LCD vs. e-ink: The eyestrain debate

[bwaldron]

Originally Posted by toddos

Don't think of it as me converting people to LCD reading, but correcting misconceptions. I'm not saying that you don't experience eyestrain, I'm just saying that the causes put forth for it are often and obviously wrong.

Read eink if you like. I do, sometimes. But telling people to avoid LCDs because of misinformation is wrong.

I agree.

[Yapyap]

I'm in the "no reading off LCDs for leisure/pleasure" camp.

I've tried all sorts of tricks with my iPad and phone; have got to the point where something sepia-like for background (depending on the app) and brightness turned down to somewhere below 50% (can't turn it down any furtner as my eyesight isn't good and I need enough contrast) is enough that I could manage maybe an hour's reading, but it certainly still won't be as comfortable or easy as my Kindle 3.

I had a Sony PRS-505 before I got the iPad, and after suffering through one book on the iPad (this was before I found out how to remove DRM and convert, and that book was only available on Amazon) I went back to the Sony, with its old-fashioned, pre-Pearl eInk screen - if I couldn't get a book onto that, I just skipped it rather than read on the iPad. (After getting the Kindle, the Sony was immediately relegated to a deep drawer and I could hardly believe how easy I used to find reading on it, because the Kindle was just so much better. But even the Sony was miles above and ahead of the iPad as far as comfortable reading goes for me.)

Granted, I have eyesight issues - not just strong myopia but I also need a lot of surrounding light to read. I can't use a computer in a dark room, and I certainly can't read in a dark room, not off an LCD nor an eInk device. (And white-on-black, which so many people seem to love, means pretty much instant headache for me, with bad bloaters and streams of tears if I have to look at it more than two minutes.)

People are different. Eyes are different. Eyesights are different. Some people simply do not find reading on LCD screens comfortable, no matter how much they're told they're just doing it wrong and it's actually extremely nice.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Some people are just unable to understand that just because a problem doesn't affect *them* doesn't mean it doesn't affect others. Especially if they've found materials that seem to support their stance (in the case of this thread, materials that claim there is no significant flicker for LCD screens).

And I'm in the camp of those who get eyestrain and need, be it CRT or LCD, at least 70Hz vertical refresh to be at all comfortable reading high-contrast text - which is the vast majority of it on computers, especially on the Web where bright white backgrounds are the norm. Even then I need to take frequent breaks from reading and go watch a video or play a game to rest my eyes.

And some people are unable to understand that reading text on a desktop or laptop screen is completely different from reading on a portable device designed for reading. For example:

• Most desktop and laptop monitors older than the past ~2 years have a cold cathode flourescent backlight, which has inherent flicker in the light source. All handheld reading devices (phones, Nooks and Fires, iPads, etc) have LED backlights with no flicker. Therefore you're simply not going to get flicker on static text. It's impossible.
• Desktop and laptop monitors have terrible resolution. They're usually around 100ppi, if not lower. At best, you might hit 140ppi. Ignoring iPad, all handheld reading devices are over 160-170ppi. This makes a significant difference.
• Ergonomics, lighting, sitting position, distance to screen, etc all factor in as well

In short, if your only experience is with reading on a PC, you do not have the context to judge reading on an LCD-based reader device. I'm not saying you won't have issues with it. Plenty of people do, and plenty of devices have problems (older iPads with 132ppi resolution, cheap Chinese 7" Android tablets running 800x480 with 132ppi resolution, non-IPS screens, lack of granular backlight adjustments, lack of color configuration in reader apps, poor font rendering, access to Angry Birds and Facebook when you should be reading, etc). But throwing out an entire technology just because you've had a poor experience with a loosely-related application seems short-sighted (pun intended?).

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by calibrated

I used to prefer e-ink, then I got a Kindle Fire. Now when I read on my Kindle 3 the e-ink screen annoys me...not enough contrast in anything but very bright light.

