LCD vs. e-ink: The eyestrain debate - Page 3

Suzanna · 11-09-2011, 10:34 AM

Not too long ago I would have said both were fine, but lately (now that I'm "of a certain age") I'm finding that LCD does strain my eyes after a period of time.

afa · 11-09-2011, 12:47 PM

I find the easiest way to read is to hold a paperback in my hands while someone shines a halogen lamp inches from my eyes.

Prestidigitweeze · 11-09-2011, 01:16 PM

I do find prolonged reading on eInk less painful than on LCD, but I know what the article writer meant when he said he wished the iPad had the iPhone's "retina display." I hate reading and writing on the iPad, with its gimped ppi; not so with iPhones 4 and 4S and the retina-fortified Touch.

iPad: 132 ppi; iPhone 4: 326.

Resolution on an LCD seems to be quite important. SAMOLED screens on 1st-gen Galaxy S phones were gorgeous, and their blacks were perfect for watching documentaries about bioluminescent fish. But when I switch back and forth from a Nexus S to an iPhone 4, I find reading far less fatiguing on the latter.

And that's coming from someone who will likely never buy an iPhone.

The first company that makes a tablet with good specs, a great screen and a resolution of 320 ppi or higher will probably have my money as long as they don't ask for too much of it.

seajewel · 11-09-2011, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

I do find prolonged reading on eInk less painful than on LCD, but I know what the article writer meant when he said he wished the iPad had the iPhone's "retina display." I hate reading and writing on the iPad, with its gimped ppi; not so with iPhones from 4G on.

iPad: 132 ppi; iPhone 4: 326.

Resolution on an LCD seems to be quite important. SAMOLED screens on 1st-gen Galaxy S phones were gorgeous, and their blacks were perfect for watching documentaries about bioluminescent fish. But when I switch back and forth from a Nexus S to an iPhone 4, I find reading far less fatiguing on the latter.

And that's coming from someone who will likely never buy an iPhone.

The first company that makes a tablet with good specs, a great screen and a resolution of 320 ppi or higher will probably have my money as long as they don't ask for too much of it.

I agree. When the iPad comes with a high resolution screen, hopefully other tablets will follow. I need a tablet for reading pdf documents for work but I'm holding out for something with a better screen.

Kris777 · 11-09-2011, 09:00 PM

I like these comments made by Russ Wilcox, co-founder E Ink :

While LCDs are adequate for reading, E Ink was invented and engineered for the best possible reading experience. Your readers might like to hear about a few technical factors that are not well known and contribute to the difference:

1. Ambient brightness
Over the years many people have told me that reading an emissive display is bothersome to them while E Ink is not.

I think one reason is that as you read, your eyes skip along the lines of text, dwelling for a fraction of a second on small groups of words. Your eyes are constantly moving ? hundreds of times per minute. So it is very important that your eyes be able to refocus on the surface of a screen within a split-second.

Emissive displays are ill-suited for this. While you are reading a book, you see a lot more than the screen. Your field of vision is wider than the page alone and your eyes often glance off the page. With a backlit screen, every time your eye switches from a bright screen to the dimmer ambient room, your eye muscles must make an adjustment. And the more adjustments, the more chance for eyestrain.

With paper or E Ink, the page is the same brightness as everything else in the room. Your eye needs less adjustment effort to go back and forth. You can see and understand information more immediately. Paper is the ultimate "glanceable" display and that helps improve comprehension and maximize reading speed.

2. No parallax / closer to the eye

Have you ever gazed at a calculator display and noticed a bit of a shadow? That is parallax. The same thing happens on your emissive LCD. The white color is actually coming from a backlight behind the LCD; the black color is coming from a shadow cast by the liquid crystal material in the middle of the LCD glass sandwich. So black and white are different distances from your eye. This degree of shadowing changes with the viewing angle. There are also two sheets of glass and multiple polarizer films between your eye and the white background, which creates a slight feeling of separation between screen and real world.

In an E Ink display, the electronic ink contains black and white particles that are both moved physically by electrophoresis to the front of the display. So both black and white are exactly the same distance from your eye. Furthermore, both are at the front pressed up to the top layer of glass. This greatly contributes to the feeling that the information is printed on the top of a page.

