Does anyone find it difficult to use a kindle (eg sensory difficulties, autism, or just generally) esp if you love paper.

[Goodberry]

I was wondering whether anyone who is sensitive to some other things such as screens or some kinds of light, has difficulties with a kindle- is it significantly easier to tolerate than say computer or phone screens. I have never owned a kindle but am thinking of buying a kindle paperwhite, but really don't enjoy reading my computer or phone version of kindle. I much, much prefer books and printed paper and find the info hard to digest from the screens I currently have. I will use it to read scientific articles therefore I believe I need to get the one with wifi.

When I do read it on the computer or phone I can only really tolerate a sepia background and wondered whether the paperwhite kindle sort of comes closer to that than stark white. Or, can you choose a sort of greyer and more faded font than black.

I also like to read in a tiny font and wondered whether you can scroll up and down a page for instance to look at the photo on a scientific article, or does the kindle fix the page size and all you can do is turn the page.

I thought about an amazon fire tablet but think the screen will have much the same quality as my existing devices. However it would let me choose sepia. But I suppose it will have worse battery life.

I've got the old style kindle with no back light and it's black type on a greyish screen. You can change the size of the font.

I also change to sepia when reading on my phone as I find it more comfortable, but my husband's Kobo which does have the backlit screen is fine for me too - less glare than a phone imo.

Thank you @sleepyhead- in order of eye comfort how would you rank the three devices (with your phone on the sepia setting)?

The Kindle uses e-ink so the display isn't like a phone screen at all. It's just like a book page. I don't know about the Paperwhite, but I have the Oasis and it has a 'warm' lighting setting that makes it quite sepia-esque .

You can't scroll up and down the page as the text reflows to fit, unless it's a fixed format ebook like a textbook, which is fairly uncommon. You can just flip back and forward, though.

You can buy coloured overlays for devices, dyslexic.com and a few other sites sell them.

For me, the Kobo but my eyes aren't hugely sensitive and I need reading glasses really so the backlight is compensating a bit for that at the moment.

In good light I much prefer my Kindle but it's very old and I'd love it even more if it had a touch screen and could pinch & zoom etc. Its not great for reading anything but a standard book - terrible for pictures.

I use the paperwhite, the screen is far better on the eyes than a phone of a computer!
I have my brightness set to just under halfway, I use my phone on about 1/4 brightness, and my MacBook on about 1/3 for comparison.
Both my DC have asd, and use the Kindle without problems, though my DD far prefers paper books. She's not a big reader though. My DS is a complete bookworm, but has visual impairment too- he loves being able to alter text size, really helps, particularly when he's tired. He has the brightness far higher on all devices though (he doesn't have a phone yet) as he needs greater contrast.
The paperwhite is brilliant for reading in bed in the dark and not disturbing the person sleeping next to you!

Ah, I would love to pinch and zoom sleepyhead - is there any kind of e-reader that would permit this?

Thank you Maryland for the info about coloured overlay - I had no idea. If I can still use the touchscreen with a matt overlay that will be brilliant.

I think I will need to see something with e-ink in person as remarkably I never have ScarfLadysBag thank you also for notifying me about the Oasis with a warm light setting. I wonder if there is such a setting for the paperwhite, I will look that up. Do you happen to know whether a scientific article in PDF form will act like the textbook ebook you mentioned.

Does anyone anticipate a problem reading scientific articles from the online journals, in PDF form, on a kindle or similar. I am not sure what the download process will be as presumably there isn't a traditional operating system.

Thank you haba, I habitually significantly turn down the brightness on all my devices too, didn't even realise that. Thanks for your feedback on kindle vs other devices. Great also to hear the experience of those with ASD.

You can easily send pdfs to a kindle - it comes with an email address which you email the pdfs to and they're uploaded automatically. Someone with a newer model would be better placed to advise re: reading experience.

A Paperwhite is worlds away from a phone screen. You can pinch to enlarge and shrink the font (I have it one size larger when reading in the dark) and I "swipe" to turn pages rather than just tap the screen as it reminds me of a paper book.

I don't think it is as good for pictures though. The only books with pictures in that I have are crochet books and I look at those on my iPad as I'm not reading them as such so there is no eye strain.

PDFs aren't reflowable so they might not be the best reading experience on Kindle. If you email to them your Kindle with the title of the email as CONVERT, it will make them better adjusted for the Kindle screen, but they might have things like split tables and images, etc.

The Kindle is really best for fiction and narrative non-fiction, ie. with limited images and no fixed format features.

I'm pretty sensitive to screens, turn the brightness down on computers/phones etcs - I find the older kindles with e-ink and no backlight great, v comfortable to read on. I've only ever tried out a paperwhite in a shop, but it wasn't that comfortable for me to read on.

