How convenient are handhelds to read E-books ? Specially in terms of eye strain and power lasting etc., ? Reading E-Books from a desktop is strainful, specially if one is at the PC at work all day. Any other related info. welcome. Thanks in advance. Vijay _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com
On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 08:29:58PM -0400, rvijay07 wrote:
How convenient are handhelds to read E-books ? Specially in terms of eye strain and power lasting etc., ?
Reading E-Books from a desktop is strainful, specially if one is at the PC at work all day.
I used the eBook reader from ebookwise.com for several books, and would like to read more. Unfortunately, the contemporary selections don't meet my tastes that much, and you've gotta run MS Windows to run their application to convert PG eBooks or other plain .txt or .htm to something the reader groks. So, I'm left without a lot of good choices, and have (for now, anyway) continued my "dead trees" book-buying. But it's quite convenient, works really well for low-light situations but also for brightly lit places, goes for awhile between battery charges, and overall I like it quite a bit. -- Greg
On Fri, 13 May 2005 20:29:58 -0400 (EDT) "rvijay07" <rvijay07@myway.com> typed:
How convenient are handhelds to read E-books ? Specially in terms of eye strain and power lasting etc., ?
Reading E-Books from a desktop is strainful, specially if one is at the PC at work all day.
FWIW, I have e-books on the PC, the Palm Tungsten E PDA and the RocketBook e-book reader. I have a lot of eye strain with both the PC and the PDA, but I absolutely /love/ reading on the RocketBook reader. Very easy on the eyes, at least for me, and a convenient size. In fact, I also got it free by joining one of those 2-books-per-month for $19.95 deals where they throw the reader in gratis. Turned out to be a good deal for me, but of course YMMV. (I added a $20 256MB SmartCard and I can't imagine wanting/needing more storage, really.) -- Chuck MATTSEN / mattsen at arvig dot net / Mahnomen, MN, USA MT Lookup: http://eot.com/~mattsen/mtsearch.htm Mandriva Linux release 2006.0 (Cooker) for i586 kernel 2.6.11-8mdk-i686-up-4GB / RLU #346519 Random Thought/Quote For This Message: Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
On 5/13/05 8:29 PM, "rvijay07" <rvijay07@myway.com> wrote:
How convenient are handhelds to read E-books ? Specially in terms of eye strain and power lasting etc., ?
They're not bad as far as eye strain. Better than a CRT monitor, maybe not as good as a laptop LCC. Of course not as good on the eyes as a paper book, but I have no complaints about my Palm Tungsten T. For convenience sake I've always got a small library with me with public domain texts, Fictionwise and Peanut Press (or whatever they're calling themselves/who bought them out most recently) purchases, a searchable dictionary (MSDict), and some of my own work. I mostly use Palm Reader (and drop book for converting), and AvantGo, which came with my handheld, for Word and Excel documents. You can adjust the font size in both I believe, which would reduce eyestrain for anyone who has problem with smaller type. And--it used to be the case anyway--with Palm Reader you can purchase a $20 "pro" version with extra font choices, and some of them you might find easy on the mind. Palm devices hold a charge for a looong time. Just make sure you don't have any bluetooth or wireless card turned on cuz that's a big power drain. I imagine some of the newfangled stuff they put in Palms these days (camera, etc) would also be a big power drain. But I'm reading on the bus, waiting in line, waiting for others on shopping days, waiting to pick people up for the airport, probably half an hour a day easily and if I forget to charge the thing it will still have over half a charge after a week. On trips shorter than a week, where there's usually a lot of waiting around and reading, I usually don't even bother bringing the charger. My current model is about two years old, I believe, and the battery still holds a significant charge. Alex. -- http://www.telltaleweekly.org - Funding a Free Audiobook Library http://www.alexwilson.com - Alex Wilson Studios LLC
On 14 May 2005, at 15:16, Alex Wilson wrote:
On 5/13/05 8:29 PM, "rvijay07" <rvijay07@myway.com> wrote:
How convenient are handhelds to read E-books ? Specially in terms of eye strain and power lasting etc., ?
They're not bad as far as eye strain. Better than a CRT monitor, maybe not as good as a laptop LCC. Of course not as good on the eyes as a paper book,
What does that mean, "eye strain"? How are CRTs "bad" for the eyes, and print books "good"? What is the medical term for the condition known as "eye strain"? What will happen if you have too much "eye strain"? As far as I know, "eye strain" may as well be all old wives tales. -- branko collin collin@xs4all.nl
What does that mean, "eye strain"? How are CRTs "bad" for the eyes, and print books "good"? What is the medical term for the condition known as "eye strain"? What will happen if you have too much "eye strain"?
