Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyminot
Alex -
Certainly, I know lots of people that are big fans of e-ink. However, I've never seen a single study - aside from people's individual experiences - that shows "eye strain" is worse on an LCD screen. I'm actually a doctoral student (screwing around with the Pocket Edge has been a welcome distraction from my dissertation), and I've read literally THOUSANDS of pages on my ASUS T91MT. Most of my colleagues own some kind of LCD tablet, and they mostly love their devices. Nevertheless, the market will ultimately determine such issues. Right now, it's pretty clear that Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other companies have decided that consumers are fine just reading on tablets (arguably, it better reproduces the experience of reading book, because you actually flip pages rather than just push a button).
One of the biggest problems is that the LCD/e-ink screen doesn't allow multitouch gestures. On my T91MT, which was released around the same time, I can pinch/zoom into certain areas and easily adjust the paper size based on the pdf format. On the e-ink side of the Edge, you have to hit the zoom button and fiddle with things until it suits your tastes. Even at the time the Edge was originally released, it was pretty obvious that the entire market was moving toward tablets with multitouch capabilities. Most smartphones featured accelerometers that easily allowed you to switch the tablet's orientation. Most were infinitely customizable with literally thousands of different applications options available through a centralized marketplace. Without these features, the Edge was doomed to look extremely innovative at first when there were no competitors but then quickly degenerate when better options appeared in the marketplace.
Finally, I don't agree with you that the Edge is necessarily better for work applications. For starters, it doesn't come equipped with Google Calendar, G-mail, and other such apps. It doesn't come with apps specifically designed to work with the larger touchscreen. And so on. Really, the point is not that I want to play Angry Birds. I hardly EVER play games. Rather, it would be a nice perk if my tablet could play Angry Birds, watch Netflix, and be a useful productivity tool. The iPad and other such devices mostly accomplish this feat.
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I guess the issue of reading on LCD versus eink is a personal one. I bought a Lenovo x200 tablet PC back in 2008 and used to read/annotate all of my PDFs on there (also a doctoral student). I have now completely migrated all of that activity over to my Edge and don't even use the tablet functionality of my laptop anymore. As for multi-touch, again this is a matter of personal preference: I have a Droid phone and I can count on one hand the number of times I've used the pinch/zoom feature, or anything other than scrolling. Such a feature just doesn't matter to me. I had a similar exchange in Amazon comments about "native" Google apps. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the concept, but google calendar/contacts/email are all installed on my PE and EE and have been functioning completely normally ever since I upgraded to Ermine. Those apps are all bundled into Ermine--I didn't have to hunt them down or do anything special (other than set them up).
My point, more than anything, is that there are a multitude of ways to be productive, to use technology, and to consume. The ipad does not scratch everyone's itch, and obviously neither does the EE or PE. For me, the ipad is not what I'm looking for, and I fear that shortly it--and a billion other things designed to look like it-- will be my only options. For you that may be utopia. For me that is a disappointment. Therefore, rather than narrow the field, I'd like to see the field broaden so that multiple styles and tastes are accommodated.