MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Will E-Readers be gone by 2020?

frostschutz · 10-20-2011, 09:59 AM

It's 20:20 somewhere 24 times a day Anyhow. If there's something better, sure, readers will go. Otherwise they'll stay. We'd still be carrying around CD players if we didn't have fingernail sized mp3 players that can hold hundreds of cds worth of music in their place.

If there is ever a display that combines the strengths of lcd and eink without adding (m)any of their downsides, sure we'll have a tablet/smartphone with that and not worry about dedicated devices for every task anymore.

I don't think we will have such a display by 2020 though. Eink has been around for quite a while now and the progress is rather slow. There's a lot of marketing buzz (pearl screens etc.) but very little in the way of real breakthroughs.

I hope that CD/DVD/Bluray/HDD (anything that rotates) will be gone by 2020 though. Flash/SSD storage is better. Internet streaming is better. I'd like to be able to buy movies online same way it works for games (Steam etc) today. Full quality of course.

10-20-2011, 09:59 AM	#17
frostschutz Linux User Posts: 2,282 Karma: 6123806 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Heidelberg, Germany Device: none	It's 20:20 somewhere 24 times a day Anyhow. If there's something better, sure, readers will go. Otherwise they'll stay. We'd still be carrying around CD players if we didn't have fingernail sized mp3 players that can hold hundreds of cds worth of music in their place. If there is ever a display that combines the strengths of lcd and eink without adding (m)any of their downsides, sure we'll have a tablet/smartphone with that and not worry about dedicated devices for every task anymore. I don't think we will have such a display by 2020 though. Eink has been around for quite a while now and the progress is rather slow. There's a lot of marketing buzz (pearl screens etc.) but very little in the way of real breakthroughs. I hope that CD/DVD/Bluray/HDD (anything that rotates) will be gone by 2020 though. Flash/SSD storage is better. Internet streaming is better. I'd like to be able to buy movies online same way it works for games (Steam etc) today. Full quality of course.