Have e-Readers been superseded by Tablets and Phones

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

It still flashes, but not usually with every page turn no more. The duration of the flash is greatly reduced with each new generation - tried my prs300 the other day and that flash is horribly long and annoying compared to what my PW does. It becomes less notiveable/annoying with time, but don't believe anybody that tells you it goes away and you tune it out completely. You will always notice.

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

I disagree. I don't notice it at all. Haven't for years now.

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Perhaps you do; I certainly don't. I notice it as much as I notice the turning of a page when reading a paper book: i.e. not at all.

Originally Posted by booklover6

I forgot about the black flash. That's how much I notice it.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I never really DID notice the black flash on eink. Even on the early devices.

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

The flash never bothered me either, and unless I was looking for it, I didn't even notice it. It's certainly less disruptive to reading than turning the page of a physical book.

I "don't notice it" so much that I had to double-check on reading this thread that it's actually happening.

(No, not really. I am intellectually aware that it happens. But I can tell you that the only times in my life when I can remember being aware of the flash is in the context of discussions like this.)

[DiapDealer]

The outdoors is overrated.
I work in it every day and it's always too damn hot or two damn cold. And even on the 6 days of the year that it might be in the neighborhood of "just right," I've had my fill of it by the time reading time rolls around.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The outdoors is overrated.
I work in it every day and it's always too damn hot or two damn cold. And even on the 6 days of the year that it might be in the neighborhood of "just right," I've had my fill of it by the time reading time rolls around.

Is this still a personal opinion that you accept as highly subjective and YMMV because different strokes for different folks?

Because I am pretty sure I at least never implied that reading outdoors is a requirement for anyone but me and the rest of the e-ink fanbois.

[DiapDealer]

And I never implied it was overrated for anyone other than myself and others who remain largely unimpressed by it.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And I never implied it was overrated for anyone other than myself and others who remain largely unimpressed by it.

Just checking.

Can't be too careful around here.

[Catlady]

As far as reading outdoors, that's what audiobooks are for.

[Yapyap]

I like to read out on the balcony in the summer - can't do that with the tablet (I've tried, it's just too much effort).

Audiobooks are not for everyone. I can't listen to them at all. Never even could manage radio plays or whatever as a child; focusing on lectures was also near-impossible, requiring huge effort and constant note-taking. I even prefer to have subtitles displayed when watching something, regardless of whether I can understand the audio or not. I just can't focus too well on narration/voice-acting/monologues, it seems. (I do okay in conversations with actual people though!)

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

For people with astigmatism it has been found...

Those are some interesting thoughts on astigmatic eyes. I am constantly talking about astigmatism and the strange problems it can cause with different screen technologies, so these things interest me (I have a rather heavy astigmatism).

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

For myself, my own order of preference for reading is AMOLED and high quality LCD equal first, then E Ink. My next reader will be a small tablet.

With my astigmatism I have spent lots of time figuring out what types of displays work best for me and at what quality level I can feel palpable differences. e-ink, even today, still feels hazy and "liquidy" or gel-like to my eyes, and I find reading on them to be somewhat tiring. I prefer a high resolution LCD display for absolute clarity of text like that found on my Fire HDX 7", but then the backlight can cause a bit of strain, so I only read on it during the daytime when the ambient light in my apartment is fairly close to that of the display. When I upgraded from my 2012 Nexus 7 (1280x800) to the Fire HDX (1920x1200, and just a better display) it was like a revelation. I couldn't believe how clear the screen was.

Still, astigmatism makes everything tricky.

[AnotherCat]

@Anthem:

Thanks for the feedback.

I have some astigmatism but apart from just being mild it is fully corrected as I wear hard contact lenses (have done so for over 40 years now, never had a problem with them and are easy to look after so never changed to soft after they came available). So I am not able to easily test these effects for myself.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Catlady

As far as reading outdoors, that's what audiobooks are for.

Or -- maybe -- you could just use an eInk Reader.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Or -- maybe -- you could just use an eInk Reader.

