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Comment by rauljara | Hacker News Reader

Be careful with the word 'everybody'. Surely someone would prefer higher contrast, the ability to change foreground/background color, and faster page turning (without that annoying black flash) over crisper text.

Me? I still prefer print. Though I imagine that much like my preference for CDs over mp3s, my preference for print is doomed to die out over the next few years as the technology improves and I slowly get over my nostalgia.

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I dunno, it's pretty definitive that emissive displays cause more eye strain than a book (and E-ink is really close to a book). For any serious reader, eye strain seems likely to be at the top of their to-be-avoided list.

Eye strain is definitely antithetical to reading. That said, I'm not too worried about it with an iPad type device: I am looking at screens all day every day, and eye strain just isn't a problem.

Perhaps when I get older/my eyes get broken in more. But for now, I'd be fine with reading on something with an LCD - it really doesn't bother me.

I can surf the web for hours on end, but when I try to read dense text I find my eyes rebel.

Either pretty definitive isn't as definitive as all that, or I'm a complete aberration.

I genuinely prefer reading text on an active, high contrast display (monitor, ipad) rather than a passive, low contrast display (physical books, e-ink).

I find the sharp edges of a monitor's display very relaxing after reading an actual book.

Yea I read my computer screen almost 18 hours a day, and I don't get eyestrain either.

Yep, sometimes I think the people complaining about eyestrain are still thinking about 60Hz CRTs. I think I'd slightly prefer e-ink for lots of reading (though a backlight is important to me), but I never have any feeling of pain or strain while reading on my iPad. (Perhaps others' experience is different, of course.) If anything, I just want it to be sharper like a high-res phone display.

One of my co-workers told me that he prefers reading ebooks on his iPhone 4 to his iPad - we side-by-side compared them, and the iPhone screen density makes a huge difference.

That said, the form-factor is a little awkward for longform reading.

This is a key point: the iPad's display is only going to get better over time, while e-Ink displays are probably not going to improve much from here. They might get faster, but what else is likely to change? I can't imagine investing in a company that spends time optimizing an e-Ink display. It would be like building a better vacuum tube.

When the iPad gets the so-called 'retina display' from the iPhone 4 model, it's all over.

That's what I'm afraid of. I wish they would make better e-Ink displays. And I wish they would make better vacuum tubes too.

I've only found that to be a problem with black text on white. I just finished an 800 page book on my phone with white text on black with no issues. I've found that I prefer reading on my phone to the kindle or physical book, mostly because the page turning is instant, my phone is always with me, and I can read one handed in bed without needing a light.

If you have an android phone, check out Aldiko.

This is definitely the main point in this "debate"; some people will just prefer one screen type over the other. A lot of people seem to be advertising these opinions as objective fact, and that's quite a dangerous trend.

I'm personally of the opinion that e-Ink is what I'd prefer for reading, but I absolutely despise reading on screens; anything lengthy I print out. And while I think that e-Ink is better for reading, that's all that e-Ink devices (while being a lot cheaper than the iPad) do. If you read less and do other things more, then e-Ink is unlikely to even be an option for you unless you feel like shelling out for another device for the few times you do read at length.

I'm a rabid reader, and buying an e-ink device was a boon: though I've read many short papers on my laptops and a on my phone, I certainly wouldn't read thousands of pages at once on an LCD device, and I've precisely done so with my PRS. That, and the battery lasts 2 weeks of constant reading.

The contrast of e-ink, in my experience, improves with brighter lighting. Outdoors in sunlight it's quite good. Also, I find a bright white CFLs to give better contrast than similarly-bright incandescents.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

In my first experience with the Kindle, I was fascinated by the backflash. It's clearly not desired, but the technology apparently isn't there yet to do away with it. I just found it so neat that such an apparent flaw is kept in the product because even with it, it's a "good enough" experience. If I imagine myself on the team making Kindle, I think I might find it unacceptable that the screen flashes on every page turn.

Aside from that, the first Kindle had some sort of really awesome scrolling mirror thing on the right. What is it, and how does it work? How can you make material selectively reflective like that?

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