Strange. I can read my Kobo Touch (eInk pearl) under any lighting conditions that would allow me to read a paper book.

[Belle2Be]

I get eyestrain from my MacBook if I'm on it too long and my nook color if I try to read on it at all. My kindle is definitely my dedicated reader. But so far, I'm pleased to note I haven't had any issues with the iPad3, eye wise. Unfortunately theres so many other things to do on it I'm like read read oh Facebook! Read read email! Read oh screw it- mobile read!

[BeccaPrice]

Thank you all for the technical discussion of why i got a headache last week - I love learning new things.

If ever i get the money for a retina screen device, I'll give reading on it a try. Til then, it's my K3.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Strange. I can read my Kobo Touch (eInk pearl) under any lighting conditions that would allow me to read a paper book.

Same here, though with any of my Sony ereaders.

In lower light, using an backlit LCD would provide me with a severe eyestrain headache in minutes.

I use my iPAD in good light conditions as a matter of course.

[ProDigit]

I think this whole thread is not really a debate! It's just a total random amount of users posting in one or the other camp!

It's been said before, LCD reads from just as nice as e-ink! Those who don't believe it, get a jetbook or a jetbook mini, and be amazed (since they have a reflective LCD technology)

For all the others out there, if you wouldn't put your monitors so freaking bright, you might actually walk away reading on a screen without a headache!

The key in all of this is balance! The right contrast with the right brightness, are enough to fool your brain into thinking you're actually reading from an e-ink screen, as the ONLY difference between LCD and e-ink that your brain/eyes can register is the amount of photons being emitted/reflected from the screen!
In other words, the ONLY thing that makes a difference is the CONTRAST and the BRIGHTNESS!
Set your LCD to the same values as you can see your e-ink has (same bright, same contrast) and reading from it will be actually the same as e-ink.

Having said that, most LCD monitors won't allow you to go so low in nits, as they have a 300nits screen, and you'll need well below 50 to get the same effect as an e-ink screen (perhaps even below 10).

But I guess this FACT will be seen by some as a personal opinion, as those individuals will never come to ACTUALLY TEST this theory, either by not being able to, or by not wanting to be found wrong, and thus these facts will be totally neglected and forgotten.

In such case I'd say, happy reading; you will always have problems reading an LCD until you actually DO the steps, so they can be proven correct, and you can reap the benefits of them!

But then again, everyone is free to choose NOT to try it out, and ignorantly believe that all LCD's are bad for reading... However their ignorance should prove the level of their knowledge of the topic.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

The key in all of this is balance! . . . In other words, the ONLY thing that makes a difference is the CONTRAST and the BRIGHTNESS! Set your LCD to the same values as you can see your e-ink has (same bright, same contrast) and reading from it will be actually the same as e-ink. . . . But I guess this FACT will be seen by some as a personal opinion, as those individuals will never come to ACTUALLY TEST this theory, either by not being able to, or by not wanting to be found wrong, and thus these facts will be totally neglected and forgotten. . . . But then again, everyone is free to choose NOT to try it out, and ignorantly believe that all LCD's are bad for reading... However their ignorance should prove the level of their knowledge of the topic.

A previous poster managed to articulate your views without making assumptions about the level of knowledge and experience of those with whom he disagreed:

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I'm not saying people who find eink more comfortable are 'fooling themselves,' just that scapegoating backlights may not be warranted, and other factors in your reading experience (and/or in the display technologies) may be at work.

He'd already mentioned contrast and brightness settings, of course.

And for the record, adjusting those settings is exactly what I do on with the AMOLED screen when using the Kindle app on my two-year-old smartphone. I suspect nearly everyone does this.

[ProDigit]

Amoled screens are even worse for reading due to their too high contrast (too bright screens). For some reasons manufacturers won't let AMOLED screens shine softly, but always ridiculously bright!

[Prestidigitweeze]

Which might be partly why the experience of reading on my Epic is so fatiguing no matter how I set the contrast.

