MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Reading on the Blackberry Curve, a "mature" perspective

tmoody · 08-07-2009, 02:32 PM

I have a Blackberry Curve 8900, similar in size to the earlier 83xx models. I have installed three readers on it: Shortcovers, BN eReader, and Mobipocket. I've read three books on it now, so I thought I'd share my impressions.

The main thing is, I didn't expect this to work at all. It seemed like a very bad idea. I'm 55; I wear "progressive" lens eyeglasses; I get eyestrain from reading too much. But I tried it anyway. To my surprise, the experience was much better than I thought it would be.

The usable portion of the screen on the Curve is about 2 1/8" wide (a little less; about 5.35 cm, in fact). This, I found out, is a bit more than a typical newspaper column. On the reader apps, I set the font size to 40. I'm not sure what the units are. It's not points, but could be pixels. At any rate, at that setting the print is much larger than newspaper type, and larger than most printed books that I read. Eight lines fit on the screen at a time. I keep the screen brightness at 50% anyway, and this seems fine.

The interesting thing is that I find that I read more rapidly this way. My eyes take in screen-sized bites very easily. One of the things that causes eyestrain in normal reading is horizontal scanning, and this is obviously minimized in this format.

As we age, our eyes become more susceptible to hyperfocus anyway, so that we can experience blurred distance vision after reading for extended periods. I've found this to be no worse after reading on my Curve, and it might even be a bit less severe. For years, I've found the best treatment is to take my glasses off altogether for an hour or so a day, and just let my eyes relax.

I actually tried a Blackberry Storm for this purpose, thinking its larger screen would be better. Unfortunately, the Storm wouldn't behave well on the T-mobile network, so I had to give up on that idea. The Storm's screen would have given me a little more than a half inch of additional width.

So, my main reason for posting this is to encourage people who believe, as I did, that extended reading on a device such as the Curve isn't feasible, to try it. You may be surprised.

Todd

08-07-2009, 02:32 PM	#1
tmoody Member Posts: 15 Karma: 34 Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Philadelphia Device: none	Reading on the Blackberry Curve, a "mature" perspective I have a Blackberry Curve 8900, similar in size to the earlier 83xx models. I have installed three readers on it: Shortcovers, BN eReader, and Mobipocket. I've read three books on it now, so I thought I'd share my impressions. The main thing is, I didn't expect this to work at all. It seemed like a very bad idea. I'm 55; I wear "progressive" lens eyeglasses; I get eyestrain from reading too much. But I tried it anyway. To my surprise, the experience was much better than I thought it would be. The usable portion of the screen on the Curve is about 2 1/8" wide (a little less; about 5.35 cm, in fact). This, I found out, is a bit more than a typical newspaper column. On the reader apps, I set the font size to 40. I'm not sure what the units are. It's not points, but could be pixels. At any rate, at that setting the print is much larger than newspaper type, and larger than most printed books that I read. Eight lines fit on the screen at a time. I keep the screen brightness at 50% anyway, and this seems fine. The interesting thing is that I find that I read more rapidly this way. My eyes take in screen-sized bites very easily. One of the things that causes eyestrain in normal reading is horizontal scanning, and this is obviously minimized in this format. As we age, our eyes become more susceptible to hyperfocus anyway, so that we can experience blurred distance vision after reading for extended periods. I've found this to be no worse after reading on my Curve, and it might even be a bit less severe. For years, I've found the best treatment is to take my glasses off altogether for an hour or so a day, and just let my eyes relax. I actually tried a Blackberry Storm for this purpose, thinking its larger screen would be better. Unfortunately, the Storm wouldn't behave well on the T-mobile network, so I had to give up on that idea. The Storm's screen would have given me a little more than a half inch of additional width. So, my main reason for posting this is to encourage people who believe, as I did, that extended reading on a device such as the Curve isn't feasible, to try it. You may be surprised. Todd