LCD vs. e-ink

[Salgueiros]

I do like to read on a screen and it is also a second nature to me too, as i also was raised surrounded by computers. But, for pleasure reading it just have to be a screen i can stop noticing so i can immerse myself in whatever it is I am reading. That is why e-ink works wonderfully.

To work LCD works fine. The slight discomfort it is part of the awareness experience that makes me get my work done.

[ColdSun]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

I do like to read on a screen and it is also a second nature to me too, as i also was raised surrounded by computers. But, for pleasure reading it just have to be a screen i can stop noticing so i can immerse myself in whatever it is I am reading. That is why e-ink works wonderfully.

To work LCD works fine. The slight discomfort it is part of the awareness experience that makes me get my work done.

You just want a book when you read, and not a device so much. It simulates reading on a real book. I understand the passion now. For me, who takes devices to bed and uses them for browsing, reading, work, etc... My requirement is different. Still, I feel a little more understanding of you folks now.

[Salgueiros]

Exactly. For reading, and reading only, eink is better.

For multitasking, other devices are better suited.

[ColdSun]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

Exactly. For reading, and reading only, eink is better.

For multitasking, other devices are better suited.

I wouldn't go that far, but I can see how you feel that way for what you use it for. I would actually use an LCD device as a dedicated reader, but I'm a rare case. Most LCD folks are looking for a converging function. I don't want to do anything but read on my LCD reader, because I can do much more with the netbooks I have. I read in dark rooms a lot though, and a lot in bed. I've found that trying to use my Sony PRS-505 with a lamp is harder than using LCD, and my wife appreciates the light off as the LCD emits much less light. Plus, I actually do feel more strain to see my Sony in the dark than I do my LCD. This could be that I didn't have a good light to evenly light the surface of the screen, but you can see my point. I use black background and white text when reading in bed so it gives off very little light, just allowing me to see the text very clearly.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by tipstir

reading books on these 7" screens is not a good idea.

Interesting.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

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.

I liked your post. It showed that this is a very subjective, and not objective, matter.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by ColdSun

Just more stuff taken from other articles. Maybe this can help some LCD people who want a good reading experience:

That was good advice; don't think it would help in my case.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by ColdSun

You contridict yourself by saying you didn't use CRT, which isn't really true or you wouldn't be able to say it caused problems in the first place and frankly would mean you didn't use a computer at all when CRTs were used, which was the majority of time that computers have existed as LCD is still a new technology.

I never said I didn't use CRT monitors. If you don't know English well, you might have been misled by my statement "I haven't used any for years now". This means that once I did use CRT monitors, for short periods of time, but I stopped using them long ago.

Originally Posted by ColdSun

I'm a programmer. I have been since I was about 15. I am on a computer for way too many hours every day. It started on CRT and now I use LCD. I have 20/20 vision and have no problems. So there you are - my contradiction to your post. Nevermind all the other people here who have been saying the same thing in this thread. Yeah, thats what I thought. And yeah, I'm just like you, I'll defend my point to the end that LCD does not harm your eyes. That eink users do not all want eink screens and may choose something else because the market only released new reading dedicated eink machines for the last few years. That LCD causing eyestrain by itself or will shoot laserbeams into your eyes is a myth. I feel just as passionate about my opinion as you and if you are going to come at me about it you better have some facts of your own, other than your sweet personal preference loaded with misinformation about the technology itself.

I'm not sure if you realize that you aren't making any sense.
1. You stated that eyestrain is a myth, therefore that there doesn't exist even one person in the world who experiences it.
2. I said I am such person (there are many more, even in this thread), and that's enough to show it's not a myth.
3. I don't dispute that your eyes don't feel strained when reading on LCD. However, that doesn't mean that everybody is the same as you, and that what works for you, works for everybody. Your opinion that it's a myth would require everyone not to be strained when reading from LCD, and that's clearly not the case.
(by the way, I'm a programmer as well. C/C++/asm/game programming. Nevermind.)

