Seriously thoughtful Could Netbooks Kill off the E-Reader?

[astra]

Originally Posted by Kris777

I agree with it. I have Asus 10' Netbook and Sony Reader and I never used netbook as eBook reader because I can't read from LCD screen more than 20 minutes.

Ditto. Only edited it a bit.

I also know for a fact that many people who have no idea about ebook readers/eInk screens, thus are not eInk biased, say the same:

I can't read from LCD screen more than 20 minutes

They say they will either buy a book or print it out.

[kacir]

The vast majority of people I know carry along at least one mobile phone. Even the simplest models - the ones that are a little bit smaller than a brick, the ones still using small black and white old fashioned LCD screen - feature a clock display.
You would have to look very hard for a mobile phone that does not have Time display of one sort or other.

How many people that you know do not wear a watch because they they have time display on their phone? I know one such person.

I do not think that there was significant drop in watch production in recent years.

It is the same with dedicated e-book reading devices. Just ask here if you find an owner of an e-book reading device that does not own at least one PC or notebook, or netbook, or pda, or smartphone or a combination of them.

I own 9 computers that can be used to read books, yet the vast majority of my reading gets done on my trusty Sony Reader PRS-500.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

How many people that you know do not wear a watch because they they have time display on their phone? I know one such person.

I use my mobile phone as an alarm clock when I go away, so it's certainly cost someone the sale of a travel alarm clock in my case.

[richman]

I believe that netbooks COULD kill off ereaders when the eink tech is one option on the netbook, they are in the pipeline, and should be coming out within year or so. So you can then switch it to eink or lcd regular mode, and get good battery life in eink mode. and when they can have swivel screen, when in eink mode screen on top, then swivel screen and open and switch to regular computer lcd backlight mode for movie mode.

At this point I do have netbook and prs-505 and I like the 505 because it's small, can put in my pocket, start-up time is 1/2 second.

Last night in town, outside of nightclub , they had bench with street lamp right behind it, opened the 505 and set it to Biggest font size and had no trouble reading. I was surprised I can read this at night as long as street lights are around.

[chaznsc]

I think the bigger question is WHEN are we going to get serious about our environment and move towards digital media of all kinds? We over-wrap our hamburgers, our toys, our groceries. We throw away TONS and TONS of just overkill packaging every day.

This spills right over into the print world. Any idea how many magazines wind up in the landfill? I would guess 90% of them. And print books......... once you read them how many get read again vs how many sit on a shelf or just get tossed.

ANY move towards digital media is a good one, be it a tablet PC, or an E-reader!

As to an answer to the question. While I lean towards a note/netbook, I dont think they will completely replace the ebook at all. I do think you will see E-readers get more netbook features, making them appeal to the puter-nerds in us.

[chaznsc]

Originally Posted by kacir

How many people that you know do not wear a watch because they they have time display on their phone? I know one such person.

Its NICE to meet you......now you know two

[richman]

Originally Posted by chaznsc

Its NICE to meet you......now you know two

I'm waiting for the dick tracy WATch for 2010! So my watch can do it all! It is practically here.

Putting more features in all this stuff is cool, so, if netbook or phone or "eye-glasses that have built in eink tech can come out , I'm all for it. But for today, the prs-505 is fine for me and I love dreaming of the future too. Just like a kid. Most of the stuff I dreamed about as a kid , has come true. Except for the part where I'm a billionaire and have a mansion full of playgirl bunnies running around the house!

[lilac_jive]

I need to jump in here because I just bought a netbook...10 inch Acer refurb. So excited! Just waiting for it to come in. I'm going to try and put Sony library on it

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by kacir

How many people that you know do not wear a watch because they they have time display on their phone? I know one such person.

I confess that I'm one of those persons. It has also replaced my MP3 player.

Originally Posted by richman

I believe that netbooks COULD kill off ereaders when the eink tech is one option on the netbook, they are in the pipeline, and should be coming out within year or so. So you can then switch it to eink or lcd regular mode, and get good battery life in eink mode. and when they can have swivel screen, when in eink mode screen on top, then swivel screen and open and switch to regular computer lcd backlight mode for movie mode.

There is no, nor will there ever be a screen that can be both LCD and eInk. The two technologies are physically too different. Now there is the Pixel QI technology, which allows you to have both a reflective LCD and a backlit one at the flip of a switch. Those dodos at Engadget have created a lot of confusion here... since until very recently they referred to any reflective display as "eInk", even when it clearly wasn't.

Anyways, though the Pixel QI screens seem to be a massive improvement, even their spokesperson admits that eInk still has better contrast and lower power consumption.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by kacir

How many people that you know do not wear a watch because they they have time display on their phone? I know one such person.

I neither own a watch or a mobile phone I don't know where that puts me.

EDIT: correction I own both watches and mobile phones - I don't USE either

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I neither own a watch or a mobile phone I don't know where that puts me.

Are you amish?

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Laz116

Are you amish?

See above correction But seriously I hate mobile phones with a passion, and I can't stand to know the time - so much stress is merely due to the watching of clocks. I have an alarm clock. It goes off once a day. After that it gets placed in a drawer where it cannot be seen. On any computer I have I endeavour to remove the clock as a course of first action

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

That's a hard one to say. Dedicated readers often have the advantage of smaller size, lighter weight, and much longer battery life. That latter is a real advantage. the T91 will weight at least a kilo and have maybe 6 hours battery charge, compared to say 1/3 kilo and 20 books per battery charge for a dedicated liseuse.

Also, dedicated e-readers don't have to boot up, which is a major plus in my view.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

Also, dedicated e-readers don't have to boot up, which is a major plus in my view.

If Crunchpad and Chrome OS take a footing this/next year that won't be a problem. They're both rumoured to boot as quick as you would boot into a bios screen, and use the web browser as the OS (something I'm very excited about) and the cloud for all storage:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/03...nch-prototype/





Everything is moving so rapidly I just can't shake the feeling that a year from now there'll be technology available that I haven't even imagined yet (which is a good thing). I know for sure that I'm excited about moving away from the old paradigms of traditional computing and into the cloud-centered/web browsing computing era.

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by wodin

Now Kris, you know that's not so! Your jetBook has an LCD screen, and I know from experience that it's great! Better than eInk in fact. It's just not backlit.

Yes, jetBook screen is special and better than eInk