Comments on: New low-refresh screen may remove eyestrain from LCD

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:45:37 +0000

Just check Apple’s forum for eye strain from LCDs, especially LEDs. There is portion of the population that gets severe eye strain from LED screens. Maybe it is dithering, maybe the dimming method, who knows. But the problem exists for some people.
Also EIZO and Benq advertise technologies that they claim wont hurt the eyes. So it seems there is a problem out there, in some cases the problem is severe for some people or just discomfort for other.
So i think there is a lot of room for development in modern backlight displays to be able to read like someone does with a book or e-ink without backlight.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 19:45:18 +0000

“Actually you cannot perceive refresh rate at all on a static image on LCD.”

On a *good* LCD. I’ve had a couple of original Nook Colors, and the screens flickered like crazy even when everything on the screen was still. Others reported the same thing.

I’m all for low refresh, especially if it improves battery life. I mainly use tablets for reading PDFs, and if I could get the long battery life of an e-Ink reader with an LCD I’d be delighted.

By: Loïc

Loïc — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:41:05 +0000

What causes eyestrain is dithering on low res screens, too bright screens and those awful reflective screens where you can see at the same time your face and the text. It’s mostly lack of local contrast around text and difficult eye focusing that cause eye-strain.
The screen refresh argument is total bullshit with LCD related technologies, as LCD are not blacking out when refreshing. They’re only changing state in a minimal way, there’s no total refresh (fade to black, then new picture). Actually you cannot perceive refresh rate at all on a static image on LCD.
On the contrary, CRT were blacking out between refresh cycles. It’s only because of persistence of vision that the image looked somehow stable on high refresh rates.

By: Eolake

Eolake — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:19:04 +0000

For a long time, I only read on my iPad, because the Kindle had too dark a background for my taste. The Paperwhite has changed that, and I have to say I find it a lot more restful than an LCD.

Somebody said it’s because backlit pixels are not placed in space, with a specific distance to your eyes, like frontlit ones are.