Originally Posted by ColdSun

P.S. I was ready to stop posting in this thread but you are exactly the kind of eink user that pisses me off. You ignore everyone else here that posted that LCD was fine for them and caused no problems and because YOU have issues with it you dismiss the rest of us. Don't you see that my posts did exactly the same to you? And you got pissed right? Try the shoe on the other foot for a while and see what I mean.

If I answered everyone in the thread, and everyone answered me, it would quickly become impossible to say anything, as the number of information would increase exponentially. Also, while there are users who piss me off on the forums, your posts rather amused me, at least up to now.

Originally Posted by ColdSun

Try adjusting your contrast and brightness to acceptable levels. Change your settings from white background with black text to white text and black background. There are many things you can do. Either way, read those articles and the one at the beginning of this thread and get back to me.

That's exactly what I'm doing on LCD. I wrote about this... apparently you didn't read it

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

The eye adjusts to the total amount of light. The field of vision is a little different from person to person, but I'm guessing that your hand held device occupies less than 10% of it (this will largely depend on how close it is to your eyes). A computer screen will do more or less the same, since even though it is bigger, it is further away. So if you are reading in a dark room, your eyes will adjust mostly to the environment, trying to get as much light as possible. Beside the size of the FOV, there is also the matter of receptor density, which can also differ from person to person, making it possible for some eyes to adjust more to the light going to the center of the FOV.

For the pain and headache, it isn't necessary that all the receptor cells in your eyes feel the same large number of photons, a small area on your fovea (the part of the retina where the image of letters will be formed) is enough. And at the center of the fovea there are around 150,000 receptors /mm^2.

The fact is that you are not going to read you E-Ink in a completely dark room, and the amount of light that is scattered of the capsules of ink will never rival the light emitted by the LCD in terms of photons/mm^2 on your retina.

Thank you for the explanation. That would be quite enough to explain the example I gave, and it wasn't a good one to illustrate my problem. Please consider this: when I read on iPhone screen in darkness, I get headaches. However, if I turn on the lamp, I can then read for much longer time on the same screen, in the same conditions, and not get a headache. That's the same as with LCD screens, that's why I wrote in my first post that I'm always making sure the screen is brightly lit by outside source when I work. However, I should think that with such additional bright light, the amount of light entering my eyes would be even greater - so why am I not getting headaches then?
I thought for a long time that the problem was the refresh rate of the monitor. CRT monitors actually flash quickly, ie. get bright when raster line passes through pixels, and then get drak until next frame. I noticed that it took longer for me to get a headache on a CRT monitor with higher refresh rate, and I thought that possibly, with additional external source of light which doesn't blink/flash, the relative amplitude of minimal lighting vs maximal lighting isn't so big, and that's why my eayes don't get strained as much.
But then, as far as I know, LCD monitors don't blink/flash/get light/dark (what would be the right word?) 60 times a second, and yet I still get headaches, and still lighting a monitor with additional lamp helps me avoid them.

[ColdSun]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

I never said I didn't use CRT monitors. If you don't know English well, you might have been misled by my statement "I haven't used any for years now". This means that once I did use CRT monitors, for short periods of time, but I stopped using them long ago.

I'm not sure if you realize that you aren't making any sense.
1. You stated that eyestrain is a myth, therefore that there doesn't exist even one person in the world who experiences it.

That is not what I said. But you admitted to not reading everything here before... so... Until you do it might be better to stop making claims about what I said and just move on.

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

2. I said I am such person (there are many more, even in this thread), and that's enough to show it's not a myth.

I never said eyestrain was a myth. I said LCD eyestrain is a myth. Eyestrain is caused by any reading you do - even paper. What about the people in this thread that say it doesn't bother them? I never discounted the people in this thread - that is your misunderstanding. I discount people that say LCD damages their eyes. I discount when people claim everyone that reads on eink will only buy eink devices if given a choice. If you had bothered to read my post clearly, and not get "amused," perhaps you could have comprehended that.

