Quote:
Originally Posted by Haesslich
Hmm. Let me pick up my paper book to compare it to those features.
- Contrast: This depends on the quality of the paper. Some have great contrast; others using more 'artsy' designs or poorer paper, aren't as good. I've got a few with printing errors from the publisher which have awful contrast ratios.
- Resolution: Depends on the book again. Most have good resolution, and compared to an eBook reader in the store they've got better resolution than an iPod Touch when it comes to reading, or many PDA's. Pictures also look fairly good on them, albeit in grayscale.
- Refresh Rate: This page isn't refreshing... ah, a zero-frame-per-second refresh rate. This paper book's refresh rate is awful! Turning the page takes a second! What a gyp!
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Contrast: I have only rarely seen any paper book that comes anywhere near the crappiness of e-ink contrast, and I certainly wouldn't buy any of them. I always have my 505 with me when I go to bookstores, and I'm always happy to show people side-by-sides to discourage them from buying an ebook reader.
Resolution: I can easily read complex Chinese books with proper light Ming typefaces even on the cheapest paper. They are at best annoying and ugly, at worst practically unreadable on e-ink, and the only way around it is to use unpleasantly beefed-up bolded fonts. This is more a function of contrast and anti-aliasing though than pure resolution, though resolution dictates the need for anti-aliasing.
Refresh rate: It doesn't take a second to flip a page on a physical book unless you have some kind of physical disability, and it takes far far less time if you are flipping quickly.
When current gen e-ink is phased out by something a little less rubbish, I'll probably be all for it. The current stuff is to me little better than a cheap calculator LCD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avarwen
You have to take into account that ebooks have only just become TRULY mainstream. Before this improving on problems was more then likely not though about much. Seeing as how not many people were buying ebooks. Again I'll use MP3 players as an example. The first players had boring old school screens that only displayed the song title that was playing and menu that only displayed basic info. That was good when MP3 players first came out and not many people owned them. But as more people got into them MP3 players had to evolve to meet consumers needs.
Ereaders are the same as more people buy them ereaders will have to change in order to get more users. Give it time I don't think we are too far off from an affordable and much improved ereader.
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I think I agree...though it's a bit unfortunate that ePub is growing in popularity for standard ebooks...gotta wonder how many product generations it'll take to iron out kinks that are being made now.