[Prestidigitweeze]

Toddos:

I've posted here more than once stating that the iPhone 4's resolution was comparatively easy to read but that the original iPad's resolution hurt my eyes after an hour of reading. It isn't merely a question of setting the brightness and contrast correctly.

Friends who use other LCD screens have made the same exact complaint I did about the original iPad, which is why I've been saying for the past year that I'd consider buying an iPad the day it had a retinal display (and now it does). The original iPad was noticeably more difficult to read than the screen of my main laptop, which also uses an IPS panel.

You'd think that the dpi you've mentioned would be optimal for any device, and yet there are variables.

With all due respect, you remind me a little of the objectivity fanatic on Head-fi who kept repeating that double-blind testing was the only reliable determiner of quality. They did this until they were banned from the forums and the subject ruled forbidden.

You can insist that people who report an improved reading experience with e-ink are incapable of understanding how to set an LCD for optimal reading, but a user's experience is their own. It would be truly misinformed for e-ink users to take your word for it, shrug and get rid of the readers they'd used comfortably, only to squint at LCDs because they believed there had to be no perceptible difference.

And as often as I agree with Taosaur, I was disappointed to find him doling out the same computer eyestrain advice we've all read and heard before. Of course you tune the brightness and contrast of the screen; of course you focus on a distant object periodically when reading anything in any medium save a billboard or traffic sign. That doesn't change the fact that e-ink is easier for me to read than nearly every LCD screen I've used with the possible exception of the iPhone 4. If I do break down and buy the new iPad a year or so from now, then I'll have the chance to compare the reading experience between devices over time.