Monitors are 75-100dpi, typically.. even printed documents are much higher dpi (300dpi at the low-end). What we read on paper is significantly-higher dpi than the monitor you read that text on. David A. Desrosiers desrod@gnu-designs.com http://gnu-designs.com
On 5/14/05, David A. Desrosiers <hacker@gnu-designs.com> wrote:
Monitors are 75-100dpi, typically.. even printed documents are much higher dpi (300dpi at the low-end). What we read on paper is significantly-higher dpi than the monitor you read that text on.
If that is the criteria, then most Palms are definately subpar; they average around 160x160 and 2"x2".. around 80 dpi. Also, the small resolution means very few characters per line. The higher-end Palms and WinCE devices have higher resolution, but rarely have larger screens. Ebook readers tend to have much larger screens. Some people have trouble with refresh rates.. anything over ~72 is good for me, but 60 hz (on a CRT) gives me a headache very quickly. Most LCDs (when not displaying grayscale) exhibit very little flicker. The eInk devices do not require refreshing the display constantly, but they are slow when updating the display. R C
On 14 May 2005, at 16:10, David A. Desrosiers wrote:
What does that mean, "eye strain"? How are CRTs "bad" for the eyes, and print books "good"? What is the medical term for the condition known as "eye strain"? What will happen if you have too much "eye strain"?
Monitors are 75-100dpi, typically.. even printed documents are much higher dpi (300dpi at the low-end). What we read on paper is significantly-higher dpi than the monitor you read that text on.
I am sorry, I am trying hard to understand, but I don't see how this is an answer to my question. -- branko collin collin@xs4all.nl
I am sorry, I am trying hard to understand, but I don't see how this is an answer to my question.
Between dpi and refresh rates, the human eye has to constantly "refocus" and uses a lot more muscles than with other configurations, hence leading to "eye-strain". David A. Desrosiers desrod@gnu-designs.com http://gnu-designs.com
On 14 May 2005, at 18:19, David A. Desrosiers wrote:
I am sorry, I am trying hard to understand, but I don't see how this is an answer to my question.
Between dpi and refresh rates, the human eye has to constantly "refocus" and uses a lot more muscles than with other configurations, hence leading to "eye-strain".
Refresh rate, perhaps, but why DPI? -- branko collin collin@xs4all.nl
On 5/14/05 4:16 PM, "Branko Collin" <collin@xs4all.nl> wrote:
On 14 May 2005, at 15:16, Alex Wilson wrote:
On 5/13/05 8:29 PM, "rvijay07" <rvijay07@myway.com> wrote:
How convenient are handhelds to read E-books ? Specially in terms of eye strain and power lasting etc., ?
They're not bad as far as eye strain. Better than a CRT monitor, maybe not as good as a laptop LCC. Of course not as good on the eyes as a paper book,
What does that mean, "eye strain"?
As far as I know it's a subjective phrase.
How are CRTs "bad" for the eyes, and print books "good"?
I don't think CRTs are bad for the eyes, and I don't think print books are good for the eyes. Both tire my eyes out eventually, and CRTs do it quicker than (typical print size of) printed media.
What is the medical term for the condition known as "eye strain"?
I don't know if there is one. And because I view it as subjective, I chose to talk about it in relative terms: on a scale of CRT-to-LCD-to-print reading, my Palm device lands somewhere between CRT and LCD reading. On a larger scale, I'd probably put driving a car for long periods of time, reading in low light, and focusing on tiny glasses-screws as causing more eye strain than CRTs, if that helps.
What will happen if you have too much "eye strain"?
I can't speak for anyone else, but when I feel my eyes have been working to hard, I have to blink more often, I have trouble focusing my eyesight, I'd rather stop reading than continue, and I generally would rather have my eyes closed. Sometimes headaches and overall tiredness follows, but tired eyes alone are enough of a pain without other symptoms.
As far as I know, "eye strain" may as well be all old wives tales.
If you're talking about an actual medical condition (where, say, working your eyes too much will lead to damaged eyesight in the long run), then I have no idea whether that's true or not. Sounds like common sense, but I'm no doctor. But my eyes get tired after working too hard. That's what I call eye strain, and that's what I was addressing in the original post. YMMV. Alex. -- http://www.telltaleweekly.org - Funding a Free Audiobook Library http://www.alexwilson.com - Alex Wilson Studios LLC
participants (7)
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Alex Wilson -
Branko Collin -
Chuck MATTSEN -
David A. Desrosiers -
Greg Newby -
Robert Cicconetti -
rvijay07