You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
58 points

This article has completely missed a selling point of e-readers for people like myself: no constant refreshing.

My eye strain, when reading for a long time, doesn’t come from the light (or lack thereof), which is evident as a positive of backlit Kindles and other e-readers, though the constant flicker of screens. E-ink solves this issue perfectly, and with every device in that article mentioning “60Hz” on their alternatives I feel as though they’ve missed a big point of having an e-reader and what exactly constitutes as “paper like” (it’s a lot more than just “low/no backlight”).

permalink
report
reply
27 points

Another point (which is a result of not refreshing the screen) which the article misses is power consumption. I can use my reader for several weeks without recharging.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Yeah, there’s a reason people prefer Kindle e-ink type e-readers to just using a tablet like a Kindle Fire, even if the latter can do more stuff

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

backlit Kindles

As I understand it, Kindles aren’t backlit but rather frontlit (or sidelit) with a layer designed to diffuse the light across the page evenly. The claim is that the lack of direct lighting helps in the fight against eye strain as well.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-4 points

Are you talking about pwm? Most screens don’t refresh if nothing is changing

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points
*

This isn’t technically correct. CRT, LCD, and OLED displays are generally constantly refreshing the image. There are some niche exceptions like memory-in-pixel displays but they are few and far between. eInk displays are very different in this aspect because the display itself acts as a physical memory of the image because its mechanism of creating an image involves physical changes (pigmented particles moving closer or further away from the visible plane).

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

I just wanted to add this video to your comment because e-ink is so cool and this guy has a bunch of macro shots of the displays that are awesome and you can see the particles in the screen changing colors.

https://youtu.be/1qIHCUWAgh4

So cool!

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@lemmy.world

Create post

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


Community stats

  • 14K

    Monthly active users

  • 6.8K

    Posts

  • 158K

    Comments