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Old 12-31-2009, 05:14 AM   #22
barnacle
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Posts: 28
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Device: Sony Pocket
Quote:
Originally Posted by fragfrog
I find it a frightening example of how much a device which is inferior in almost every way for that particular purpose can completely own a market.
The art of advertising is to keep one dissatisfied with what one has. Putting a 'perfect' product on the market kills all your future sales. And in many cases, added features are there simply to differentiate, and because reviewers count features - do you *really* need a new phone every six months? Or in real terms, a phone that does anything more than make phone calls?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kali yuga
The premise that "multifunction devices always supplant focused ones, to the point of the cessation of the focused device," simply does not have much historic merit or precedence. It can happen, and has happened, but it certainly doesn't happen 100% of the time. And since a few critical advantages of epaper will be lost with tablets (battery life, weight, readability, no distractions etc), even if tablets go into wide use it's unlikely that epaper-type devices will completely disappear any time soon.
Or indeed, paper. Which is a technology proven to last at least five hundred years, if properly made and cared for. Irrespective of the immediate benefits of eink displays, they're not the critical issue - it's whether you will be able to see the books you own or whether they will just fade into a disposable gray digital wilderness. Can you still read a floppy? A five or eight inch floppy? An IDE disk drive? The storage technology changes and makes it impossible to maintain old data; the display is in many cases immaterial. In the case of eink, those who prize lightness and battery life will stick with it while it's still made or until a better display comes along.

Neil
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