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Old 12-22-2011, 01:11 PM   #3
delphin
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Posts: 434
Karma: 346901
Join Date: Dec 2010
Device: SONY PRS-650
Quote:
Originally Posted by humandroid View Post
I have owned a Kindle DX for a long time but I am trying out a 10" Lenovo K1.

I have tried a few different readers and settings on the K1 but everything I try seems too harsh on my eyes for extended reading.

Which readers and settings have you found that cause less eye strain on the android tablets?
I agree with the previous comments about turning the brightness down.

I don't usually even bother with night-mode (light text on a dark background) but that is another option if you still find that the brighter background bothers you, and you want to switch things up and try another option.

The trick is to turn the damn thing WAY down so that it matches how your favorite eInk device would look with a reasonable but not excessively bright non-glaring book-light.

Also hold the tablet at a distance appropriate for it's DPI size (fortunately your Lenovo K1 specs out at 149 DPI which is excellent, so anything between eighteen inches and about two feet should be nice and sharp)

The small 7 inch Android tablet I prefer as a reader (a Viewpad 7e) has really good backlight control, and a similar DPI resolution and I find it VERY comfortable as a reading device.

I hate to say it, but in my case, I had heard so much anti-LCD crapple-tunnel-vision BS about how LCDs were just HORRIBLE, that it helped do a little research and get the real facts - which are these:

The 7 inch screen on my Viewpad 7e reader has 800x600 resolution, the same as my eInk device, but due to the sub-pixel rendering possible on color LCD screens it is even SHARPER (this is really noticeable when viewing full-page PDFs). Your Lenovo is even higher in resolution than this, so the text you are reading should be literally razor sharp.

So, what 'hurts your eyes' is not the inferior nature of the LCD, but the fact that the contrast is so much BETTER than both eInk and printed media.

eInk Pearl is only spec'd for a 10:1 minimum contrast ratio (though most samples will hopefully do a little better) while real ink on a printed page maxes out at about 30:1 (the brightest areas reflect about 30 times more light than the ink).

An LCD screen can easily manage 200:1 up to about 500:1 contrast ratios, so the brightest brights vs. the darkest darks are much more extreme than what you see when viewing a printed page under normal room light.

Turning down the back-light until the screen background is only a little brighter than a printed page would look under natural light in the same setting (how the text would look on paper with a reasonable book-light) will pretty much eliminate the irritation caused the excessive brightness and contrast.

This is quite often a lower setting than you might expect, so if turning down the brightness hasn't worked for you, it may simply be that you didn't have it turned down far enough. Obviously, too low is also not going to be very comfortable due to legibility issues, and there is no officially 'correct' level (what YOU are comfortable with being highly subjective) but don't be afraid to experiment with a bit more moderate level if you find your eyes are still experiencing fatigue, as this works for most people.

After playing with font size on my Viewpad 7e, and setting the brightness to a reasonable level, I now find that I actually PREFER it to using my Sony PRS-650 eInk reader with a book light for late night reading sessions.

This is true even though my Viewpad 7e tablet is about twice as heavy (and that's a testament to how much better it looks, because I really do like my Sony because of it's light weight, but the sharp, evenly lit text on my 7e tablet just blows it away).

Last edited by delphin; 12-22-2011 at 01:32 PM.
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