I got my first pairs of prescription glasses online a few months ago and couldn't be happier. One regular pair, one sunglasses, total less than $40 from Zenni, including shipping. They came in about 10 days, I believe.

I did have to call Lenscrafters to get my pupillary distance measurement, and they gave it to me over the phone after asking name, address, phone, etc. The last time I put on my $300 glasses they were ill-fitting and actually felt cheaper than my $15 pair.

The prescription sunglasses are great. For the first time I can actually see while wearing sunglasses! I stood in the street like an idiot the first time I wore them, amazed at how clear everything looked. I live in LA, so the sunglasses were pretty much a necessity.

One more thing: I got a pair of horn rimmed glasses because the skinny rectangular ones so popular among women just don't work for me. I was always adjusting my 2 previous pairs and wanted something with big lenses. They weren't something I would have bought with a salesperson hanging around, but in the privacy of my home I went for the girl nerd look. I think online shopping lets you express yourself more because there's no disapproving looks or hard sell.

I, too, have had good experiences with ordering glasses online, getting two pairs from EyeBuyDirect and two from Goggles4u.

Googles4u offered thinner lenses standard and a slightly lower price (not to mention an enormous, but somewhat quirky selection). So I order more, it'll probably be from Goggles4u.

Only one complaint: they seem more geared toward the nearsighted -- while you can order high-index lenses all the way down to -10.00, you can only order them up to +3.00 (just a hair stronger than reading glasses you can get at Walgreens). That said, Goggles4u's 1.57 index is thin enough, and the price is truly unbelievable.

The author hit the nail on the head when he described how he'd become a glasses evangelical after purchasing online -- for the month after I'd ordered my first pair, I giddily told everyone who wore glasses how cheap and easy it was.

(Oh, and I read this article with glasses from EyeBuy)

I completely agree. The eye doctor always tried to push me into the glasses with little tiny lenses. I thought the point was to see better, yet with the glasses they suggested my field of view was probably cut in half due to the tiny lenses.

I do wear contact lense, so I don't wear my glasses too frequently, but when I bought my first pair online for $19, I got them just for reading at night as I had sometimes fallen asleep in my old glasses and deformed them (yes, even the glasses the eye doctor said wouldn't bend out of shape). However, I quickly realized I much preferred the glasses I got online to the ones the doctor helped me pick out for $200, so I now wear the online glasses all the time and the others are in a drawer somewhere as backups.

A lot of times smaller glasses may be pushed to balance out cosmetics.

Glasses look more cosmetically appealing when the eyes are well centered in the frame (which means that you have to take in account the actual lens area and bridge width) and certain shapes can accentuate the thicker edges on the lenses.

A person who is nearsighted has the thinnest point right where they eye looks through, as you increase the lens size, the lens gets thicker, heavier, etc. Add some decentration to that (cause the eye isn't centered) and you can have some very functional. but not too pretty lenses.

The reason they don't go beyond +3.75D has to do with the optics of plus lenses. They must be precisely measured in the exact frame, in the exact adjustment that they will be worn or all sorts of problems will be created.