[rowe]

Sure, glare from glossy screens can contribute to eyestrain.

But reflections are far from being only issue, and a minor issue for me. The relative reading comfort of e-ink for most people comes from a number of factors.

You are staring into a light source with an LCD/OLED, versus viewing reflected light with e-ink. Studies have directly measured significantly higher rates of visual fatigue and tired eyes after prolonged reading sessions with direct light.

Yes the obvious flicker of old CRTs is gone, but PWM and Temporal Dithering (Frame Rate Control - FRC) are a real issues on most non-eink screens. This sensitivity is not just anecdotal, flicker from light sources is a known cause of headaches and eyestrain. PWM has been measured on the TCL40/TCL Nxtpaper 14 at low light, despite their 'flicker-free' claims.

These symptoms vary by individual, but each is significant for a meaningful portion of the population. I tried lots of settings on the TCL including light level, and reading comfort was very poor for me compared to any e-ink device (including those with gloss surfaces).

Perhaps they've improved with Nxtpaper 4, but I'm wary due to the misinformation and gimmicks that came with the previous generations. They're still using temporal dithering by default on Nxtpaper 4 but looks like they'd added an option to switch it off in regular mode so I might give them another try.