Is the ereader dead?

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I see a lot of people shading their phones with one hand, turning in place and squinting at their screens in bright sunlight. I know my phone is nearly unreadable in bright sunlight. So, yeah, glare is an issue with standard LCD screens. I don't know about expensive, modern ones.

Ok, I just rounded up 2 mid-priced devices, a Samsung Tab A tablet and a mid priced Sony Xperia phone, both several years old and took them out into the early afternoon sun. Both have LCD displays.

On the tablet was loaded Android PocketBook and for a web page test I used BBC News.

Samsung: With PocketBook set to a slightly off-white background, black text and brightness increased (using PocketBook's control of self only which is not automatic) I had no problem whatsoever reading at the normal font size that I use. With the web page check I had no problem reading that either after increasing the brightness (auto brightness was not on).

Sony: I did not put PocketBook on it as didn't bother checking after seeing the result of the web page test. I had no problem comfortably reading the web page and the Sony's automatic brightness control turned up the brightness correctly for the sunlit condition.

In both cases if the sun was to my side or to my front I had to take no care at all, was easily readable and no glare. With the sun behind me I just had to adjust so that the plane of the screen was not at a low incidence to the sun (which is nothing to do with LCD but applies to any reflective surface), such low incidence angles presented a very unnatural reading position so were irrelevant.

Regarding the brightness of the sun, just in case you imagine that I performed this in winter at 60 degrees latitude and am not declaring that; it is late summer here and we share with Australia sunlight strong enough to make us the skin cancer capitals of the world.

You might like to advise what tablets and phones you are experiencing trouble with.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

Of course it's a question of "confrontation." Until you prove otherwise, I won't be inclined to believe this so-called meme exists. You can avoid endless repetition perfectly fine with links as opposed to calling on someone else to do your homework for you...

...But seriously, without context it's not obvious whether you're right, some form of technically right or a variety of wrong. For example, photons are photons, but that doesn't mean they're all at the same wavelength...

So you admit to just being confrontational and all but that in the second part of the quote above made no contribution at all to the matter except to amplify that and worry about interpretations of "meme".

With respect to your comment on photons. Of course photons have different wavelengths, such an observation is trivial and of no relevance when comparing reflection and non reflected. I thought that was pretty obvious but apparently not.

If one takes the case of a specific proton reflected and another that is not reflected and both of the same color then they have the same wavelength. Both photons are the same - so "a photon is a photon".

Of course you may be meaning that a reflected photon perceived as a specific red, say, has a different wavelength than one of the same specific red if it has not been reflected, but I hope you are not . If you don't mean that then your mention of wavelength is irrelevant and just another meme thrown into the pot misleading others.

I'll leave you to confront others.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Well that brings up a good point, which is the skin cancer risk of reading in direct sunlight with your eReader. LCD screens are much safer since they nudge you into the shade.

I always wonder why people sit in the direct sun, especially at latitudes lower than around 60 degrees doing things, such as reading, that they could just as easily do in the shade. There is plenty of advise not to do so.

I have spent the good part of a lifetime with a lot of just outdoors recreational time (so not working in it all week, for example), including sailing. Early in those times the dangers of the sun to the skin were not made much fuss about and I and plenty of others now have the scars to prove the danger. Misspent time in the sun definitely catches up, either with premature aging of the skin or benign or non-benign lesions.

And one does not have to spend a lot of time in the sun to tempt serious problems, the most dangerous lesions seem to like those that get irregular doses of sun.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

You might like to advise what tablets and phones you are experiencing trouble with.

I'm not having trouble with any LCD devices, because I don't try to use them for reading (except for my phone in "emergencies"). My phone is a Blackberry Q10 (330 ppi Super AMOLED) and my tablet is a Fire 7 (2017). Both have glass screens, both have glare (as do three of my older Sony eReaders 600, 700, 900, which one of the big reasons they're going to sold). Your comparison would be more impressive if you had compared your tablets to an eReader (a non-glass front one). You're obviously used to adjusting to tablets when you read. I'm not, nor do I intend to become accustomed to them. And glare is just one of the reasons I prefer eInk eReaders to tablets (see other reasons mentioned before). Besides a "medium-priced" tablet cost over twice as much as I've paid for my most expensive, new eInk eReader. And since I only use these eReaders for reading (and don't have a another use for a tablet at all) what's the point?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

I always wonder why people sit in the direct sun, especially at latitudes lower than around 60 degrees doing things, such as reading, that they could just as easily do in the shade. There is plenty of advise not to do so.

