LCD vs. e-ink

[RockdaMan]

Reading what's on that screen makes my eyes hurt.

Originally Posted by tipstir

This I had taken from Coby KYROS which uses glass top layer under Amazon Kiddle for Android

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by ColdSun

Do you have heavy duty scientific data to support your claims? No. You believe LCD strains your eyes more. The article itself explains what the true cause of your eye strain is. I'm sorry if you don't like what I said, but after a couple years of seeing false information about LCD screen technology, some of us are actually sick of seeing it posted again and again. The FACT is that it is a matter of preference and the LCD eyestrain thing is a myth. I have been saying this for years and will continue to do so. My apologies, sincerely, if that troubles you. I do not try to be abrasive or rude in my posts.

This is such a non-issue, it's not even funny any more.
It is one think to say "I believe something to be true", and completely different to say "Something IS true". You obviously do not differentiate between the two approaches. Therein lies the problem with your posts. It's not about what you say, it's how you say it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ColdSun

Do you have a favorite PDA for reading with? I have an iPAQ for a while that had a VGA screen and was 4". It wasn't bad at all. I would still use it but I need a larger screen. This is why I'm so excited for the Nook Color I have on order. It couldn't get here soon enough to be honest.

It's mentioned in the text below my avatar. It's a Tapwave Zodiac 2, which is a PalmOS device. The Tapwave folks were trying to make a PalmOS PDA that was also a handheld gaming platform, so it has things you don't expect, like a 320x480 screen driven by an ATI video chip with 2D acceleration and 8MB video RAM, Yamaha stereo with actual (tiny) stereo speakers on device, 128MB of RAM, and two SD card slots, one of which is SDIO, so I can go online with a Wifi SD card.

Tapwave never got the critical mass of game developers on board, and the marketing made it hard to notice it was a killer PDA, too. They went under in July, 2005, but I have three of them and am unconcerned.

I started reading ebooks on a PDA when my then employer decided all IT staffers should have PDAs, and a Handspring Visor Deluxe appeared in inter-office mail. It wasn't clear what I was supposed to do with it, so I went looking for stuff that would aid me as a sysadmin. One thing I found was Plucker, and offline HTML viewer for Palm devices. The Plucker desktop is cross-platform, written in Python, and available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS/X. It's intended to "pluck" web pages for offline reading and convert them to the form used by the PDA viewer, but it works fine on local content, too. Most of the documentation for the stuff I dealt with was in HTML, so I could have a documentation library in my pocket.

The Visor Deluxe got replaced by a Visor Pro, then a Tungsten E, and finally the Zodiac, but Plucker has been a constant. Bf preference, I get content in HTML, convert to Plucker, and put it on an SD card in my device. I have a lot of Project Gutenberg stuff, a lot of Creative Commons licensed material, and the complete Baen Free Library among other things. I also have several hundred Mobipocket volumes, courtesy of the MR Patricia Clark Memorial Library, plus stuff in eReader, PDF, Word, RTF, and text format, for about 4,000 books all told, occupying most of a 2GB SD card.

As icing on the cake, the open source FBReader ebook viewer app handles Plucker and Mobi documents, so I have a duplicate of the PDA library on my old notebook under Windows and Linux.

The killer app for the Zodiac is the Palm port of TCPMP, The Core Pocket Media Player, an open source media player for mobile devices. The Zodiac community took up a collection to get the Palm developer a Zodiac to develop on, and he responded with support for the ATI chip. There are reams written elsewhere about the best way to rip your movies on DVD to a format you can put on an SD card and play on a Zodiac with TCPMP. It does MPEG and AVI, plays MP3s and Ogg Vorbis audio files, and various other things. If Tapwave had realized they had a killer handheld media platform instead of wearing games blinders, they might still be in business.

I'd like a larger screen, but haven't seen anything thus far that has one and does all the Zodiac will do. I'm interested in the raft of tablets and netbooks using ARM CPUs and running Android in the platform - one of those might be my next device. The nook color looks nice, but I'd want to be able to get root on it, and install stuff not offered through B&N. We'll see.
______
Dennis

[BaenSidhe]

Originally Posted by ski_power

Well, I have absolutely no problems with the LCD on my laptop. But when I used the iPad for 3 hours continuous, I started getting the all too familiar eye strain. I did not have that with the Kindle. Strange!