3. Less glare

All E Ink display surfaces are treated to be matte like a printed page. Most LCDs are not. This is not an obvious feature when you buy the product, but it makes a huge difference to legibility in some settings.

4. Same contrast across the entire page

Although modern LCDs have greatly improved their viewing angle uniformity, there is still a detectable difference in contrast ratio across the page. These differences in contrast make it just a tiny bit harder to resolve images as your eye skips along the page. As the screen gets larger or closer to your eyes, as with a handheld book, this angular difference is increased.

5. No aperture ratio loss

The pixels on LCD screens do not have a full aperture ratio, because each pixel must be separated by a black border. The border hides the underlying transistor and separates the areas of the color filter. There are actually 3 sets of borders per pixel, since color LCDs have RGB subpixels. This all adds up to tiny black gaps between each pixel. As LCDs reach higher resolutions there are even more dead gaps as a percentage of viewing area.

E Ink screens have a 100% aperture ratio. There is no black mask and no black border between pixels. When two neighboring pixels are white on an E Ink screen, the pixels merge to form a solid block of white. Therefore the blacks and whites on an E Ink screen are uniform, again improving image quality.

birdbrainbb · 11-09-2011, 09:25 PM

I get a headache if I read for more than an hour or so at a time on an LCD screen, but e-ink never gives me headaches. So, yeah!

Freeshadow · 11-09-2011, 09:41 PM

it is no matter of age.
Apart from the fact that I prefer eink myself
2 months ago I met a student (no idea how old exactly, but I strongly assume younger than me) who told me she was printing every of her course documents because she had always trouble with reading them on any kind of screen.
I shiwed her my reader and she was astonished and interested because she could read on it

wyndslash · 11-09-2011, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

it is no matter of age.
Apart from the fact that I prefer eink myself
2 months ago I met a student (no idea how old exactly, but I strongly assume younger than me) who told me she was printing every of her course documents because she had always trouble with reading them on any kind of screen.
I shiwed her my reader and she was astonished and interested because she could read on it

i used to do that too. i could never read my course readings on my computer.

Kris777 · 11-10-2011, 12:42 AM

[QUOTE=birdbrainbb;1825998]I get a headache if I read for moe than an hour or so at a time on an LCD screen, but e-ink never gives me headaches. So, yeah![/QUOT
E]100% agree. I have the same problem when I read more than 20 minutes on my Toshiba tablet even when I change brightness of the screen.

Donnageddon · 11-10-2011, 01:10 AM

I am thinking of starting a new theater group that reproduces the top TV shows on stage for those who find reading on an LCD to cause eyestrain.

carpetmojo · 11-10-2011, 03:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Bear in mind, the "Both are equally easy" option wasn't available earlier. If it had been, I would've voted for that instead of e-ink. Of course, this is MobileRead and as such, the results are already expected to be skewed in favor of e-ink.

Erm... by "skewed" do you mean that the poll will show most prefer eink, possibly because this is a site for ereading and primarily ereaders, or are you suggesting that the result will not reflect a true result - even if that's what most readers prefer ?

elcreative · 11-10-2011, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

I am thinking of starting a new theater group that reproduces the top TV shows on stage for those who find reading on an LCD to cause eyestrain.

And I sincerely hope that you never find the joys of a full-blown migraine attack that effectively disables you for several days... and if you don't understand the difference between reading something and watching a TV program then you are precisely what I first though when reading your snide quote...

ilovejedd · 11-10-2011, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Erm... by "skewed" do you mean that the poll will show most prefer eink, possibly because this is a site for ereading and primarily ereaders, or are you suggesting that the result will not reflect a true result - even if that's what most readers prefer ?

Well, both. This is a specialty site/forum as such, it's expected that the results will be skewed and won't be indicative of the general populace.

It's just like if you go to a computer hardware site/forum. You might see that 70% of members overclock their computers but if you look at the whole population of computer users, probably less than 5% actually overclock.