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

3. I don't dispute that your eyes don't feel strained when reading on LCD. However, that doesn't mean that everybody is the same as you, and that what works for you, works for everybody. Your opinion that it's a myth would require everyone not to be strained when reading from LCD, and that's clearly not the case.
(by the way, I'm a programmer as well. C/C++/asm/game programming. Nevermind.)

I've actually programmed in all of the above languages. I don't do any game programming now though. That market is too volatile. I have a few good friends that work at Valve software doing AI programming. Used to do that around the late 90s and early 2000s, but I found the medical industry paid more.

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

If I answered everyone in the thread, and everyone answered me, it would quickly become impossible to say anything, as the number of information would increase exponentially. Also, while there are users who piss me off on the forums, your posts rather amused me, at least up to now.

Really now? Aren't you the one that said my post was bullshit? Called me a talking head? I would say those are pretty personal comments. I was actually amused until you replied to my reply of your first post. I'm not amused anymore either.

You asked me to prove my contradictions - I answered that. Can we get back to the topic at hand now and not your personal attacks?

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

That's exactly what I'm doing on LCD. I wrote about this... apparently you didn't read it

I read it, but it wasn't clear. Besides, the snippet you just chopped out wasn't directed at you. It was directed at other people who use LCD to read - which clearly you are not part of. Perhaps if you spent less time telling people their posts were bullshit and they were talking heads you might comprehend what each post says better than you seem to.

[JLeighs]

I don't like reading for any extended periods of time on an LCD screen. While I don't have any severe issues, after a certain point there is a level of discomfort that means I have to walk away for a bit to give my eyes a break. I don't have that issue with my Kindle, and I didn't have it reading regular books, either. The beauty of the Kindle, for me, is that reading the screen is almost exactly like reading a printed page. That is extremely important to me.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by JLeighs

The beauty of the Kindle, for me, is that reading the screen is almost exactly like reading a printed page. That is extremely important to me.

That is pretty much the crux of the matter isn't it?

All the studies in the world do not matter if LCD displays cause issues for you which detract from your reading experience and comfort.

Your body will tell you what it finds more comfortable, not a report or study.

[ski_power]

Originally Posted by sabredog

That is pretty much the crux of the matter isn't it?

Your body will tell you what it finds more comfortable, not a report or study.

This.
I've had eyestrain while using the iPad like I mentioned previsouly. But no strain except for extended periods of usage of my tiny 2.8' mobile screen display for years. This leads me to conclude what ColdSun says must be true. That it is based not just on the display technology, but upon the reading conditions as well. I'm pretty sure though, we all can agree on one thing that on a backlit screen(whichever tech) dark bg + light text > light bg + dark text.

[RichyRich]

This post should be titled backlit vs nonbacklit as there are non backlit LCD readers such as the Jetbook series that people can read on just as well as E-ink. The battery life and lighter weight of an E-ink reader is why I enjoy it more than LCD, but I would be okay with a nonbacklit LCD ereader as well, provided it had approx 20 hours of battery life.

As for LCDs, there's different technologies that companies use in the manufacture of them so that can adversly affect a person's views and opinions on LCDs.

[huannc]

I got a terrible eyestrain when reading on LCD for 1 hour or more. Hence, for extensive reading e-ink is much much better.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

However, I should think that with such additional bright light, the amount of light entering my eyes would be even greater - so why am I not getting headaches then?

I'm not sure if you actually read my explanation, or you just missed the part about the eyes adjusting to the amount of light. That is done by modifying the size of your pupil.

Let's say that the amount of light coming from a light emitting screen (that you are looking at in the dark) is focused on 10% or your retina. Let's call the amount of light that falls in this case on 1% of your retina, right in the middle where the image is focused "P" for pain.

Now you turn on the light making the room as bright as the screen. That means that if the pupil would be the same size, you would have the same "P" amount of light, now for every % of your retina. However, the iris contracts, making the pupil smaller, so that the same amount falls in sum on the whole of your retina, that means that in this example your pupil will be reduced to 1/10. That means that for the 1% of the area in the center of where the image is focused you now get 10%P from the screen + 10% from the ambient light=20%P.

Obviously, you can look 5 times longer at the screen in a brightly lit room.