[mouha]

Originally Posted by kacir

Please note that you do not need to have wide margins around the text on an e-ink screen. You need margins on paper, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to bind a book or hold it open, but every e-ink reader has a frame around the screen that you can consider to be a margin.
Go ahead, take a standard fiction book and measure the line *length*. It has very similar length as the width of a 6" screen [in portrait orientation]. When you put your device into landscape position and set the margins to a couple of millimeters, the line length will be at least as big as in most fiction books. The number of lines on screen is not nearly as important as line length.

There is such thing as an ideal line length. Make a browser window very wide and you will notice that reading text becomes extremely difficult - your eye will lose the track of where the next line begins by the time you finish previous one. If the line length is too short your eyes will skip too much. Go ahead and google up "the ideal line length in a book". There is even Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length
We had 500 years to tweak it to perfection in the art of typesetting(*). Now count the number of characters in a well laid-out book and count the number of characters on a 6" screen with a really narrow margin (not like Kindle has).

Margins are not a problem for me, instead in my test I reduce them, if not remove them at all.
I see what you mean, and after thought about it you may touched something that was confusing me but I couldn't put word on.
Indeed, the inconfort may comes from the time when the eye change to the next line, and change the reader's perceptions.

Additionally, from this link I found something interesting :

How much or little scrolling is required to read the text will influence the speed of reading digital text.

Which is obviously true: this have consequences on ebooks reader sizes. And this maybe what disturb me.
I'd add an additional thing from your length theory : you need a minimum (and a maximum too) font size which
lead me to a notion made of a ratio: line length AND font size.
As they are both related, this may define each reader his/her reading comfort*.
For me, you need a min/max length with a min/max font size

*comfort for me is when I read a book I'm able to "dive" in the history and forget the book physical aspect.

From this point, I have finally tested the Inkpad yesterday and the H2O (E incarta) as well, and in that order.
Indeed, the length of the inkpad shows you a real, difference. There is a proper feeling of big size when you have
seen the 6" screen from a GLO. Nevertheless, the Inkpad contrast is really grey on the background, this maybe what Aldus told
about in his review. Moreover, I have turned pages slowly but I had a (totally except page nb) white page after a moment.
So as a personal POV for the Inkpad:

• a background not so white, a slowness which could be annoying & the famous FW white page made me doubted.
• Anyway the size is really great, you can increase the fonts size and keep a comfortable line length. The 330 g is not a problem at all and the thiness is nice too.

For the Kobo H2O :

• Even though the size is bigger form the Glo with a 6"8,you still have the ratio line length/font size small which is something I'm not sure I could be used to: here doubt again
• Besides, the screen is indeed impressive : the white is quite close to matte and black too. This improves my lack of comfort due to the size.
  Strangely, I had a fight with Caliber ergonomy to be able to dowload a book in dedicated dir, but this is another story, I'm sure there is an answer in a thread around here.

Originally Posted by kacir

Why do you think the 6" size is so widespread? Just read a few books on a 6" device and you will see. I personally wouldn't trade the extra screen size for transportability.

Simply because it took me a long time to find out that from the available readers some bigger exist. From this market I've found that only 3 models are available (those in my former text). Moreover, to be able to test the inkpad, most of the shops in the country, even as official salers, doesn't have any ! all people go 6", most of the reader availabe are 6".
But don't misunderstand me : I'm not ok with this situation and rather prefer to please my eyes than the possibility to put a reader in my purse.

Originally Posted by kacir

(*) nowadays the vast majority of e-ink readers - with Kindle leading the pack - we are throwing the ancient art of typesetting from the window, skipping even such basic things like hyphenation ... sigh ...

You preach a converted : like for the 6" size, this is the progress dictature.