Quote:
Originally Posted by Tarana
What is it about speed that you need it in an ebook? It 'turns' pages much faster than you could with a paper book. What am I missing? I get that the original kobo is slower than molasses, but none of the newer devices are slow.
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When reading fiction or a book that you're going to read linearly - start at the beginning, move forward until you reach the end - fast page turns are not a problem; a slow ereader is about as slow as turning a physical page (you do it roughly as often, though, since each page turn gives you only one page of material).
But if you start reading documents where you naturally move from one page to another, or where you'd flip through a paper book looking for a specific page (like a technical document, reference manual, this kind of thing), then processing power and speed of the display may become an issue. (A well-made table of contents or navigational help also matter, but they're not the responsibility of the ereader manufacturer)
This is the one use case relevant to a pure ereader (as in, a device whose sole purpose is to make it possible to read documents) where speed reasonably means something. My guess is that the vast majority of users are reading linear documents, or at least manufacturers are convinced of this; so it isn't a big surprise to me that there is little progress in this regard, as it would likely mean high R&D costs, more expensive hardware, and much decreased battery life - all of which go against some of the strong points of ereaders (though the hardware cost is less so these days - with the mass production of general-purpose tablets, their prices has fallen so much that more and more people look at ereaders as very limited tablets with no color display.