LuBiB · 11-10-2011, 11:08 AM

i know that a few of my friends who do suffer from migraines and even have eye problems where they can't strain them for too long cant look at a backlit LCD for too long or else their issues become too much.

there definitely is something behind that and the info Kris pointed out shows that it does affect the overall health of the eye

X read X · 11-10-2011, 11:17 AM

eInk eInk eInk!! (or TFT LCD in my case).

I mean do people not get it, an eReader is an eReader and a tablet is a tablet. If you want the enhanced reading experience use an eReader. Whenever i look at a tablet i just associate work and obligation.

When i'm on my eReader its leisure, it takes me away from "real life" haha.

View Poll Results: Which electronic reading format is easiest on the eyes?
E-ink	295	76.62%
Color LCD	14	3.64%
Both are equally easy on my eyes	76	19.74%
Voters: 385. You may not vote on this poll

11-09-2011, 01:16 PM	#33
Prestidigitweeze Fledgling Demagogue Posts: 2,384 Karma: 31132263 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: White Plains Device: Clara HD; Oasis 2; Aura HD; iPad Air; PRS-350; Galaxy S7.	I do find prolonged reading on eInk less painful than on LCD, but I know what the article writer meant when he said he wished the iPad had the iPhone's "retina display." I hate reading and writing on the iPad, with its gimped ppi; not so with iPhones 4 and 4S and the retina-fortified Touch. iPad: 132 ppi; iPhone 4: 326. Resolution on an LCD seems to be quite important. SAMOLED screens on 1st-gen Galaxy S phones were gorgeous, and their blacks were perfect for watching documentaries about bioluminescent fish. But when I switch back and forth from a Nexus S to an iPhone 4, I find reading far less fatiguing on the latter. And that's coming from someone who will likely never buy an iPhone. The first company that makes a tablet with good specs, a great screen and a resolution of 320 ppi or higher will probably have my money as long as they don't ask for too much of it. Last edited by Prestidigitweeze; 11-09-2011 at 01:28 PM.

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11-09-2011, 10:34 AM	#31
Suzanna Living in the past Posts: 432 Karma: 6011289 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Arc	Not too long ago I would have said both were fine, but lately (now that I'm "of a certain age") I'm finding that LCD does strain my eyes after a period of time.

11-09-2011, 12:47 PM	#32
afa The Forgotten Posts: 1,136 Karma: 4689999 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Dubai Device: Kindle Paperwhite; Nook HD; Sony Xperia Z3 Compact	I find the easiest way to read is to hold a paperback in my hands while someone shines a halogen lamp inches from my eyes.

11-09-2011, 09:00 PM	#35
Kris777 Banned Posts: 1,767 Karma: 2520493 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: Nexus 7, jetBook-Lite, jetBook mini, Toshiba Thrive, JETBOOK COLOR	I like these comments made by Russ Wilcox, co-founder E Ink : While LCDs are adequate for reading, E Ink was invented and engineered for the best possible reading experience. Your readers might like to hear about a few technical factors that are not well known and contribute to the difference: 1. Ambient brightness Over the years many people have told me that reading an emissive display is bothersome to them while E Ink is not. I think one reason is that as you read, your eyes skip along the lines of text, dwelling for a fraction of a second on small groups of words. Your eyes are constantly moving ? hundreds of times per minute. So it is very important that your eyes be able to refocus on the surface of a screen within a split-second. Emissive displays are ill-suited for this. While you are reading a book, you see a lot more than the screen. Your field of vision is wider than the page alone and your eyes often glance off the page. With a backlit screen, every time your eye switches from a bright screen to the dimmer ambient room, your eye muscles must make an adjustment. And the more adjustments, the more chance for eyestrain. With paper or E Ink, the page is the same brightness as everything else in the room. Your eye needs less adjustment effort to go back and forth. You can see and understand information more immediately. Paper is the ultimate "glanceable" display and that helps improve comprehension and maximize reading speed. 2. No parallax / closer to the eye Have you ever gazed at a calculator display and noticed a bit of a shadow? That is parallax. The same thing happens on your emissive LCD. The white color is actually coming from a backlight behind the LCD; the black color is coming from a shadow cast by the liquid crystal material in the middle of the LCD glass sandwich. So black and white are different distances from your eye. This degree of shadowing changes with the viewing angle. There are also two sheets of glass and multiple polarizer films between your eye and the white background, which creates a slight feeling of separation between screen and real world. In an E Ink display, the electronic ink contains black and white particles that are both moved physically by electrophoresis to the front of the display. So both black and white are exactly the same distance from your eye. Furthermore, both are at the front pressed up to the top layer of glass. This greatly contributes to the feeling that the information is printed on the top of a page. 3. Less glare All E Ink display surfaces are treated to be matte like a printed page. Most LCDs are not. This is not an obvious feature when you buy the product, but it makes a huge difference to legibility in some settings. 4. Same contrast across the entire page Although modern LCDs have greatly improved their viewing angle uniformity, there is still a detectable difference in contrast ratio across the page. These differences in contrast make it just a tiny bit harder to resolve images as your eye skips along the page. As the screen gets larger or closer to your eyes, as with a handheld book, this angular difference is increased. 5. No aperture ratio loss The pixels on LCD screens do not have a full aperture ratio, because each pixel must be separated by a black border. The border hides the underlying transistor and separates the areas of the color filter. There are actually 3 sets of borders per pixel, since color LCDs have RGB subpixels. This all adds up to tiny black gaps between each pixel. As LCDs reach higher resolutions there are even more dead gaps as a percentage of viewing area. E Ink screens have a 100% aperture ratio. There is no black mask and no black border between pixels. When two neighboring pixels are white on an E Ink screen, the pixels merge to form a solid block of white. Therefore the blacks and whites on an E Ink screen are uniform, again improving image quality.

