LCD vs. e-ink: The eyestrain debate

[toddos]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

don't forget, too high contrast rates also give headaches, and flickering screens do too!

I'm quite sure that pixelqi is the way of the future. I mean, my jetbook does 24 hours on an LCD screen, that's not bad at all! And it's not even pixelqi's screen they use!

With a little fine tweaking, I'm sure battery life could go up to 30 hours on a 5" jetbook, and 20hrs for a 1024x600 pix resolution screen.
That's almost a 2MPix black and white screen (since each pixel can be subdivided in 3 B&W pixels)!

Just FYI, flickering doesn't happen on LCDs with LED backlights and static text. CRTs, Plasmas, DLPs, and LCDs with CCFL backlights will flicker for different reasons.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by toddos

As for transmissive vs. reflective light, I call shenanigans. Look directly at a lightbulb. Now take a mirror and reflect that lightbulb right into your eyes. Both hurt the same, yeah? The light from an LCD backlight is diffused through the LCD panel. When you're looking at a white pixel, that's not the same thing as staring directly at a white LED. People get headaches from flicker, not from a light source. Back when LCDs were lit by CCFLs that ran at 60Hz, that was valid. No tablet or phone uses a CCFL backlight, and very few laptops do anymore either. Many desktop LCDs and HDTVs do, however, which is why I suspect people are extrapolating from their poor PC/TV experience and saying they would hate backlit phones or tablets for reading without actually having tried them.

Call whatever you like... I and others are not talking about headaches, we're talking about migraines... only people who've never had a migraine will talk about them as though they are are synonymous - THEY ARE NOT!!! The last one I had started with holes appearing in my vision then a slight pain which over several hours increased to an absolutely totally encompassing agony which required the use of migraine drugs (NOT headache pills) and total peace and quiet in a darkened room for the rest of the day and left me only capable of limited functionality for the next couple of days... oh yes, there was NO flicker trigger...

And there is a difference between staring into a bulb and staring into a reflection of the bulb as it appears twice as far away... and what has that got with anything anyway as I explicitly excluded the effect of a mirror... it is a different form of reflectivity to that from a DIFFUSE surface such as e-ink or a book... how many books have you got that reflect an exact image of nearly 100% of the light/image acting on them???

[toddos]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Call whatever you like... I and others are not talking about headaches, we're talking about migraines... only people who've never had a migraine will talk about them as though they are are synonymous - THEY ARE NOT!!! The last one I had started with holes appearing in my vision then a slight pain which over several hours increased to an absolutely totally encompassing agony which required the use of migraine drugs (NOT headache pills) and total peace and quiet in a darkened room for the rest of the day and left me only capable of limited functionality for the next couple of days... oh yes, there was NO flicker trigger...

And there is a difference between staring into a bulb and staring into a reflection of the bulb as it appears twice as far away... and what has that got with anything anyway as I explicitly excluded the effect of a mirror... it is a different form of reflectivity to that from a DIFFUSE surface such as e-ink or a book... how many books have you got that reflect an exact image of nearly 100% of the light/image acting on them???

Not being a migraine sufferer, I can't relate. Sucks to be you. Edit: While LCDs may be triggers for migraines, if you're not prone to migraines LCDs will not make you a migraine sufferer.

Reflective vs. transmissive, you don't get to have it both ways. Light reflected off an eink surface is diffused by the surface. Light transmitted through an LCD panel is diffused by the panel. Both are diffuse light. They are the same.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by toddos

Not being a migraine sufferer, I can't relate. Sucks to be you. Edit: While LCDs may be triggers for migraines, if you're not prone to migraines LCDs will not make you a migraine sufferer.

Reflective vs. transmissive, you don't get to have it both ways. Light reflected off an eink surface is diffused by the surface. Light transmitted through an LCD panel is diffused by the panel. Both are diffuse light. They are the same.

As you said, you can't relate... nor know but getting good at throwing irrelevancies in such as LCD not making you a migraine sufferer - who said it did??? And LCD "diffuse" light is NOT the same as diffuse reflective light... check out the science of optics sometime...

[pixiestyx]

I chose both are easy on my eyes even though I only have a NookColor and haven't spent much time with e-ink. Backlit screens have never bothered me, for which I am thankful because I like being able to hop online & tell my friends how much I'm enjoying (or not) a book before moving on to something else, without having to fire up my laptop.

I've looked at e-ink readers in stores, and I still feel that the background is too grayish in appearance for my personal preference.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by toddos

Not being a migraine sufferer, I can't relate. Sucks to be you. Edit: While LCDs may be triggers for migraines, if you're not prone to migraines LCDs will not make you a migraine sufferer.

Reflective vs. transmissive, you don't get to have it both ways. Light reflected off an eink surface is diffused by the surface. Light transmitted through an LCD panel is diffused by the panel. Both are diffuse light. They are the same.

Simply give up. You won't ever convince people who don't want to be convinced that some people have zero problems with LCD. For them e-ink is god and they won't ever fall off it.

[Prestidigitweeze]

I quite liked your second response, toddos -- you weren't throwing science-shapes as much as you were describing your own experience in accurate language. I do hope people caught that distinction, because it's the difference between prestidigitation and useful subjective data.