Because on a cool day the sun feels good. I guess you've never lived along the beach in Southern California, or in the mountains of Montana.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Because on a cool day the sun feels good. I guess you've never lived along the beach in Southern California, or in the mountains of Montana.

I have been to southern California many times, and I can assure you that we have cool sunny days too. Their weather is mostly a bit warmer (averaged over the year) than ours so I guess we likely have more cool sunny days than they do.

As it happens we do live right beside a beach, it is directly in front of us across the road. We are also on the west coast, so like your west coast the weather patterns arrive off the sea. Surprisingly, seeing you mention southern California as the cool sunny place to be, we also have a big island out off the coast in front of us, but just the one and only about 3 nautical miles off, so not quite like Catalina and the Channel Islands (but we can see it 99% of the time ).

And if you want cool and sunny we cruise a lot on our sailboat, I can assure you that it gets pretty cool and sunny doing that in autumn and early winter (we hope to be off again in a fortnight for a month or so autumn cruise).

I have never been to Montana but as far as mountains go I have spent time in the mountains of Europe (the French and Italian Alps), Sweden, Australia (they really just have high rolling hills) and New Zealand, and experienced plenty of cool sunny days in those too. The highest cool sunny day I have had was somewhere over 8,000 feet, a bit lower than Montana's Granite Peak, of course but there again I am not into mountain climbing just where I can get to via gondola, helicopter, etc. and I suspect not much reading gets done on the peak of Granite Peak even when a cool sunny day.

So, I am likely not really short on cool sunny days experience when I comment about the wisdom of sitting out in the sun .

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

So, I am likely not really short on cool sunny days experience when I comment about the wisdom of sitting out in the sun .

Everyone's different. I like sitting outside on a nice day and reading. You don't get many of those kinds of days in Texas. It looks like you live close to where I did during my early adult years (Ventura, Oxnard). In the pre-eBook days I used to try to drive up to Bart's Books in Ojai about once every other week. I wonder if they're still there?

[sebibeck]

Not for me and it shows it also is not the case for millions of others who still love to use ereaders - as in the article mentioned 19% of adults in America used an ereader in 2015 - looking at the American population this is not a shabby number.

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by sebibeck

Not for me and it shows it also is not the case for millions of others who still love to use ereaders - as in the article mentioned 19% of adults in America used an ereader in 2015 - looking at the American population this is not a shabby number.

I'm pro e-reader, but that idea that 19% of adults use one (in the sense of a dedicated device that this article is positing—it purports to exclude phones, tablets, and other multi-purpose devices from the e-reader category) doesn't pass the smell test to me.

I work in a tech company of mostly 40+ year olds, which is going to skew far more tech-heavy than the general population and far more reading-heavy than the younger population. I'd be shocked if even 10% of my (almost certainly overrepresented) world owns a dedicated e-reader.

I mean, they also say that 3/4 of adults read at most a single book in the past year (and most of those either none or only a part of one), so that's positing that either 80% of people who read more than one book have a dedicated e-reader, or that vast numbers of people who don't really read books buy dedicated e-readers. The numbers just don't make sense when considered together. Something's rotten.

The biggest problem with this sort of survey is that if you get people on the phone and ask them if they own an e-reader, a bunch of people who read books on their tablets and phones are going to say yes. And a bunch will say no. And that's legit. But it means that using that sort of survey to draw conclusions about the ownership of dedicated e-readers (as opposed to multi-purpose phones/tablets/etc) is impossible unless you've got very clear phrasing and controls.

There's also the possibility that the total number of e-readers is being divided by the population without regard to people who own multiple readers, and of a Bradley sort of effect where people think it's positive/prestigious to over-represent their reading and so give false positives in polls.

