Quote:
Originally Posted by brecklundin
+10000 there.
Any reader with only the bottom right button thingy would never be a reader I would buy. As I have rather sever RA which affects my hands there is no way I can read exclusively with one hand, but my preference is the left hand naturally. I am right handed but have always kept the right han free to do other tasks while reading. Eating lunch, dinner, taking notes and such. Because I am right handed my right hand is a fair bit worse than the left so holding anything at all for more than a few moments is problematic on the best of days.
Much as I point out when I disagree with RobertB, it's because I expect so much more from him than a typical poster, he is the face of the company he works for...he has to demand perfection from himself. And one thing I can say, is months ago in this thread, I mentioned this hand issues and he really seemed to pay attention that this is likely the type of issue stopping many of the potential user-base (in today's market) from reading period, let alone an ereading device that does not take the need to change hands frequently and that each of us in the geezer years, have different needs.
So, the more hand agnostic the device the better. However, it still remains to be seen if that point sunk in with the designers, who I fear, being young, have zero appreciation about the issue or it's prevalence in us 40+ folks...even more so for us 50-somethings that have spent near 30-yrs at the keyboard already. If I had to rank needs, hand pain is head and shoulders above eye strain for me. I already have hand pain from the RA 24/7/365, it never goes away...period. As an aside to clarity, do not confuse RA with OA. They are totally different and unrelated conditions...the former is an auto-immune disease with an unknown cause and no cure to date, only palliative care or what amounts to immunosuppressant low end chemo therapy (same drugs as given to cancer patients but in far lower, though still dangerous, doses.) The latter is a wear-n-tear physical condition and not a disease and can often be completely corrected by therapy and even joint replacement or other surgical options). But BOTH can have pain levels off the charts and that is the real problem which causes us to avoid anything that makes the pain more intense.
So, here is hoping it sinks in somewhere that we all benefit from hand agnostic devices.
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Dear Brecklundin:
Yes, we all need to be free to agree or disagree. When I first started this thread I mentioned that I was the neophyte. My background was business development for consumer electronics. I was not at all an eBook Reader engineer or even very knowledgeable about eBook Readers. I have learned a lot by people saying "you are wrong, Robert B". Wallcraft today caught me on PVI. I was told PVI only made 4 level grey scale but Wallcraft does know better and I applaud that.
This is a forum meant for discussion. This thread exists because I argue a bit and invite argument and we all discuss. I do not pretend to know everything (not even close) but I can learn. People like Brecklundin pull me back sometimes when I am wrong and I applaud that.
What I bring to this thread is an Insider's Knowledge of eBook Reader Manufacturing and what it is like to go up against the Big Two. I dutifully and with vigor try to make sure my customers are pleased with their purchases and I try to adapt ideas to make devices better. I hope that is WHY this thread continues as it has value. We will NOT all agree but we will collectively try to find out what is right and what could be better.