Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
A lot of things can function as a book. A stadium-sized Jumbotron can function as a book, if you really want to go all the way (y'know, that would be cool for a "one city, one book" reading event).
I have a strong preference for devices that are designed to do one thing, and do it in the best way possible for that function. I want an ebook reader to replace printed books. Having a Web browser, a full-motion video display, or a Swiss Army knife built into it will not improve its ability to replace printed books. My paper books don't move, nor browse the Web. Adding those capabilities is going away from the design goal: replace printed books. And in order to do so, they will impose their own costs: battery life, purchase price, reliability, tradeoffs of sharpness for more colors, etc. I do not think that adding features that do not serve the purpose of replacing printed books would be worth the costs I mentioned.
You can supply some of the features all users want, or all of the features some users want, but you can't supply all of the features all users want in any non-trivial device.
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For books, I want something a hell of a lot faster and better than E-Ink. Rapid refresh capability that is associated with video playback is a must. Color to display diagrams is nice for a lot of reading, but yeah pretty superfluous for general fiction.
If slow, mediocre e-ink is satisfactory to you, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about because there are enough Chinese cookie-cutter readers out there to last a few lifetimes. Unfortunately, there aren't any good ebook readers out there for people like me yet, and fast, possibly color screens will be a nice (if small) step forward in pretty much every conceivable way.
And ebook readers are only given extremely minimal design consideration as replacements for paper books. They're terribly unrefined and are built around crude hardware with even worse software. Their suitability for books seems largely a consequence of being bad at everything.