Keith, of tech blog BIT-101, got himself a new USB-microscope. And like any nerd with a new toy, he started pointing it at things around the house. Happily for us, Keith avoided magnifying the dog's fleas and instead turned his high-powered eye on the screens of his twin tablets, Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad. As you see in the photos, the closer you get, the more interesting things become.

Above are pictures snapped at "about 26x" (the Kindle is on the left). So far, so expected, right? The Kindle's e-ink display looks almost the same as it does to the naked eye, although one surprise is just how well the iPad's anti-aliasing works to keep the text smooth, even though the pixels are clearly visible as jagged squares.

Jack things up to 400x and it gets a whole lot weirder. On the left again is the Kindle (400x). It resembles a bowl of sugar, or at least like some ink splattered on gray paper. As Keith says, it "looks almost organic". Compare that to the iPad's display at 375x, whose sharp edges and primary colors look more like a 1970s arcade game.

At his readers' request, Keith then went on to snap pictures of ink on paper, adding newsprint, magazines and books to the gallery at the same magnifications. It's a fascinating read. Go check it out.

Kindle and iPad Displays: Up close and personal [BIT-101 via Hacker News]

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