Why does the Roboto font look different when used with the LaTeX package?

Question

I'm using the LaTeX package roboto in the way that is proposed here:

\usepackage[sfdefault]{roboto}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

The output (pdflatex) looks like this:

However, the 'real' Roboto font looks like this (see here, for example):

The general quality might be a sampling problem but you can notice small differences like the square vs. round 'i'-dot or the way that the 'r' or the 'e' looks like in the comparison:

Is there a way to get the 'proper' Roboto font or am I doing something wrong?

Answer 1

Robot comes in two versions, both of which may be seen and downloaded at publicobject.com/2014/06/26/roboto-old-and-new/. For a far more elaborate comparison, see the review by Stephen Coles, “Roboto Is Was a Four-headed Frankenfont,” at typographica.org.

For now, the package roboto supplies the older version of the font. Users of luatex or xetex may dispense with the package, install the new font on their systems (downloading it from the link above or, of course, from www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto), and invoke it with \usepackage{fontspec} and \setsansfont{Roboto}.