Phone screens are better than they’ve ever been—bigger, sharper, and brighter—but they don’t always provide the best performance for long reading sessions. If you have a lot of text to go through, you may find yourself turning to Kindle insteador even a good old-fashioned book.
There are ways to adjust the screen settings on yours iPhone or Android phonehowever, to make it more suitable for reading. These changes will reduce the potential for eye strain while reducing clutter to create a more pleasant reading experience. You won’t turn your phone into something that rivals an e-reader or a printed page, but you can certainly get closer.
Adjust Display Settings
You actually have more control over the font sizes, styles, and colors your phone uses than you might realize—you can make text easier to read and shape the Kindle experience with just a few taps through the main Settings window.
If you’re using Android, the menu labels will vary from model to model, but on Pixel phones it goes to Display size and text. The next screen lets you adjust the default font size and other screen elements to make the text lighter, and there’s also Dark theme the option you can find reduces eye strain.
Adjust font size on Android.Courtesy of David Nield
On iOS, open it Display and Lighting from Settings: Here you will find a Text Size slider you can adjust, such as a Strong Text switch to switch. As on Android, there’s a dark mode option here via the theme selector at the top of the screen—select it Darkness reduce the color in the iOS interface.
Android and iOS also have a night reading mode that reduces the blue light emitted from your phone and makes the entire display warmer—which should make the reading experience more enjoyable. On Android Pixel phones, select Display and tap > Night Light from Settings, and on the iOS option Display and Lighting > Night Shift. In both cases you can activate the item manually or via a schedule.
Use Your Browser’s Reading Mode
Most of the reading you’ll be doing on your phone will be through its web browser, and most modern mobile browsers come with a special reading mode you can use. These methods will reduce the clutter on the screen, simplify the color scheme and bring the text of the main article to the fore.
If you use Google Chrome as your default browser on Android, tap the three dots (top right), then Show Reading status to change the appearance of the article you are currently reading. Swipe up on the panel at the bottom of the screen to change font and color options. Tap the reading mode icon (just to the right of the address bar) to return to the normal browser view.