Pew is a very reputable polling company and they're usually good about publishing the exact phrasing used in their surveys (so I'd normally suspect the mass media article of misinterpreting their results, perhaps unintentionally, rather than Pew portraying things wrongly), but in this case I hunted around a bit and couldn't find the survey questions asked.

Whatever the case is, the fact that an article would cite a study claiming that 1 in 5 adults own readers as evidence of their demise is enough to discredit it entirely. Maybe e-readers are dying, maybe they aren't, but the statistics here are so bizarre that they can't really be taken as proof of anything.

[montalex]

I make a somewhat pointless return to the notion of “real” readers... Speaking for myself, I “really” read books – literary fiction, mostly, with some history and essays thrown in when I’m not so much in need of narrative to keep my interest. However, most of the time, when I read newspaper and the like, I don’t “really” read – I skim and skip around. I like seeing the NYTimes or Washington Post spread out on my large computer screen, where I can see all the photos and side columns and grab a little bit of everything without committing to actually reading anything. On the other hand, when I’m away from the internet, I’ll get newspapers on my Kindle. Then I actually will read an article or two, because there is no way to accomplish my lazy skimming. Yes, I tend to be a real reader on my Kindle!

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Being able to see a screen outside in bright sunlight is a very very niche requirement overall.

Really? I can see that might be the case in areas where bright sunlight is correlated with uncomfortable temperatures, but where I live in the UK I read outside whenever possible during most of what passes for our summer. While the rest of the time I read on a mix of backlit LCD (iPhone) and eink, for the outside reading the eink is certainly best for me.

I also find (purely personal preference), that the lack of distraction means I enjoy reading more on my kindle - my weakness, I'm sure, but I just can't resist checking email, news headlines etc. etc. if I'm reading on my phone.

In practice, for preference I read on my kindle if I have it with me, but have no difficulty reading on my iPhone if I don't (unless outdoors in bright sunlight).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Well that brings up a good point, which is the skin cancer risk of reading in direct sunlight with your eReader. LCD screens are much safer since they nudge you into the shade.

Boom! Argument solved with irrefutable logic!

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

I always wonder why people sit in the direct sun, especially at latitudes lower than around 60 degrees doing things, such as reading, that they could just as easily do in the shade. There is plenty of advise not to do so.

Living in Houston, there's a solid four days a year that aren't murderously hot or have hurricanes blowing through, that I can sit on a bench at the park comfortably reading in the sun. I tend to take full advantage of them.

[4691mls]

Whenever this topic comes up there always seems to be at least one person who tries to convince everyone else that if they just change the brightness level on their LCD phone/tablet it will be suitable for reading. While that does work for many people, it doesn't work for all.

I hope companies keep making e-ink readers so those of us who prefer them to LCD, whether due to eye issues, reading in sun, or whatever, will continue to have a choice.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Whenever this topic comes up there always seems to be at least one person who tries to convince everyone else that if they just change the brightness level on their LCD phone/tablet it will be suitable for reading. While that does work for many people, it doesn't work for all.

I hope companies keep making e-ink readers so those of us who prefer them to LCD, whether due to eye issues, reading in sun, or whatever, will continue to have a choice.

I do think I could get used to reading on an LCD screen if that's all there was. To my eyes, the e-ink screen just looks more like a printed page. But I think there's more to using an e-reader than just the e-ink screen.

I suspect many of us find value in using a device designed specifically for reading. A tablet app may be able to perform all the same functions as my Kobo. But when I grab the Kobo, I know I'm going to read. There's none of the temptation to check my email or look something up on the internet.

I understand tablet readers will say you can turn off Wi-Fi or notifications or whatever. And that's right I suppose. But then I do use my tablet for more than reading and turning off all that stuff is a pain in the butt.

I use my tablet to read comics and for that I love it. But if I'm at lunch and I finish an issue and have twenty minutes left. I find myself wondering if I should read another one or check my email or maybe check in here. In the same situation with my e-reader, I just start on the next chapter.