Quote:
Originally Posted by LDBoblo
Because not everyone uses devices slowly. Try flipping through a 20-page range of text to find a quote. To that end, E-Ink is rubbish. Try quickly skimming through a dozens or even hundreds of pages of a PDF document to find a page with a certain chart. Again, E-Ink is not really sufficient for the task. These are just a couple of simple examples based on reading, without any discussion of other types of media.
E-Ink's speed is a horrible turn-off when considering e-paper devices for academic reading or research. Sure it's understandable that some people have slow reading habits. They won't need speed. But is it really so hard to understand that some people have higher standards?
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And you really shouldn't take the 505 to represent the current standard of e-ink. Flipping through dozens of pages is really not a problem with the page turning speed of current devices (an exception still being full page graphics of several 100KB per page and larger). With the right software and a bigger screen size even 2 column scientific/mathematical papers work pretty well. My nephew is working on his PHD in physics and was sending me some of his papers for testing. After zooming away the margins even full page view in portrait is comfortably readable. And half page or two column modes also work fine.
The 505 is a novel reading machine and more than good enough at that. If you demand more than some e-ink devices do deliver that, too. Even layout and typesetting is quite good. Just read PDF books in their original layout. At 8" or 9.7" not really a problem. Fully justified text in Epubs, but I have yet to see a hyphenated word at the edge and no large gaps between the words. The problems I have is font sizes -- the smallest one is ok already, the others are too large. And you do run into occasional words running into each other. I have no idea if that is Epub or bad editing.