What does reflective LCD (RLCD) feel like compared to e-ink?

[apastuszak]

Originally Posted by DNSB

To me that does not really make sense. In the case of both the eInk and RLCD panels, the light comes from the front and reflects off the display to your eye. The reflective layer simply increases the amount of usable light much like the tapetum lucidum layer in a cat's eye.

So, I guess my real question is, does RLCD offer the same level of eye strain relief that eInk does?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by apastuszak

So, I guess my real question is, does RLCD offer the same level of eye strain relief that eInk does?

I'd guess that depends on the person. There are lots of folks who have no eyestrain reading on a LCD/OLED panel. There are folks who get eyestrain from eink (not contrasty enough for them), but not from LCD/OLED. There are folks who get eyestrain from frontlit eink, to say nothing of ordinary screens. And so on.

In short, it varies from person to person.

[apastuszak]

I never thought I got eye strain from reading on my iPad. Then I took the same PDF I was reading and put it on my Kindle Scribe, and I was able to read it longer with greater comfort.

The difference actually surprised me.

[Quoth]

Often it's the shiny surface is the main issue, Apple are bad for that, and secondarily having the screen too bright. It should never exceed ambient on newsprint. Laser / inkjet / copier paper is very bright.

[apastuszak]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Often it's the shiny surface is the main issue, Apple are bad for that, and secondarily having the screen too bright. It should never exceed ambient on newsprint. Laser / inkjet / copier paper is very bright.

I put a matte screen protector on my iPad. I really like. I'll try turning down the brightness and see if that helps. I just wish it had better battery life.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by apastuszak

I put a matte screen protector on my iPad. I really like. I'll try turning down the brightness and see if that helps. I just wish it had better battery life.

Those are absolutely inferior to a real matt screen.

[apastuszak]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Those are absolutely inferior to a real matt screen.

But better than a gloss screen.

You work with what you have.

[radius]

I don't know about the TCL devices, but I used to have a Sony Clie PDA with a transflective screen. I think that is the same as what you are calling reflective LCD.

It was nowhere near as good as eink is on today's devices for reading.

First, the contrast was low. The default, uncolored background area of the screen wasn't as white as today's eink. So when I was indoors, I often had to turn on the frontlight. Outdoors it worked great.

Second, there was a gap between the crystal layer and the reflective layer so there could be a slight shadow of whatever was displayed on screen. This used to be very common for two color LCDs at the time too. I think with modern display manufacturing techniques this is likely remedied.

Third, the colour wasn't all that vibrant, though far better than today's color eink reader.

On the plus side, it was just as responsive as TFT screens and didn't have any ghosting.

In videos I've seen on Youtube, I think the darkness of the reflective layer continues to be a problem today even if it has been improved.

Regarding the frontlight and comfort, I don't see how that would be any different than frontlighting on an eink panel. They are both using a lightguide layer on the front to bounce white LCD light off the display layer.

With today's pixel density and display layer sandwiching techniques, I'm also intrigued at what RLCD could be like, but the fact that there are so few devices on the market probably means it isn't good enough. There is so much tooling and supply chain etc. for LCD panels that it would be far cheaper than eink so the display quality must not be there.