Quote:
Originally Posted by Zetmolm
As if all E Ink readers are the same.
Slow page turns is a thing of the past for many recent models.
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I appreciate your response, but this is not about your personal assessment of e-ink readers versus mine, Zetmolm. No reason to dismiss a
public performance-related problem based on your impressions of
personal use. The stakes are completely different.
This site is full of threads about tablets versus e-ink. Whereas I've never even
seen a post asking about e-readers for public performances during the three years I've been on MR.
E-ink readers were created primarily for personal use. I've never seen anyone other than myself try to use them in a performance. It isn't a put-down to say that the e-ink readers I've used have worked best under the conditions for which they were designed.
So far, I've used the PRS-350, PRS-950 and the Kobo Aura HD for public readings. I own, but have not used for that purpose, the Kindle Keyboard as well. All have proved just unreliable enough to interrupt performances from time to time.
The 350 and KK are older models. However, the Aura HD is bleeding edge and has one of the fastest processors of all e-ink e-readers.
It still choked in a crucial situation last weekend, and page turns and other operations were not transparent enough during the performance. That's why I'm looking at tablets -- not to read at home, but to use onstage.
See the distinction? It's not a personal matter. It's the concern of a person doing readings in public situations to promote published work -- situations in which the person is being video'd and watched by a crowd. Frequent technical difficulties mean something more dire than personal frustration in cases like that.
iPads are used
frequently by professional musicians without many freezes or even drastic latency (
if things are set up correctly). I know this because I'm a studio musician and have talked to other keyboard players about their setups.
But I'm also a writer. Since I need to use an easy-to-read tablet for public readings rather than musical performances, I don't need Apple's development and support of professional music software. What's important here is blisteringly fast page turns, great readability and zero freezes.
An occasional freeze is perfectly acceptable when reading a book to yourself in private. Not so when a hundred people are watching you read from a tablet and the video goes on youtube or is archived at a university.
Then you look like a writer who doesn't know how to perform or hasn't rehearsed enough.
Do you understand? The OP isn't another invitation to argue about whether e-ink readers are better or worse than tablets.
Instead, it poses a specific question to people who own tablets already:
Which ones demonstrate the best readability, most reliable page turns and least frequent freezes?