“Weak” Kindle fonts?

(Note: I’m not an expert on fonts, so I may not be using some of these terms in the correct technical sense.)

I’ve been frustrated with a few books Kindle books that I’ve purchased lately. The fonts look “weak” or “thin” to me. Compare this:

to this

The latter is much easier to read. These screenshots are from the Kindle for iPad app, the difference is even more noticeable on an actual Kindle.

If the former were actual text printed on a page, I’d suspect that your toner cartridge was running low.

I know that I can increase the size of the font on the Kindle, but I don’t seem to be able to change the font weight. (There are options to change the typeface: regular/condensed/sans serif, but they are grayed out and I cannot use them.)

I had actually expected that all Kindle books would use the same font, which would avoid this problem. Seems like it would be a good option.

Kindle Owners: Is this a common problem that others have found as well? Have you seen it?

1. swamibooba liked this
2. janetisserlis answered: not sure. I do know that I prefer the font and background (black and white, clean serif font) on my iPod more than the kindle font
3. angryoldcoot answered: Yup. The “Kindle Default Font” works fine. When they come with their own font, it seems the text is treated as an image, and rendered poorly.
4. wordishness answered: Yes.
5. tj reblogged this from luoma and added:

   Kindle owners/users:...my techie tumblr.

6. morrowplanet answered: yes.
7. morrowplanet liked this
8. redcloud liked this
9. mathcat345 answered: I think some of the books are scanned in or otherwise entered by “volunteers,” so that might make the difference.
10. luoma posted this