11-09-2011, 09:25 PM	#36
birdbrainbb Addict Posts: 287 Karma: 2191035 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Anaheim, CA Device: Kindle Oasis, Kindle Paperwhite 5	I get a headache if I read for more than an hour or so at a time on an LCD screen, but e-ink never gives me headaches. So, yeah!

11-09-2011, 09:41 PM	#37
Freeshadow temp. out of service Posts: 2,815 Karma: 24285242 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Duisburg (DE) Device: PB 623	it is no matter of age. Apart from the fact that I prefer eink myself 2 months ago I met a student (no idea how old exactly, but I strongly assume younger than me) who told me she was printing every of her course documents because she had always trouble with reading them on any kind of screen. I shiwed her my reader and she was astonished and interested because she could read on it

11-10-2011, 12:42 AM	#39
Kris777 Banned Posts: 1,767 Karma: 2520493 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: Nexus 7, jetBook-Lite, jetBook mini, Toshiba Thrive, JETBOOK COLOR	[QUOTE=birdbrainbb;1825998]I get a headache if I read for moe than an hour or so at a time on an LCD screen, but e-ink never gives me headaches. So, yeah![/QUOT E]100% agree. I have the same problem when I read more than 20 minutes on my Toshiba tablet even when I change brightness of the screen.

11-10-2011, 01:10 AM	#40
Donnageddon Now you lishen here... Posts: 2,494 Karma: 479498 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Seattle-ish Device: Sony PRS-650. Kobo Touch, Kindle Fire	I am thinking of starting a new theater group that reproduces the top TV shows on stage for those who find reading on an LCD to cause eyestrain.

11-10-2011, 11:08 AM	#44
LuBiB Banned Posts: 349 Karma: 1018593 Join Date: May 2009 Location: New York Device: jetBook, iPhone, JETBOOK COLOR!!	i know that a few of my friends who do suffer from migraines and even have eye problems where they can't strain them for too long cant look at a backlit LCD for too long or else their issues become too much. there definitely is something behind that and the info Kris pointed out shows that it does affect the overall health of the eye

11-10-2011, 11:17 AM	#45
X read X Banned Posts: 81 Karma: 502298 Join Date: Dec 2009 Device: Jetbook, iPhone 4, Jetbook Color.	eInk eInk eInk!! (or TFT LCD in my case). I mean do people not get it, an eReader is an eReader and a tablet is a tablet. If you want the enhanced reading experience use an eReader. Whenever i look at a tablet i just associate work and obligation. When i'm on my eReader its leisure, it takes me away from "real life" haha.