There's also the sense that, for all the praise heaped on its deep blacks, my older AMOLED screen makes text slightly less distinct. As if the spaces between letters were painted rather than etched, if that analogy makes sense.

I've looked at both screens side by side and the e-ink's grays and blacks look a little like applied enamel to me. They almost have the appearance of texture, which I don't find true on my AMOLED.

[malik333]

Both E-ink and color LCD is easiest on my eyes. i have no problem.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

He'd already mentioned contrast and brightness settings, of course.

And for the record, adjusting those settings is exactly what I do on with the AMOLED screen when using the Kindle app on my two-year-old smartphone. I suspect nearly everyone does this.

Of course, why should I have to constantly fiddle with brightness & contrast settings to read on an LCD screen comfortably (and, even then, it WON'T be very comfortable, in my experience) for different lighting conditions when I could stick with my trusty eInk reader (which I can read under the same lighting conditions as a paper book) for far less fuss? And, no, I have no real desire to read in completely dark rooms, so that's not a selling point.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Which might be partly why the experience of reading on my Epic is so fatiguing no matter how I set the contrast.

There's also the sense that, for all the praise heaped on its deep blacks, my older AMOLED screen makes text slightly less distinct. As if the spaces between letters were painted rather than etched, if that analogy makes sense.

I've looked at both screens side by side and the e-ink's grays and blacks look a little like applied enamel to me. They almost have the appearance of texture, which I don't find true on my AMOLED.

Most AMOLED screens are RGBG pentile matrices, which explains fuzziness of small text.

Eink screens have "texture" to them, again because of the way the pixels are formed. Where LCD screens will have RGB triplets or RGBG groupings, eink pixels are basically little "bubbles" that contain drops of white and black pigments that are attracted to the surface as needed for display. So you end up with a mottled pixel that looks more like ink on paper than a solid color pixel from an LCD. And that's also why ppi is not quite as important for eink as it is for LCD, since eink pixels are "less sharp" and thus make smoother letter shapes at lower resolution.

[Prestidigitweeze]

All of which underscores a tragic derailment of miscommunication. If you strip away the costumes of advocacy, you find the same ideas repeated in technical explanations and empirical observation. The only opposition is in the orientation of the criticism, with adherents to each mode either expecting to be attacked or misunderstood.

The consensus seems to be that, in terms of readability, older LCDs are at a severe disadvantage when compared to e-ink, but the most recent (higher ppi) screens are not (in terms of pixellation and flicker, which are not an issue on e-ink due to non-reflectiveness, the absence of backlighting and the smoothing effect of the technology on pixels). We've established that older iPads can be difficult to read but new ones probably aren't. We've also disqualified AMOLED (older versions, at least) because of fuzzier text due to the pentile matrices I'd been reading about but hadn't actively compared to IPS panels because the sense of fatigue seemed identical to that of reading the original iPad, which had a rather nice IPS.

All of which suggests that people who have stated a preference for e-ink are neither ignorant nor curmudgeonly. They are simply comparing the LCDs they've used to e-ink and hadn't experienced the relief of using the very latest.

Even so, the fact no one who has emphasized the equality/superiority of LCD had mentioned the smoothness and textural effect of e-ink on readability until I did suggests that stats and technical explanations of screen tech, as valuable as they are, cannot eliminate the validity of users' experience. So rather than calling empirical descriptions ignorant or technical ones irrelevant, let's understand both as potentially complimentary. My reasons for preferring e-ink to the LCDs and AMOLEDs I've used so far remain valid. And I'll reserve my opinion on *equal* readability between retinal screens and e-ink until I've had the chance to use both side by side over time. I've spent too much of my life in studios A/B-ing sources that just had to sound identical but somehow didn't to accept theory over experience.

Both are valid and necessary, but the quality of the experience of spending time with a device is what matters ultimately for the user.