Quote:
Originally Posted by LDBoblo
Since I have decent eyesight yet, I can't say that bigger, generally inferior fonts is the same as greater clarity. I see down to the details of each letter, which are quite hideous from a typographic perspective, even when laid out properly (which I rarely ever see). There's no feedback from the paper or global navigation, there's no convenient way to scan ahead, and the interfacing is pretty awful given the time the companies have had to design it. The contrast is poor, even ignoring the limited resolution, which together spell disaster for any delicate, beautiful serif font. As I mentioned...it's a way of getting content into the brain, albeit in a limited, highly linear fashion. In my opinion, it's convenient, but less beautiful than photocopied faxes or dot matrix prints. My paper books are a treat after doing some reading on the reader.
All the hard work and experimentation I did to find a font that was reasonably attractive on my PRS-505 was pretty much futile, though I did manage to find one or two that I can easily process and ignore without being distracted by the poor quality overall. I also try to choose the lighting that maximizes contrast and reduces the feathered, drained look of the e-ink. These things annoy me to no end, and prevent me from enjoying my reading.
That's of course ignoring all the errors that crop up in so many ebooks...both free and commercial.
Perhaps it's just ADD or somesuch, but I don't feel like finding out. 
I do admit though, these things don't need to bother everyone, but there are many people who these would bother, and they're casually ignored in a lot of reviews. It's good to see someone, even if they are a snob, point out that ebooks still have a long way to go for many of us. |
One would think (or expect) EInk screens to be the same, no matter which device they're mounted on. However, i find that on my BeBook the screen appears fairly white with nice dark (black) clear type. I prefer and use the IBOOKN font, one of the three offered in the standard firmware (the others being "times" and "arial" -- both quite clear also) and I could load on other fonts than these if I wanted.
My preferred format is Mobibook, and I convert all my titles to that format using Calibre. I choose 19pt type, with full page justification.
With this reader I find my reading is almost always better and more satisfying than reading paper.