[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by LJ Miehe

I think we may be different types of ereader users (which is okay).

First off, I don't understand the need for markup being you do academic works that seems to favor that, I just read tons of non-fiction books and many are technical in nature or history.

Yep, just different types of readers. I don't need mark up on my Kindle where I'm just reading for leisure.

But for research articles, textbooks etc. I need to be able to highlight, jot thoughts in the margins as I'll be going back them and pulling quotes to put in my own articles or lectures, writing grant proposals to do a study that improves on past work--and needing to be able to quickly see find parts of those past studies that I need to reference etc.

I still don't agree that a backlit technology at this point can compare to eInk when it comes to readability, I can read more much longer lengths of time on a eInk than a LCD/LED display, the glare bothers my eyes.

We're just different readers again. I seldom read--work or leisure--for more than an hour or two tops in any given stretch as I have so much other work to do the reading just gets squeezed in here and their.

That and backlighting just personally doesn't bother my eyes much. I'm reading and writing on a PC hours a day, usually 7 days a week so I'm pretty used to it I suppose.

Second, I don't agree a eReader needs to be a PDA, video player, etc to be more useful. there are other devices that do those functions great but at this point I want the development of the eReader to be refined to the point where some of these other more mature technologies are at before I add a bunch of clutter (imho).

Just difference in needs. Reading is a part of my job, and a hobby, but it's not the main part.

So to get my money worth out of a tablet, it really needs to do more than just display my PDFs, academic books etc. and let me mark them up. Otherwise I'd just stick with printouts and physical books which usually aren't costing me anything out of my pocket anyway.

I'd get a lot more use by replacing my old PDA for my calendar, being able to stream tv shows and movies when needing a break etc.

Readers don't need much refining IMO, just display text fine, display PDFs as they look if printed out, give me basic highlighting and note scribbling abilities and I'm good. So I don't worry that having more functions will gimp the reader portion in anyway as it's so simple to get right IMO.

If it does get that type of dedicated attention I fear they will not reach their potential and won't really get more people reading as is my deep down incentive to see this happen in the end. I love reading and anything that lets me read more often is a plus in my book (no pun). I think as a society we have used the internet and other media too much that are usually just a derivative of closer source of knowledge and over time it is actually dumbing us down. Obviously that last part is a little off topic but I wanted to give a little more of my perspective to anyone who cared

We're just on different pages there. As I've said before, movies, TV, sports, video games, etc. are all activities I enjoy more than reading. Hence why I want a multifunction tablet and you don't.

And that's fine, that's why there will be a wide array of dedicated readers, multi function tablets and everything in between so we can all find what we need.