I've got a large collection of e-books, but I've always just read them on my phone. Finally broke down and bought a proper e-reader with the nice e-ink display. Why didn't I do this forever ago?
It's got a backlight, but using it under a lamp with reflected light is just so much easier on my eyes and feels more like a paper book. I also haven't read a book written on dead trees in a good minute, so sitting under a lamp just brings back a missing piece of the experience I didn't even know was gone.
I also just can't get over how "fake" the display looks. Fake is usually not used to describe something positively, but in this case, it's a huge praise. The text and book cover images just look like they're printed on a sheet of paper and slipped inside to make the device look functional...like a movie prop. Turning the backlight on diminishes this effect somewhat, though (which is another reason I prefer to leave it off).
I also love that I can just set it down and not worry about coming back to a dead battery, lol. The reader app on my phone is set to prevent it from going to sleep or turning off the screen, so sometimes I'll set it down to go take care of something else, forget, and come back to a nearly dead battery.
To everyone who has recommended these gizmos to me, I finally get it. I know I said reading books on my phone was good enough, but I was wrong.
Damn, that looks better than I expected.
I think his picture is probably in lower light, without turning the front light up to compensate. The color really needs light to look good, and it takes more than the black and white does. It might also be something with the color formats his example is using. I don't think it's differences in the screen unless his is defective, because I think his is using the same screen tech. (I've thought about getting the tab ultra c, but I'll just feel like I wasted my money when they finally manage a 13"). I think the pictures are pretty representative of my experience, but it's also possible the processing my iPhone is doing plays a role. It's why I try to leave a little background in for comparison.
Because a crappy phone camera makes it look like the black and white isn't great, I've taken pictures of that in the past too, including a close up of the text:
Black and white