Nook background color (not really white)

[snooker1]

My Nook Simple Touch has a grey-ish background. It's darker than I expected and definitely not white as in the promo pictures on barnesandnoble.com.

Here it is with some good (not direct) daylight, compared to some white paper:

(With artificial light it looks even darker.)

I'm wondering if this is normal or if perhaps there's something wrong with my unit.

It's still readable and all, but I expected it to be lighter. 

[h2oskierc]

Very normal that the screen isn't 100% white.  I have the Nook 1st Edition and the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight, and I can tell you that the newer ones are better than the first edition (which I never complained about).  If you compare it to the other eReaders out there, you will see they are all like that.

Happy Reading!

[BFCoughlin]

None of the e-ink readers are perfectly white.  They are trying to emulate a printed page, which aren't pure white, either.  I find that you need good light in order to read on them--as one would with a print book, perhaps a tad more.  They are awesome outdoors. 

[keriflur]

It's true that the e-ink screens are not white, but there have been issues with some units that are darker than they should be.

Do you have a B&N store near you?  If so, bring in your nook and compare it to the floor models, and/or have the nook specialist take a look at it for you.  If yours is unusually dark, it's probably a good idea to exchange it.

[snooker1]

Sadly I don't have another Nook or any other e-ink reader to compare it to, I ordered my online.

Here's a bigger picture. You can probably guess the amount of light in the room by looking at how much the bezel is lighted (in some other pictures on the net you can clearly see the 'nook' writing at the top..).

It's probably normal, just wanted to make sure.

[h2oskierc]

That picture is very under exposed, and the wire balance is off, so it is very hard to tell from that photo. Is there a Barnes and noble or best buy near you? Target might even have them...

[h2oskierc]

Make that white balance. Shouldn't post from my phone...

[Byteguy]

Also, because the e-ink screen on the Nook REFLECTS light, your lighting situation makes a HUGE difference on the appearance of the page.

Last night, mine looked very dark until I moved a bit on the couch and got more "bounce" from the lamp.

In a low-light or very indirect light situation; all e-inks will look terrible (unless you have the NSTGlowlight, then, you can read easily)

[Sun_Cat]

Even though the photo is suboptimal, I'll go out on a limb and say your Nook screen looks normal to me. When I first got my NST I was a little bothered by the darker-than-expected background. After reading regularly for a couple of weeks, I stopped noticing it. The darkness of the background is, as they say, approximately equivalent to that of the paper used in mass market paperbacks (though not the same color). First generation e-ink screens were closer to newsprint.

[kamas716]

from the photo, it doesn't look all that different from mine, maybe slightly darker, but that could just be the lighting in the photo.

[lindajm22]

I think yours doesn't look any different than my NST or my Glowlight.  As others have said, it is not supposed to be bright white, and thank goodness for that.  That kind of bright contrast would give me a headache after awhile.  It's supposed to more closely resemble the color of the pages of a paperback book.

[snooker1]

When I compare mine to printed books, it's still a bit darker. It's about the same lightness/darkness as newsprint, but different tone. This newspaper I have here has a brown-ish tone, whereas the Nook is more gray-ish.

I doubt they made it so on purpose (also because it's advertised as pure white in the pictures), I'd say it's more of a technical limitation of e-ink.

Not trying to complain too much, since it's perfectly readable with decent lighting, just making an observation.

[keriflur]

The NST has the pearl e-ink screen, the latest tech, and is as light as e-ink can be with the current technology (hopefully e-ink is still working to improve this and not completely focused on color).

The Glow has the same screen, but its brightness and color may be affected somewhat by the "light guide" that sits above the e-ink screen.

As I mentioned above, some devices are defective and thus not as bright.  But from the photo the OP posted (the second photo), I don't think there's anything wrong with that one.  I'd still be best to bring it in-store and compare though, to be sure.

[Nallia Distinguished Bibliophile]

While I agree that the OP's NST screen looks normal, I have to disagree with a few others here on a different point. I own the first edition NOOK as well as the NST (without Glowlight), and my N1E's screen is not as dark as my NST. On the N1E, the screen is a nice cream color. My NST's screen is grey. The screen on my N1E, for all that it's older technology, is easier to read in lower light than the Pearl screen on my NST.