I agree about pictures on the Kindle. We had one of the How To Train Your Dragon books on Kindle (we were away on holiday when it was released, and DS was desperate to read it)... because of the pictures, you couldn't resize any of the pages/text, which meant DS couldn't read it at all

OP, check out the Remarkable tablet. I think it would be much better suited to using for pdfs than a Kindle. And I love my Kindle!

I love my Kindle, and it isn't tiring to read at all - I can't bear trying to read on a phone at all, so very different.
You can direct transfer pdfs to your Kindle from your PC, and I often do, especially when I have a long flight and lots of papers to read.

Physically I find them comfortable to read, and I'm hypersensitive to light etc. However I find that I don't have the same sense of "space" or connection with kindle books. I don't know, maybe because there's no physical journey I don't form the same kind of memories or experiences as I do through paper books.

I have to turn the brightness of everything down. I don't like E-readers as they aren't fast enough. I don't like the 'flick' between 'pages'. I can read on my tablet OK.

I love my Kindle for reading fiction but I don't like it for reference books and it is useless for pictures. When I am researching something I far prefer physically being able to flick back and forth between pages.

The screen doesn't emit light so is fine for eye strain, you can also adjust font types and sizes to suit you.

All Kindles have wifi to connect to your computer.

I recently bought a fire tablet. It's no good for reading outside. My ancient old kindle is better all round for reading. So definitely don't get a fire tablet.
I'm off to look at the price of a paperwhite now.

Never thought I’d want one, since I do still love proper books, but I do love mine (paper white).

Main advantages:

Can read in bed without disturbing dh with bedside light.
Makes reading huge, heavy doorstop books so much easier.
No need to take half a dozen books on holiday, as I’d invariably have done before - though may still do if driving rather than flying.
You can adjust the font - no need to be put off by very small print.

Thank you for all these brilliant replies.

In my ignorance @ScarfLadysBag I didn’t realise the Oasis was an available subtype of kindle- I thought it was just an old model! After looking it up I think the warmlight option is really great and I am really tempted. The country I live in doesn't seem to have any Oases (sp?!) and amazon won't ship abroad, but I will ring around and ask. What device would you personally opt for if mostly reading articles in PDF format?

A couple of things that worry me: I noticed on YouTube videos that when you touch the screen of any kindle whether to zoom or turn the page or anything else, it sort of flashes inverse colours (black background and white text) incredibly briefly while it makes the changes. Does this bother anyone, either generally or those with sensitive eyes or perception? Is it very different in actuality compared to kindle on say a phone? It really bothered me looking at the youtube videos but I don't know whether I'll get used to it. Is that what you meant @BobbinThreadbare123

And audiobooks- I have some mp3 meditations, can you listen to your own mp3s on the audiobooks? It says something about Bluetooth-- does this mean you need a device like a phone to send it over Bluetooth in the proximity of your kindle? (probably a silly q but does the phone need Internet or 4g etc?)
I guess the follow on question is, are you limited to Audible?

Do the 3g and 4g options for kindle mean you can insert a Sim card?

The Remarkable tablet looks amazing HotWatBot thank you, and I am seriously considering that too, if anyone has any more feedback on it. Such as, is the size OK to handle and is it naturally warmer in lighting as it seems to be, and battery life etc.

And, is there such a think as a colour e-reader that people like for textbooks etc or are we now in tablet territory? Is an ipad no different from a phone or computer or amazon Fire in terms of reading comfort?

Or any other methods people use for reading papers would be great.

As mentioned I have never so much as seen an e-reader in the flesh so I will try to rectify this, which will no doubt help the prevarication!

@Oxyiz that is exactly how I feel and the thing I am most concerned about!

when you touch the screen of any kindle whether to zoom or turn the page or anything else, it sort of flashes inverse colours (black background and white text) incredibly briefly while it makes the changes.

It doesn't do it every time - or rather you can set it not to do it every time. It happens when the kindle is "cleaning" the page as occasionally there can be ghosting left from the previous page (although I don't recall ever noticing this "ghost text" to be honest ). Usually the text just kind of dissolves into the text for the next page.

@Goodberry yes that is exactly what I mean! Does my head in.

Just wanted to update this- was able to order an Oasis from US Amazon (due to not being in the UK) - @ScarfLadysBag thanks so much for letting me know about the warmlight. I ended up going for the 'top' one that comes with free 4G and max memory, and it is amazing - thanks all for the great info and I'm so pleased I got it. Warmlight is absolutely the difference- I can't tolerate it in white mode. PDFs look amazing on it and all the books i've been struggling with on computer and phone are a pleasure to read. I'm also thinking of the ReMarkable at some point so i can keep all my notes on it so thanks so much for that recommendation @HotWatBot.

One wee thing is that when I highlight, it keeps highlighting the whole rest of the book!! Then I have to go into kindle on my computer and delete it from the highlights section as the clippings folder on the kindle doesn't have that highlight. I did an update and it keeps doing it- not sure whether my kindle is faulty or if I'm doing something wrong?