Quote:
Originally Posted by MrsJoseph
http://cnettv.cnet.com/?tag=hdr;brandnav
On January 24th CNET TV posted a video predicting their top 5 doomed technologies:
5. Blu-ray
4. dedicated ereaders
3. 3D TV
2. Wireless HDMI
1. Wi-Fi in cars
CNET predicts that dedicated ereaders are a doomed technology and they will soon be over taken by tablets. "Readers, they're a niche for life."
 And here I was thinking of buying a Sony PRS-950. 
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Media predictions are usually crap, but I suspect this one may prove out about 60%:
5. Blu-ray
4. dedicated ereaders
3. 3D TV
Why? 3D TV goes without saying - what's the point?
Blu-ray is clearly an attempt to milk money from a "new" technology - DVDs have become so cheap the film industry needed a new money-maker, but DVD is too well entrenched. And whilst there is a clear quality difference, the take-up has been too slow and a very large % of users are perfectly happy with DVD quality at DVD prices (me too)! Blu-ray will succeed only in the sense that available players will soon be blu-ray/dvd combo only (i.e. consumers will have no choice).
Dedicated eReaders is a more difficult one, not least because of the emotions such a statement raises for most users of this kind of forum. But eReaders were/are always a niche device - let's face it, by definition all you can do is read! Some features may be added - annotations, etc. - but reading is their primary usage. Tablets provide an additional dimension in that you can read, plus do so much more. The analogy to "smart phones" is a little flawed, as there are plenty of non-smart phones around, albeit they often still have "basic" smart features like e-mail, mms, web, etc. I personally hate them!
But since Xmas I have been reading solely on my iPad - my poor PB360 has been in the drawer, battery now drained! The only drawbacks I have for the larger tablet device are:
1. larger device - by definition the iPad is bigger/heavier, but this is not a problem for me (I eat my weeties every morning
)
2. battery life - this is an issue, but one I have not had cause to rue (yet). I keep my iPad "topped up" and do a monthly battery recondition (full discharge/charge cycle), and I get a full 10 hours. For all the Apple-bashers out there, iPad is probably the only device that delivers the "advertised" battery life:
(a) Apple says 10 hours and that's what I get, even playing video
(b) eInk devices tend to use the misleading "page-turns" usage, and I never get close to 7,000 from my PB360 no matter how you define a page-turn - it's a non-issue for eInk as I get literally days (up to 1 week) of full-time reading usage, but it is a very misleading statement by nearly every eInk device out there
(c) how many laptops get their "advertised" usage of hours on battery - zero (even Apple)?
Anyway, I usually ignore CNET commentaries, but this one may have some reasonable accuracy, albeit the motiviation for such an analysis is somewhat questionable...