[keriflur]

---

Nallia wrote:
While I agree that the OP's NST screen looks normal, I have to disagree with a few others here on a different point. I own the first edition NOOK as well as the NST (without Glowlight), and my N1E's screen is not as dark as my NST. On the N1E, the screen is a nice cream color. My NST's screen is grey. The screen on my N1E, for all that it's older technology, is easier to read in lower light than the Pearl screen on my NST.

---

I know you've had that NST for a while now, so this is kind of late, but... Do you think maybe you got a bad screen?  If you said they were the same I could see it, but to be darker?  That doesn't sound right to me.

[Nallia Distinguished Bibliophile]

They may not actually be darker; it may just be a case of them seeming darker in some light to my eyes because one is grey and one is cream. It might be that the black on light grey is harder for me to read in low light than the black on light cream. Does that make sense?

I know these aren't the best quality, so it may be difficult to see what I mean, and the N1E was taken in a lower light condition, but it's the only pic I have right now. The NST pic was taken in very bright light. I'll see if I can find a pic of it under similar lighting as the N1E.

[DeanGibson Distinguished Bibliophile]

---

Nallia wrote:
They may not actually be darker; it may just be a case of them seeming darker in some light to my eyes because one is grey and one is cream. It might be that the black on light grey is harder for me to read in low light than the black on light cream. Does that make sense?

I know these aren't the best quality, so it may be difficult to see what I mean, and the N1E was taken in a lower light condition, but it's the only pic I have right now. The NST pic was taken in very bright light. I'll see if I can find a pic of it under similar lighting as the N1E.

---

Ack!!! You are comparing those two photos?!?!  The background makes HUGE difference in the intensity (and color) of other nearby objects.  Remember this photo:

??  The horizontal bar is a constant intensity grey;  use two pieces of paper to block the top and bottom portions ...

[Nallia Distinguished Bibliophile]

Yeah, I know. *hangs head in shame* Unfortunately, I lent my N1E out so don't have it to take side by side pics right now. All I know is that I can more comfortably read my N1E in lower light than my NST. I don't have a defective screen--it looks the same as every display model I've ever seen and lighter than some--so I can only conclude that the difference in color is the reason for the disparity.

[frantastk]

---

Nallia wrote:
Yeah, I know. *hangs head in shame* Unfortunately, I lent my N1E out so don't have it to take side by side pics right now. All I know is that I can more comfortably read my N1E in lower light than my NST. I don't have a defective screen--it looks the same as every display model I've ever seen and lighter than some--so I can only conclude that the difference in color is the reason for the disparity.

---

I agree that there is a difference. I'm not sure if it's a lighter/darker difference or just that because the two screens are different colours one is easier to read in low light. I have both the N1E and the NST and I see the same difference you do. My house is very old and very dimly lit. We have no overhead lighting at all. (Okay one ceiling fan with a light but it's such a crappy light that the room is actually brighter with an old floor lamp in the corner.) My N1E is easier to read at night in my house than my NST. Until I changed the lamp in the family room, I had to bump up the font two sizes (Iusually read on the smallest size) to read comfortably at night. I didn't have to do that with the N1E. I now have a very large floor lamp with a dimmer switch that gets way too bright if I turn it all the way up so I don't have that problem.

There's nothing wrong with my screen. It is no darker than any of the other NSTs I've seen. I think my eyes just have an easier time seeing the black print on the creamier colour of the N1E. My NST seems to be more the colour of a mass market paperback, only quite a bit lighter than most of the paperbacks I own. My N1E is a creamy white. The text is crisper on the NST. I also have a problem reading paper backs in lower light situations so it may just be my eyes.

Sorry I don't have any pics. My camera is "quirky" and the battery is currently drained. (Note to self: fix camera!)

[keriflur]

Huh.  My N1E is not creamy anything.  It's grey, same as my NST.  It's just a slightly darker grey with slightly lighter text.