Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeFromHC
All true but I couldn't sleep last night. (What, you want more?)
So I "solved" one of the problems with eInk. I gave it a rapid refresh rate.
30 FPS, fully capable of watching a video.
7000 page turns at 30 turns per second = 233 seconds, round up to 240.
Today's eReader could show about four minutes of video.
I don't believe the physics of the device will allow it but even if it used ten times less power, 40 minutes would be about the maximum.
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Nice drill.
Of course, you realize that you are assuming that the video-capable device would be fitted with the same dirt-cheap tiny battery now used in the text-only readers, right?
Next time your insomnia kicks in, compare the size, price, and capacity of a typical ebook reader battery (say, a Hanlin V3) and compare it to the battery in a typical netbook. You might find out why you only get 4 minutes of video.
(You might also want to see how much video-processing power you can get out of a dinky 200MHz ARM processor with 64MB of RAM.)
Conversely, you'll find that the fact that such a tiny, cheap battery can deliver weeks of reading is *precisely* why eink is so useful a technology.
eBook readers are devices optimized for reading. They are built with components that do the needed job as cheaply and as efficiently as possible.
Check this:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/22/i...net-says-shhh/
It's 18 months old, but it shows just how cheap most ebook reader components are.
Regardless of what fans of sporks and multi-function devices may think, ebook readers are not crippled media players or PDAs or webpads.
They are reading devices; they are designed to do one job and one job only so they are built with components that are adequate to their mission, regardless of whether they would be equal to other missions: the CPUs they use are only as powerful as needed to decrypt ebooks. The batteries are only as big as needed to drive the super-efficient bi-state eink displays and the CPUs. On some designs, the CPU is in sleep mode most of the time and only wakes up *after* the page turn button is pressed. If the same device were built with LCD panels, which draw power constantly, battery size (and weight) would go up or usage time would go down. (Even the best LCD-based readers get 20-40 hours of usage, vs weeks with eink.)
Its a nice exercise you did, but frankly, meaningless; you might as well complain that a SMART car can't tow a trailer like a RAM truck. It's true, it can't. But its not designed to do it, in the first place. That's not why it exists.
When it comes to ebook readers, we're approaching a fork in the road that will make things clearer; by next year there *will* be eReaders that can do color and video. And there will still be b&w readers that don't. The former will sell for hundreds of dollars, the latter will sell for less than $100. The latter will keep on going down in price until they show up on blister packs in pharmacies and supermarkets.
Both will do well.
It's not a zero-sum game.
One size does not fit all; there is room in the market for both gold-plated sporks and plastic spoons, iPads and webpads and netbooks and eink readers. Which is good; it allows for choice. Those that want a do all multifunction device can get one. Those that just want an ebook reader can get one.
And some of us might actually get one of each.