It's not just you. I sit in front of my computer monitor for 12+ hours a day and have no problems. I had no problems with the LCD on my old PDA. I turn on iBooks on the iPad and my eyes start to hurt.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And some folks start out with impaired vision and need corrective lenses beginning in early childhood. Others truly do find reading on an eInk screen easier than on a backlit screen, even if they don't need glasses. (See reports elsewhere on MR from people who complain of headaches when trying to read any extensive amount of text on a normal monitor.)

Could not agree more. My eyesight (I wear contacts) is L-11.0, R-12.0. For those who do not understand the numbers it means I am severely short sighted, legally blind if you will. I have been using optical aids since I was an eight year old, moving to contacts 25 years ago.

As a Civil Engineer, I use a PC most of the day (2x22" LCD monitors) When I used CRT, my eyestrain headaches were really bad and very frequent. LCD monitors did ease off the eyestrain headaches a lot.

When I got my PDA to read ebooks on, I found I could read for an hour TOPS. After that my eyestrain started again. The move to e-ink has solved that issue for me. My wife found reading on her PDA for a length of time contributed to the laying down of causes for her migraines and she gets really, really bad migraines. The solution for her was a JBL with its mono non back lit LCD.

For both of us it was the backlit nature of the display causing issues.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Superiority is in the eye of the beholder, but everyone has different eyes, and insulting folks who for whatever reason find eInk easier on theirs doesn't help your case.
______
Dennis

I simply dislike reading on LCD for extended periods of time. When people ask me what the best reader is, backlit LCD's do not come into the conversation. If such a display is raised (ipad/ihphone) in that conversation, then I inform them that the choice becomes theirs as they have different eyes to me.

What is good for me will not necessarily be good for you.

I have no right to force my opinion and choices onto others.

[haino]

LCD for me. Purely because it suits my lifestyle - reading in the evening and at night in bed when lighting is not as good for my old eyes

[tipstir]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Reading what's on that screen makes my eyes hurt.

Fonts are too big and there is no choices to make it smaller. Unless I tweak the Kindle app and I don't want to do that every time I use it. Yeah the reading books on these 7" screens is not a good idea.

[ColdSun]

Originally Posted by m-reader

This is such a non-issue, it's not even funny any more.
It is one think to say "I believe something to be true", and completely different to say "Something IS true". You obviously do not differentiate between the two approaches. Therein lies the problem with your posts. It's not about what you say, it's how you say it.

Uh huh. Well thanks for that tidbit, but I think my words were pretty clear.

1. Folks who say LCD "damages" their eyes are incorrect. I do not assume that anyone here has said that but it is a popular belief these days.
2. I actually think eink technology is great. It just doesn't fit my requirement.
3. LCD causing more eye strain than another technology is purely on a person-by-person basis and more related to age and/or an issue with a user's eyes. To make you happy, I'll retract my statement about it being a myth, as eye strain exists, but LCD technology itself is not the cause. This very thread has provided responses from users that say eink causes eye strain for them, or LCD for another group of users.
4. Previous statements about eink readers and what the majority of readers desire in their device stands firm. There is no proof that even half the people that read a lot or use eink would always choose an eink device.

We can go over this again and again, and as you say this is a dead horse. The funny thing is, you don't like how I say it, but its ok for the guy above to tell everyone that LCD is bad for their eyes... Go figure. You know what though, I don't think you should be telling me how I should say anything and keep the personal opinions about me out of it.

[Sil_liS]

Eye strain has nothing to do with the source of light, and has everything to do with the distance between your eye and the screen. Normal reading distance, that is the distance where people with good eyesight would have no eyestrain, is 35 cm (14"). People with myopia (nearsighted) feel better if the distance is shorter, people with hyperopia (farsighted) feel better if the distance is bigger. Young people with good eyesight can adjust to different distances.
If you have no problem reading for hours of your desktop monitor you are probably farsighted, if you can't stand to read of a desktop monitor you might be nearsighted.
With hand held devices, the problem is different. If it is too heavy you will keep it in a position that gives less strain to your hand muscles, since otherwise your hand will start to hurt before you feel eyestrain. And, obviously, you will get eyestrain.
There is a size for the image of letters on your retina that gives best reading speed and comprehension. If the font is too small (even if your eyesight is good and you can see the letters) you will feel the need to bring the device closer to your eyes and you will get eyestrain.
You can't get an accurate impression of a screen if you are looking over somebody's shoulder: the distance is bigger and therefore it is normal to get eye strain.
Any discomfort that you feel from your device in terms of light intensity is not eye strain, that is just your brain telling you to get away from the bright light, and it has to do with the fact that you are going to damage your eyes if you don't. (Long before electronic devices there was always the sun.) This can be avoided by turning the lights on in the room (your pupil will get smaller, as your eyes adjust), turning the brightness down or reading white letters on black background.
There is of course the other side, where there is not enough light intensity, and all I can say to that is: stop it, night vision was not meant for reading.