About this, though:

Originally Posted by toddos

As for transmissive vs. reflective light, I call shenanigans. Look directly at a lightbulb. Now take a mirror and reflect that lightbulb right into your eyes. Both hurt the same, yeah? The light from an LCD backlight is diffused through the LCD panel. When you're looking at a white pixel, that's not the same thing as staring directly at a white LED. People get headaches from flicker, not from a light source.

It seems to me the problem isn't the source of the light so much as it is the intensity. Reading my AMOLED screen for too long is rather like staring at a light bulb and does produce the kinds of scotomas that St. Hildegaard mistook for angelic visions. However, reading from an eInk screen, even when lighted, does not. I think this is because (1) one is not staring directly at the light, (2) the light is more muted and (3) visual information is not in glaring color. Scotomas generally appear in the opposite shade of whatever you've been eyeing (by which I don't mean fondling things by rubbing your eyes against them, as pleasant as that might sound).

The visual effect is residual and seems prolonged and heightened by intensities of light, rather like the sonic equivalent: relentless after-tones heard by people with tinnitus.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Simply give up. You won't ever convince people who don't want to be convinced that some people have zero problems with LCD. For them e-ink is god and they won't ever fall off it.

I never said that I didn't believe some (probably many) people have zero problems with LCD but what's so difficult to understand about a SIMPLE fact - some people DO have problems with reading for several hours on LCD - I'm sick of people who are so convinced of their "correctness" that they rabbit on about things that they don't know about or conditions that they don't understand...

I NEVER said e-ink is god, I said LCD for reading can trigger a migraine attack but I suppose that's OK for you as you don't have any problems...

[howyoudoin]

Granted this is an e-reader oriented forum, but stil 230-7 is a drubbing.

People are either:

(a) Lying through their asses in a mass conspiracy to make the LCD proponents feel bad

OR

(b) Voting for what they truly consider the better option for themselves.

I know which I'd rather believe. Atleast this is a poll on a forum that has its users experienced in using both technologies, unlike other tech forums.

[pdurrant]

I think it's interesting that the vote here pretty much matches the vote at cnet.com that prompted this poll.

Their poll currently stands at 76%/9%/15% from 5277 votes.
Our poll currently stands at 79%/2%/19% from 294 votes.

Remarkably close for two different populations of voters.

It seems that at least three quarters of people prefer e-ink over lcd for reading.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It seems that at least three quarters of people prefer e-ink over lcd for reading.

Those results would make me feel optimistic if sales of the Kindle Fire weren't currently trouncing those of e-ink readers. There's also Amazon's Format 8 and how viable they intend it to be for e-ink.

Mobi to F8 looks like a mini-recap of computers' move from word processing to desktop publishing, just as the Cloud-based media libraries recall the shift of interest from exclusively hard-drive-stored content to that of the web.

Books are left behind in that sense, which makes me worry about the future of both dedicated reading and displays which are optimized and consciously limited for it.

On the other hand, Mirasol displays are finally here (as you well know).

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Those results would make me feel optimistic if sales of the Kindle Fire weren't currently trouncing those of e-ink readers. There's also Amazon's Format 8 and how viable they intend it to be for e-ink.

Mobi to F8 looks like a mini-recap of computers' move from word processing to desktop publishing, just as the Cloud-based media libraries recall the shift of interest from exclusively hard-drive-stored content to that of the web.

Books are left behind in that sense, which makes me worry about the future of both dedicated reading and displays which are optimized and consciously limited for it.

On the other hand, Mirasol displays are finally here (as you well know).

The real question is here how many will actually use the Fire for extended reading? And Amazon has just upgraded their line of e-readers. Besides, as you mentioned, display technology will move beyond LCDs quite soon.

However, the danger is that readers will become such a small minority soon (with the onslaught of media devices) that nobody does care about our needs anymore.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by toddos

Just FYI, flickering doesn't happen on LCDs with LED backlights and static text. CRTs, Plasmas, DLPs, and LCDs with CCFL backlights will flicker for different reasons.

Oh, well it does!
I notice my Jetbook flickers under tube light, and it has an lcd substrate.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think it's interesting that the vote here pretty much matches the vote at cnet.com that prompted this poll.

Their poll currently stands at 76%/9%/15% from 5277 votes.
Our poll currently stands at 79%/2%/19% from 294 votes.

Remarkably close for two different populations of voters.

It seems that at least three quarters of people prefer e-ink over lcd for reading.

Let's not forget PixelQi, and in all honesty, I've seen the Sony PRS-505's e-ink, and it's only marginally better than the Jetbook in terms of contrast. Though it does not even come close to the Jetbook's refresh rate!
And the jetbook lasts 24 hours on battery, which I find,is quite enough!
It translates to me that I have to charge the jetbook every week, as where I have to charge the PRS every 2 to 3 weeks!


E-ink for me was interesting primarily because it's efficient use of battery power!
Not for it's viewability. Looking like real paper was an extra to me.
I don't care if I have a PixelQi screen, or one like the jetbook's screen, because to me it looks identical to e-ink (save for a tad greyer whites and blacks, and when using a magnifying glass you'll see that e-ink is higher resolution than LCD, but also only marginally).

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Oh, well it does!
I notice my Jetbook flickers under tube light, and it has an lcd substrate.

Does your Jetbook have a LED backlight?