[Prestidigitweeze]

All of which underscores a tragic derailment of miscommunication. If you strip away the costumes of advocacy, you find the same ideas repeated in technical explanations and empirical observation. The only opposition is in the orientation of the criticism, with adherents to each mode either expecting to be attacked or misunderstood.

The consensus seems to be that, in terms of readability, older LCDs are at a severe disadvantage when compared to e-ink, but the most recent (higher ppi) screens are not (in terms of pixellation and flicker, which are not an issue on e-ink due to non-reflectiveness, the absence of backlighting and the smoothing effect of the technology on pixels). We've established that older iPads can be difficult to read but new ones probably aren't. We've also disqualified AMOLED (older versions, at least) because of fuzzier text due to the pentile matrices I'd been reading about but hadn't actively compared to IPS panels because the sense of fatigue seemed identical to that of reading the original iPad, which had a rather nice IPS.

All of which suggests that people who have stated a preference for e-ink are neither ignorant nor curmudgeonly. They are simply comparing the LCDs they've used to e-ink and hadn't experienced the relief of using the very latest.

Even so, the fact no one who has emphasized the equality/superiority of LCD had mentioned the smoothness and textural effect of e-ink on readability until I did suggests that stats and technical explanations of screen tech, as valuable as they are, cannot eliminate the validity of users' experience. So rather than calling empirical descriptions ignorant or technical ones irrelevant, let's understand both as potentially complimentary. My reasons for preferring e-ink to the LCDs and AMOLEDs I've used so far remain valid. And I'll reserve my opinion on *equal* readability between retinal screens and e-ink until I've had the chance to use both side by side over time. I've spent too much of my life in studios A/B-ing sources that just had to sound identical but somehow didn't to accept theory over experience.

Both are valid and necessary, but the quality of the experience of spending time with a device is what matters ultimately for the user.