereaders for quite a number of years now. I ve had my Kobo Libra 2 for a few years, and was looking forward to the Kobo Libra Colour the first color E Ink display in a mainstream ereader line.
I found the display to be a mixed bag; contrast seemed a lot worse on B&W images, and the device backlight (it s not technically a back light) seemed to cause a particular contrast reduction in dark mode. I went searching for information on this. I found a lot of videos on Kobo Libra 2 vs Libra Colour and so forth, but they were all pretty much useless. These were the mistakes they made:
- Being videos. Photos would show the differences in better detail.
- Shooting videos with cameras with automatic light levels. Since the thing we re trying to evaluate here is how much darker the Kobo Libra Colour screen is than the Kobo Libra screen, having a camera that automatically adjusts for brighter or darker images defeats the purpose. Cell phone cameras (still and video) all do this by default and I saw evidence of it in all the videos.
- Placing the two devices side-by-side instead of in identical locations for subsequent shots. This led to different shadows on each device (because OF COURSE the people shooting videos had to have their phone and head between the light source and the device), again preventing a good comparison.