LCD monitors are not like CRT monitors. The problem with CRTs is that they are emitting small amounts of X-ray radiation, which you wouldn't actually feel, but were damaging your eyes, and the closer you would get to it, the more X-rays you got.

[koadic]

I can go either way... I still own a couple working REB1100s (predecessor to the GEB eBookwise 1150) and they were great to read on, I would get about 5-6 days worth of normal reading @ around 2 hours each night in bed between charges. I have since owned a prs-505 and now own a 650.

While I loved my 1100, and the backlight was great for reading in bed with the lights out, the advantages of the eInk readers slowly phased out my usage of my 1100. For me, these advantages were the increase in reading time, the weight (it could get a little tedious holding the 1100 up for long stretches of reading), and as I scan and convert many of my own books into digital format so I can read them over and over again at a whim, the ability to use an updated format (like epub) that my newer readers support made my older 1100 obsolete. While I do miss the backlit screen on the 1100, I now have a rechargeable ReLight led booklight that works just fine for my non backlit eInk screen.

Ultimately, after using my 505, it was the extra weight and/or battery life that stopped me from further persuing an LCD based reader. This is the main reason I believe eInk readers have become so much more popular. I hope for this to change when the NotionInk Adam 10.1" Android tablet eventually (crossing my fingers ) comes to market with the 3 mode Pixel Qi LCD screen... 1) A full backlit color LCD mode; 2) A low power color transflective LCD mode; and 3) A no backlight, fully reflective, sunlight readable gray scale ereader mode. Current speculations are that there will be about 20+ hours continuous operation in ereader mode while just reading ebooks (very low processor/battery usage), and as little as 5-6 hours continuous use when watching 1080p video with full backlight and speakers cranked up to max.


And to ColdSun...

Originally Posted by ColdSun

...
1. Folks who say LCD "damages" their eyes are incorrect. I do not assume that anyone here has said that but it is a popular belief these days.
...

... The funny thing is, you don't like how I say it, but its ok for the guy above to tell everyone that LCD is bad for their eyes... Go figure. ...

(bold added by me for emphasis, it illustrate the condraditory nature of this post)

I agree with you, that LCD screens aren't as evil/dangerous/'just plain bad for you' that some may have claimed elsewhere on the net (maybe even elsewhere on these forums, not sure as I havent read every single thread ), but the problem is that however 'popular' the belief, I don't see anyone in this thread has claiming this. At most, all I have read are personal anecdotes relaying their experience with reading ebooks on LCD screens, and how they prefer reading on eink, and also others to the contrary prefering backlit color LCD screens. Despite this, it seems that your reading into every negative personal experience with reading on LCD screens as an all out attack on LCD tech in general. And to generalize a little here, many of your replies seem to come off as a "Your wrong, I'm right, end of story, live with it." This does not engender constructive debate about one type of tech vs. another, mainly it just pisses people off. You put them on the defensive by dismissing their experiences, they reply, then you get on the defensive and reply back in a similar manner as before (it's an endless cycle). Anywho... 'nuff said about this, the horse is indeed dead, but I just had to poke it with a stick to make sure.

In summary, do I prefer LCD or eInk for reading? Both. Each has their advantages, and I enjoy reading on either type of screen, but for a portable reader, any LCD reader I purchase in the future will need to have many more features than my current eInk reader to be even considered by me, due to the increased weight/battery life. This is why I am eagerly awaiting the Adam tablet; it has a 10" screen, an eInk type mode for increased battery life approaching what I get in a dedicated eInk reader, and it does so much more than just display ebooks. All that, and it should only be slightly heavier than my old REB1100 (about 21 ounces for the Adam vs. about 17 for the REB1100)

[Krystian Galaj]

I'm 33 years old, so I assume no aging changes yet.

I have -4.50 on both eyes, so I wear glasses. Aging changes would shift that to +, actually inmproving my eyesight.

