Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonist
Well, the rumor made it to The Financial Times.
It may be geared more to gaming, browsing and video, but depending on the screen, it may also be a killer reading device (hopefully with full PDF support, including Search and annotations.) If so, it would be a clean sweep on campuses. |
Yes. This will be much more usable as a portable reference library (textbooks, medical records, legal documents, class outlines, engineering diagrams) than our e-ink devices can ever be, and it will provide a first class browsing and multimedia platform as well. Rich annotation (text, graphics, voice and maybe video recording) and search capabilities will complete the package. Oh and you'll be able to read ebooks on it, too, and it will be better than reading on your netbook or smartphone, but that's not its strength (but it might be 'good enough' for that too).
A lot of people seem to want their e-ink devices to be a portable reference library. However the current generation of such devices is optimized for recreational reading, and have limited annotation and search capabilities, and very tenuous connection to the internet. It's a joke that Kindle DX gets any serious consideration as a tool for the educational market, for example.
The advantages of eInk (low power consumption, readability for long sessions) are just not relevant to this market.
One might imagine this device as finding a home in environments where instant, mostly read only access to technical documents in a portable device is required (medical information, legal documents, engineering designs, sheet music). For a lot of this, a keyboard and trackpad just get in the way and add weight.