E-Ink vs. iPhone

[cualexander]

Physical books have a lot of advantages actually over e-books still. These are things you can't do with e-books.

1.) Buy them used for cheap
2.) Sell them to someone else.
3.) Loan them to a friend.
4.) Borrow them from a friend.
5.) Put them on a bookshelf so you can look smart even though you haven't really read most of them.
6.) Burn them if stranded on a desert island.
7.) Flip through them and read random passages.

See? Physical books are still useful.

 

[Night Spring]

Physical books have a lot of advantages actually over e-books still. These are things you can't do with e-books.

*snip*

See? Physical books are still useful.

I'll concede to all the advantages of physical books. That's not what I want to discuss here -- discussion of physical books vs ebooks doesn't help me pick a ebook reader! Thank you.

 

[Resist]

One nice feature about e-books are that you can purchase books and newspapers anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. No need to run down to the bookstore. Lets say you are out of town and you want to read your local newspaper you can't unless you have an e-book reader.

 

[TheMacBookPro]

One nice feature about e-books are that you can purchase books and newspapers anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. No need to run down to the bookstore. Lets say you are out of town and you want to read your local newspaper you can't unless you have an e-book reader.

Really? That only works with the Amazon Kindle, and even then you need to be in the States since it's EV-DO/CDMA not GSM/UTMS. Not ebooks in general.

At least, I can't access the NYT on my Sony Reader

@OP: e-ink completely blows away the crappy iPhone screen (for reading). So it's color and has a backlight, but you really won't have eye strain after an hour of reading. Unless you get eye strain from reading a normal book.

 

[Night Spring]

@OP: e-ink completely blows away the crappy iPhone screen (for reading). So it's color and has a backlight, but you really won't have eye strain after an hour of reading. Unless you get eye strain from reading a normal book.

Actually, I kind of do get eye strain from reading a normal book, especially if I'm trying to read without enough light. Like those small book lights that you can buy for reading in bed is too little light for me. So I guess my question really is, exactly how much more eye strain do you get from a backlit screen, specifically the iPhone, and is color and backlight worth the tradeoff of the extra eye strain?

 

[kas23]

Actually, I kind of do get eye strain from reading a normal book, especially if I'm trying to read without enough light. Like those small book lights that you can buy for reading in bed is too little light for me. So I guess my question really is, exactly how much more eye strain do you get from a backlit screen, specifically the iPhone, and is color and backlight worth the tradeoff of the extra eye strain?

I agree. Books are great, but if you don't have a good light source, you're gonna get eye strain. I can read from my iPhone for hours with white letters on a black background.

 

[Resist]

Really? That only works with the Amazon Kindle

I was mainly talking about the Kindle. And yes you can get eye strain while reading books but it is not as bad as reading on direct lit monitors.

 

[Digital Skunk]

I was mainly talking about the Kindle. And yes you can get eye strain while reading books but it is not as bad as reading on direct lit monitors.

As far as I recall, you get eye strain mainly for poor lighting when reading books.

With monitors of many kinds and TVs, you get it from prolonged use as well as poor lighting.