1. I can't watch anything on brightly lit monitor, or TV in a dark room. If I try, I get splitting headache in 10 minutes, latsing for hours. Reading from backlit PDA or iPhone screen at night, in darkness does the same thing, even if the PDA is set to minimum brightness, and with yellow letters on a black background.

2. I can't work with CRT monitors - if I try, I get the same splitting headache after 10 minutes, no matter what brightness/contrast settings are, or what external ligting is.

3. I can work with LCD monitors, in fact I do, 8 hours a day, and it's tolerable, but only if:
- There's a bright light source shining at monitor, all the time. Brighter than the monitor.
- The brightness/contrast of the monitor are set to minimum, sometimes even making things harder to read.
- I adjust the web pages/applications I work with to have as many dark colors as I can. I modify settings to switch background to dark in programs I work with. I change forum skins to be dark, with yellow letters, not light. I have my desktop wallpaper all black.
Otherwise I get a headache, and red eyes.

4. I can read from e-ink, in bright light, or semi-darkness, on minimum font possible on Gen3 for a whole day and I get no hint of any headache, and no problem with my eyes.

5. I had a Sony Palmtop. If I switched off the backlighting, and read in bright sunlight, in which that screen worked fine, I had no eyestrain at all, as well. With backlighting, even in my brightly-lit room, in the evening, I was getting headaches.

Originally Posted by ColdSun

The LCD eyestrain issue is a myth.

Well, that only tells me much about you...

Originally Posted by ColdSun

Do you have heavy duty scientific data to support your claims? No. You believe LCD strains your eyes more. The article itself explains what the true cause of your eye strain is. I'm sorry if you don't like what I said, but after a couple years of seeing false information about LCD screen technology, some of us are actually sick of seeing it posted again and again. The FACT is that it is a matter of preference and the LCD eyestrain thing is a myth.

Do the results of such experiment as the one I just described matter anything to you? Well, they matter to me, more that any bullshit from talking heads with many titles does. It's my head and my headache after all.

[sabredog]

This whole "this one is better" argument is really pointless.

My eyes tell me that they hate reading on LCD's for extended periods of time. As my eyes are not the greatest, I listen to what they have to say.

If I lose them I cannot see my wife's face, cannot see my children's faces or my grandchild to be's face, cannot read or indulge my hobbies.

So do I pander to them? Too bloody right I do!

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

I'm 33 years old, so I assume no aging changes yet.

I have -4.50 on both eyes, so I wear glasses. Aging changes would shift that to +, actually inmproving my eyesight.

1. I can't watch anything on brightly lit monitor, or TV in a dark room. If I try, I get splitting headache in 10 minutes, latsing for hours. Reading from backlit PDA or iPhone screen at night, in darkness does the same thing, even if the PDA is set to minimum brightness, and with yellow letters on a black background.
...
Do the results of such experiment as the one I just described matter anything to you? Well, they matter to me, more that any bullshit from talking heads with many titles does. It's my head and my headache after all.

Maybe you should listen to the talking heads:

"Light Sensitivity: Sensitivity to bright light occurs normally during extremely sunny conditions or when coming out of a dark environment into bright sunlight. Such sensitivity can also be caused by drugs used to dilate the pupils (mydriatics). However, pain resulting from bright light (photophobia) can be a symptom of a migraine headache or a number of eye disorders, for example, those that involve inflammation or infection within the front part of the eye (uveitis), a corneal disorder (such as keratitis), or an eye injury. It may also be due to meningitis (which is also typically accompanied by a severe headache and neck stiffness).

Doctors first try to differentiate light sensitivity from photophobia. The cause of light sensitivity or photophobia can usually be determined by the person's symptoms and an eye examination. A slit lamp examination is particularly useful for detecting disorders that cause photophobia. Light sensitivity and photophobia can be minimized by protecting the eyes from light (for example, by using sunglasses). When photophobia is the result of inflammation within the eye, dilating eye drops can help to relieve pain."

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I concur. But one way to avoid such issues is to not to respond in kind.

<shrug>

I'm one of the folks for whom advancing age has caused eye changes, and wear reading glasses. As I aged, I got far sighted.

I don't have a problem with LCD screens. I've been staring at CRT screens for a majority of the day for many years, starting back before LCD became the preferred technology, and never found it a problem, though I recognize some folks do. (I know one chap who developed an actual allergy to large CRT screens, which was problematic as he works for a major computer vendor.)

