Quote:
Originally Posted by AnemicOak
It'd be nice, but they'd have to really get the prices of larger (9.7"+) screens down.
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I can imagine a plastic e-ink screen, an ebook hardware specific device (using low power chips, that are etched on a small die of below 21nm), plastic body and frame, an ebook specific operating system (kind of like a blackberry system vs the standard Android, or else, a seriously downtrimmed Linux or Unix os), which probably has still a few years in the making, could seriously drive cost down of even the larger ebook readers. In all honesty, I believe that even a 9.7" screen, does not give as much screen estate, as most comic books require.
With latest technologies improvements in tablets, you find more and more devices sufficiently strong, yet much lighter than the first generation tablets with metal frames. Also storage chips are getting cheaper. With the minimum flash chip soon becoming 8GB, prices of storage chips should soon cost the manufacturer mere pennies per device, while effectively doubling the storage per device,
Allowing more space for more books, as well more advanced operating systems (hopefully not equipped to do what our cellphones do, but more expansions ebook wise, like including nightmode (white text on the black background), better rotating and zoom options, and possibly some games, like sudoku, chess, cards, etc...).
The reason many manufacturers stopped including sd cards is that of device internal space and weight, cost, and energy efficiency; as a memory slot does consume a few milliamps even when not active!
On screen size,
While for me a 6" device is barely large enough to show a book at full size (I would prefer a 7" device), even a 9.7" device (aka jetbook color) feels cramped showing comics.
With a plastic body and screen, weight goes down tremendously, and that means the bezel size or width can be reduced, leaving more space for screen estate.
A Jetbook Color sized device could host an 11" screen, at a third or a quarter of the weight of one, while having the minimum required space for comic and pdf books!
I would also like to see modifications in the operating system, on pdf border and whitespace removal.
Most pdfs have too much white border. Add that to the device's border, and 50% of your view is border, with only a tiny column of text in the center.
I see it entirely possible, 5 to 10 years from now, to have one for under 300 ($259 even)