Quote:
Originally Posted by abeaty
It will be a miracle if iRex comes out of bankruptcy and makes it as a business. They will be competing in a market:
1) with an iPad that is cheaper than all of their eReaders
2) where the closest competitors are selling at a fraction of the cost
3) where their competitors can make money selling the eBooks so can take a loss on the hardware
4) where the latest eInk screens are only available to Sony and Amazon for the first 3-6 months (I just read this on the internet so it may not be true).
They are going to have to figure out their business plan and do it fast.
|
I honestly think that a market that companies should start to focus on is the academic/education market. In my view a reader that can;
- display A4 PDFs (9.7" screen would suffice).
- ability to add annotations.
- ability to export annotations to a PC.
- ability to have open more than one file at a time and allow switching between.
There may be some other aspects required but they are a basis. Some current 6" readers do perform some of those functions, but PDF is not good on a 6", especially with academic journals which are generally multi-columned (pdf reflow does not work). I for one would rather an ereader for all my lecture notes for lectures, save printing 500+ pages a semester. A laptop isn't suitable because (a) reading journals on LCD strains eyes for prolonged periods of time, (b) battery life during lectures is an issue.
Hopefully something will be suitable within 12 months before I start my masters. As much as I don't like Apple the iPad seems the best solution at present (there are Android tablets but they are either real expensive or produced by generic Chinese companies with little information and usually Android 1.5 and no clear idea if able to upgrade to 2.2).