My default reader is a PDA, for three reasons:

1) I need color support. A fair bit of what I read uses it. For instance, I collect electronic versions of illustrated children's books that are coming into the public domain. Illustrations by Randolph Caldecott, Arthur Rackham, or N. C. Wyeth rendered in 16 shade grayscale? No, thank you.

2) I need a device that does other things besides display ebooks. Dedicated readers are becoming multi-function, but aren't at a point I'd use. While half the purpose in life for my PDA is reading ebooks, I can create, view and edit documents and spreadsheets, perform standard PDA functions like keep my calendar, appointments, and address book, view videos, listen to audio files, surf the web, program in an assortment of languages, keep a reference library of information that is not in ebook format, play with code in an assortment of languages, and oh, yes, I can play games. The one thing I don't do with the PDA is make phone calls - I have a separate cell phone, and don't want a converged device. I'll carry around a xell phone and PDA. I won't carry a cell phone, PDA, and reader.

3) With my PDA, I can read just about anything. About the only popular current format I can't read is ePub, as no ePub reader is available for my device, but I can convert ePub to something I can read. I wouldn't mind a larger screen, but can deal with the one I have.

The biggest advantage to eInk devices for anybody is increased battery life, as eInk requires no power to refresh the screen once a page is rendered. I wouldn't mind longer battery life, but my PDA gets topped off nightly, and I've never had a case where I exhausted the battery before being able to recharge. I'm a little bemused at complaints about the color nook's 8 hour battery life. Assuming it actually gets that life, I wonder how many folks might find themselves in a position where they will drain the battery before they can recharge, and what they'll be doing that will put them in that position.
______
Dennis

Thank you Dennis, great well thought out post that is insightful, makes sense & doesn't insult or put anything or anyone down. I will try my best to respond to the insulting anti lcd posters without insulting them myself but still make my point that it doesn't have to be an either/or debate.

Originally Posted by Jakie

It seems to me this is a forum about reading....not only devices. We seem to lose sight (sorry about the pun -not) that regardless which screen method, we ARE reading, and electronically at that. I have read on PDA, netbook, android pad with cheap resisitive screen, and will pick up an e ink reader in the near future. Global statements that X cannot be used for reading, because...does not stand up to scrutiny. I am glad that we like the device we have...after all, we bought it. Let's not try to convert the world. Remember, " a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still" End of sermon.

Terrific and correct conclusion post. Thanks Jakie.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Eye strain has nothing to do with the source of light, and has everything to do with the distance between your eye and the screen. Normal reading distance, that is the distance where people with good eyesight would have no eyestrain, is 35 cm (14"). People with myopia (nearsighted) feel better if the distance is shorter, people with hyperopia (farsighted) feel better if the distance is bigger. Young people with good eyesight can adjust to different distances.
If you have no problem reading for hours of your desktop monitor you are probably farsighted, if you can't stand to read of a desktop monitor you might be nearsighted.
With hand held devices, the problem is different. If it is too heavy you will keep it in a position that gives less strain to your hand muscles, since otherwise your hand will start to hurt before you feel eyestrain. And, obviously, you will get eyestrain.
There is a size for the image of letters on your retina that gives best reading speed and comprehension. If the font is too small (even if your eyesight is good and you can see the letters) you will feel the need to bring the device closer to your eyes and you will get eyestrain.
You can't get an accurate impression of a screen if you are looking over somebody's shoulder: the distance is bigger and therefore it is normal to get eye strain.
Any discomfort that you feel from your device in terms of light intensity is not eye strain, that is just your brain telling you to get away from the bright light, and it has to do with the fact that you are going to damage your eyes if you don't. (Long before electronic devices there was always the sun.) This can be avoided by turning the lights on in the room (your pupil will get smaller, as your eyes adjust), turning the brightness down or reading white letters on black background.
There is of course the other side, where there is not enough light intensity, and all I can say to that is: stop it, night vision was not meant for reading.

LCD monitors are not like CRT monitors. The problem with CRTs is that they are emitting small amounts of X-ray radiation, which you wouldn't actually feel, but were damaging your eyes, and the closer you would get to it, the more X-rays you got.

Thank you so much Sil_lis for this informative, illuminating, factual post. I suspect you have a medical background to provide all of this terrific information. Laying it out as you have, makes it completely clear & understandble why people might have trouble with lcd's, or reading in either too much or too little light. THANK YOU!

[jee]

When reading on LCD screens, I often get severe headache and dizziness, which is not the case with e-ink screens, so the backlight is causing these symptoms. For someone LCD screens work just fine.