[mdp]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given the undeniable fact that sales of tablets enormously outstrip those of eInk devices, and that owners of such devices read on them frequently (even if only websites and email messages), I’d suggest that it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude that most people are indeed happy to read on tablets.

Hi Harry. You have completely disregarded my argument. Below the concise rhetoric, I posted an image of a laptop brought outdoors, with an ineffective screen. Which means that currently widespread display technologies are unsatisfactory. (Which, by the way, was already logical to begin with - "light to fight light" is at most a patch.) This, regardless of user satisfaction - which, while being the point of the OP, I intended to expose as partial.

In fact, biological evolution evidently favours the proliferation of people with a "contentment gene", regardless of the quality of their adopted solutions (npt to mention, ir-regardless of irrational factors). Just take a look around the streets and count the proportion of people with mobile devices and glossy screens. Evidently "[crucifixion] at least gets you out in the open air" - or better, just "Crucifixion? Which crucifixion?". So, using market success as a parameter to evaluate a product in general (or its relative success) is, well, at most an idle remark about "I doubt this will replace movie theaters".

Of course I understand that some people live in caves, or spend the northern dark season in Greenland and the southern one in Patagonia, and so write their messages with embers instead of charcoals like the rest of us, and I can respect that, but I do not see the point, when we are discussing the quality of new pellet for stoves, of interventions like "Here in Dubai we think that your stoves are not a priority (and also Brisbane is skeptic)".

But now, going back to your argument, I see that I cannot find it convincing. In fact, you are using "read" in a compromising sense (good for an E-mail, for a web page). Well, for a few seconds browsing this site I also have not immediately switched to "inverted screen", no rush - it is not a matter of blasphemy -, but this post is composed white-on-black as intended - it is a matter of not insulting the Gods. And if the sales of tablets outstrip those of E-Ink devices, I would say it is because the standard displays (and the systems distributed with them? Did Onyx have competitors?) can be much more versatile, not because the buyers had to speed-up studying the Britannica.

Originally Posted by leebase

No one wants crappy washed out color

Here, myself - I do not mind at all. You are posting in "mobile read". I was the other day reading some demographic report, with some results organized in coloured chunks within the bars. I grant you my drive was to discriminate which chunk was "homicide" and which was "theft", which "red-blooded passion" and which "pastel-tinted hobby", not if photography would satisfy Michael Mann. The purpose of colour in this context is to bring information - once that is done, postcards. (With the possible partial exception of artbooks. Which, being exceptional, support the rule.)

Originally Posted by underscore

So far we are watching youtube videos of presentations of screens stucked on a sarcophagus with an above glass and a reflecting neon light.
Not exactly a road test.

Yes, and there's more - none of us has apparently seen the displays directly. Videos - espacially those scarce available - are not enough. How white is the white, how tinny the shades, how natural the global effect...

Originally Posted by underscore

Still doesn't look that bad to me compared to previous attempts.

It's very promising. At least something is moving.