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Originally Posted by MR. Pockets
I guess I'm just afraid that they will lose the focus of being primarily a device for reading on, and just tag the reader part on to all the other cool stuff. One reason I like the Kindle so much is that Amazon has shown itself to be dedicated to the Kindle being an ereader first and foremost. But will that change once ereaders have the option of adding other things (like video)?
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And if it can still display ebooks just as it always did, but can do other things as well, does that lack of focus really
matter?
As mentioned, I read ebooks on a multi-function device. That's a reason I'm not interested in a dedicated reader: I
want a device that can do other things as well. Most of what I do with my primary reading device
is read ebooks, but the fact that it does other things is extremely useful. I have a PDA and a cell phone that go with me everywhere. I'm
not going to carry a phone, a PDA,
and a reader.
(I'm not interested in a converged device that is PDA
and cell phone. Most of them don't have screens large enough to suit me, and a device with a large enough screen is likely to be unwieldy as a phone.)
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By then what an ereader is will have changed. They will still be easy on the eyes, and (hopefully) still be devoted to being an ereader, not a mini computer. I personally won't be happy with an "ereader" that thinks it is a "mini computer"/tablet until they can be and still be great at reading on (good interface mainly).
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I'd be happy with a hand held computer that thinks it's an ereader. In fact, I
am.
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For you, yes, but for most (I'll admit I'm guessing here) people, reading on a backlit screen for any long period of time is unbearable. I bought an ereader partly because I can't stand to read on a computer screen for long at all. So, yes, for you it is great, but for a lot of people it wouldn't work at all.
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You
are guessing. I have no problems reading on a backlit screen (and my device is readable outdoors if I turn
off the backlight, which it will let me do.)
It's highly subjective. Some folks have problems with backlit screens and prefer an eInk display. Others don't. I'm in the latter category.
But all the evidence I've seen has been anecdotal, and I have no hard numbers to suggest which approach works for the majority of the market. I
do suspect a lot of people who bought dedicated readers would be just as comfortable if they were backlit - the selling point for eInk is battery life. Once a page is displayed on an eInk screen, no power is required to maintain it. On a backlit device, a continual trickle of power is needed to refresh the display, and lighting the screen is the largest single use of power on the device.
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BTW, can you explain to me why anyone would choose PDF as the format of choice over, say, ePub or Mobi?
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It depends upon the source material.
PDFs have two major problems on most ereader devices. First, most PDFs are not created with the tagging that allows the viewer to intelligently reflow the text to fit the display. The PDF is created with an implicit assumption about the size of the display it will be viewed on. Second, a lot of material issued in PDF form is stuff you wouldn't
want it to reflow, as it would destroy the document. (Consider documents with multiple columns.)
For works that are simple text with inline illustrations, a reflowable PDF might work, if the text reflowed to fit the display and the images scaled appropriately. Most stuff in PDF format does not fit that description.
The advantage to a PDF is that it exactly reproduces a printed page. If your document has fancy layout and formatting, or uses specific fonts, PDF is your choice. Think about textbooks, and ask yourself how many you've seen that you think would work as a Mobi or ePub document. (The Kindle DX with the larger display and PDF display capability is intended precisely for that sort of use case.)
I have a fair bit of stuff in PDF format, most computer tech stuff. It probably would not work as a Mobipocket or ePub file for the reasons mentioned. So be it. I don't try to read them on my PDA, even though I can. Sideways scrolling is painful.
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Dennis