Quote:
Originally Posted by geneven
"How sustainable is the Kindle's early success?" The answer is the the Kindle is going to have to stay ahead of the competition, which I think means it's going to have to go color as soon as possible....
|
Since eInk is the dominant technology for dedicated readers, all the major players will get color right around the same time.
It's possible that PixelQI might knock something out sooner, but I for one am highly skeptical of new companies with no track record and whose products haven't been released.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by geneven
In the near future, we are going to see a lot of nearly full-scale computers that are Kindle-sized, that play movies and can be used for reading books and communicating via email.
|
Yeah, I doubt it. It's an awkward size and shape for a keyboard, which will cripple it for real laptop functionality; it's way too big to use as a phone; it's too small to have a good battery to handle video. Plus when you get down to it, do you really want your ereader to vibrate every 5 minutes because you've got an email? What's more likely is that netbooks will (slowly) get better, lighter, and longer battery lives, and some people will use them to read books.
Also, keep in mind that some of the slowest improvements in technology are with battery capacity and battery life. eInk's big advantage right now is that it is downright stingy with power, so you can get away with a very small battery and therefore a light and thin device. As a result, it's going to be very difficult to make a super-thin device with a 6" screen that can show high-quality video, run a constant wifi / wireless Internet connection, and still has a battery life anywhere near what we expect or want from an ebook reader.