Yeah, I like audiobooks well enough but I don't find them anywhere near as relaxing as reading because I'm always multitasking when I'm listening to them. I listen to audiobooks if I'm walking alone or doing housework. For the same reason, I have much less recall of audiobooks.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by sl42

For limited/moderate reading at least. My craptastic Android tablet gets, at best (with the screen dimmed to its lowest setting, wifi/gps/sound off) five to six hours between charges. Nowhere near good enough for an ebook reader, though it is what I relied on for a couple of years.

I wish I could drain the battery of my tablet with simply e-reading during a day... Because that would mean I could read about 7 hours per day. As it is, I read, maybe, 30 to 60 minutes per day. And that 7 hour battery life of my tablet more than covers for that. I generally charge my tablet about once every two days.

Originally Posted by Catlady

Why is it that I'm supposed to take it as an absolute fact when people say flatly that LCD causes more eye strain than e-ink, but my statement that e-ink's page flash gives me a headache is greeted with apparent skepticism?

I will also disregard people who say that reading from a LCD screen causes more eye strain than from e-ink. Yes, if you turn the brightness all the way up in a dark room, with a white background and black lettering... (because I get tears in my eyes even thinking about it...)

But I seriously cannot believe you can get a headache from a single flash every half minute (or however fast you can read a page).

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Anthem

No problem. An astigmatism is basically a refractive error in the eye or the lens. Super basically, light just doesn't bend correctly. So you get haziness, blurriness, etc. If you have a super light astigmatism you may not even notice it.

Sometimes doctors will do partial correction (only one axis), full correction, or even no correction at all depending on the specific patients circumstances.

My astigmatism is fairly heavy. Without my glasses everything looks blurry and hazy. I first noticed it many years ago when distant objects had a double or triple image version of themselves, but all of the secondary versions looked like hazy ghost versions. My previous glasses only had partial correction (one dimension) for the astigmatism, and I could see a lot better but I was still getting eye strain every day. Finally got these glasses with full correction, everything looks so beautiful, but DANG it took me FOREVER to adjust to them properly without getting sick. Good now though.

Anyway, any light at all will end up causing problems with an astigmatism if the astigmatism is bad enough. If I take my glasses off, my beautiful high resolution Kindle Fire HDX fonts go from looking bold and tight to looking sloppy and like someone got too much water in the ink!

Long way of saying, I really appreciate e-ink screens due to this limitation of my biological hardware!

(Although, I sometimes jack up the font size if I don't have my glasses on when using the Fire HDX for books. This helps.)

Odd. I've never really noticed a problem though I have astigmatism in both eyes and have worn glasses since I was 5 (38 yrs now). Of course mine might not be as bad as yours though text does blur or get a bit fuzzy at a distance. In fact that's how they found out I had it. My dad held a wood block with a Sesame Street character on it up to the wall and asked me who the character was. I like e-ink because I can easily adjust the text size up or down if I wish. I use the size 4th from the left side most of the time and don't have problems.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I like to read out on the balcony in the summer - can't do that with the tablet (I've tried, it's just too much effort).

Audiobooks are not for everyone. I can't listen to them at all. Never even could manage radio plays or whatever as a child; focusing on lectures was also near-impossible, requiring huge effort and constant note-taking. I even prefer to have subtitles displayed when watching something, regardless of whether I can understand the audio or not. I just can't focus too well on narration/voice-acting/monologues, it seems. (I do okay in conversations with actual people though!)

I hear you. I have tried to take laptops and now my netbook outside to type on and it's very easy to get in too direct sunlight which causes the screen to darken so you can't really read anything. e-ink doesn't have that problem though you can't type something new on it like a netbook either.

[OverByter]

Originally Posted by crich70

Iyou can't type something new on it like a netbook either.

You can on a rooted NST, although I doubt you'd get very far with the infrared touch lag slowing you down. As far as e-ink itself I find it's greatest advantage to be the battery life, I can pretty much read on any screen relatively comfortably, however when I'm running out to an appointment somewhere I can just throw my reader in a backpack and know that when I turn it on I'll be good to go.
OB