HUGE E-Ink Tablets!

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by ManDay

The only people not seeing the interest in large e-readers are the companies capable of manufacturing them, it appears. Take practically everyone who has to deal with a lot of documents (traditionally paper) which has sensibly to be read at full scale.

Contrary to ridiculously equipped smart-phones which, apparently every 10 year-old today must have, large e-readers are actually 100% purposeful and will, once word gets around, with even greater certainty be purchased by all those people having just the slightest need for it.

I frankly don't understand how there are a dozen established e-reader companies all of which are obsessed with 6" devices. Bluntly speaking, it strikes me as utterly ignorant.

It's about the money. The big companies are taking a loss, or making very little on the devices and make money on selling ebooks instead. People interested in big devices are not interested in reading ebooks on them, so the manufacturers can't take a loss on them.

[toronado]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

It's about the money. The big companies are taking a loss, or making very little on the devices and make money on selling ebooks instead. People interested in big devices are not interested in reading ebooks on them, so the manufacturers can't take a loss on them.

Right.

I wonder if an education market tie-in could be tapped. If these could really replace paper textbooks, then that would be a masive market. But I'm sure there is some resistance to that from publishers because paper textbooks are probably very profitable.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by toronado

Right.

I wonder if an education market tie-in could be tapped. If these could really replace paper textbooks, then that would be a masive market. But I'm sure there is some resistance to that from publishers because paper textbooks are probably very profitable.

For education it would make more sense to go the tablet route rather than eink. At least everything pre college. The current young generation that is in school right now is glued to their smart phones - so apperently there is nothing wrong with reading on those for hours straight. With addition of color and video traditional textbooks can be enhanced quite nicely - neither of which is available in eink very well.

[mSSM]

At the moment, ereaders are useless for higher education. Since 2011, I own an Onyx M92.Originally, I bought it to read textbooks and scientific articles. While I do have several 100 MB of both loaded onto the device, I mainly use it for pleasure reading or, at best, looking up a paper while on the road. Nothing beats the simplicity and spead of going back and forth between actual physical pages. An actual computer is able to simulate that, but even that is inconvient. An ebook reader is simply too painfully slow.

Any suggestion to the contrary makes me doubt if the person suggesting to use an ereader for serious studying has, in fact, used an ereader for said purpose.

[ManDay]

Originally Posted by mSSM

At the moment, ereaders are useless for higher education. Since 2011, I own an Onyx M92.Originally, I bought it to read textbooks and scientific articles. While I do have several 100 MB of both loaded onto the device, I mainly use it for pleasure reading or, at best, looking up a paper while on the road. Nothing beats the simplicity and spead of going back and forth between actual physical pages. An actual computer is able to simulate that, but even that is inconvient. An ebook reader is simply too painfully slow.

Generally, I disagree. While to a certain degree it surely depends on one's personal preference and in particular style of reading, I find my M92 well suited for scientific reading as far as hardware is concerned.

I agree that in practice, the speed makes it, say, uintuitively slow to flip between pages in two regards: Flipping pages is rather slow and navigating in general is a pain in the back. However, I attribute that solely to poor software design.

As far as hardware is concerned, the limiting factor is the response time of the screen and the bandwidth between memory and screen. Former is - as I think we can conclude from the video posted here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=757 - sufficiently fast to allow for an intuitive speed. Latter is simply a design choice.

The problem lies with software and hardware producers generally relying on in-house, inept software developers (or give possibly skilled developers too little time to produce adequate software).

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by toronado

Right.

I wonder if an education market tie-in could be tapped. If these could really replace paper textbooks, then that would be a masive market. But I'm sure there is some resistance to that from publishers because paper textbooks are probably very profitable.

I'm not sure about this. Kno tried dedicated devices and failed. They offer multi-platform software now.

[toronado]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I'm not sure about this. Kno tried dedicated devices and failed. They offer multi-platform software now.

That's cause nobody knows Kno.

My point is this can be done, but you need a big company like Apple to do it.

[rkomar]

I'm not sure that most people want a device that is only for one thing, and that one thing being for classwork. I would count teachers in that group, too. Once they find out they can't use it as a tablet, they're going to lose all enthusiasm for it.

[toronado]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I'm not sure that most people want a device that is only for one thing, and that one thing being for classwork. I would count teachers in that group, too. Once they find out they can't use it as a tablet, they're going to lose all enthusiasm for it.

Well, maybe when the 12.9" iPad comes out it will be what ends up in the classrooms.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/10...n-the-fall.htm

Apple will reportedly market the larger iPad to the enterprise and education market...

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by toronado

That's cause nobody knows Kno.

My point is this can be done, but you need a big company like Apple to do it.

Or it is because the students have at least a laptop and/or tablet anyway.

[rem736]

Originally Posted by rem736

i got via email a note from pocketbook on their planned release of the Pocketbook CAD Reader:
Thank you for your interest in Pocketbook products.
Pocketbook CAD Reader is under development; this model will come into the market in the second half of the 2014 (approximately in November-December), and the device will become available for order online on our official webpage. The price will be announced later. More information on this model can be found in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5yE...M3pyfB3CNNSM1g
Pocketbook Cad Reader will support the following formats: PDF, PDF (DRM), EPUB, EPUB(DRM), DJVU, FB2, FB2.ZIP, DOC, DOCX, RTF, PRC, TCR, TXT, CHM, HTM, HTML, DWG

this will certainly be the one most people will flock to compared to the sony 13.3" given that it is priced almost 50% cheaper. with the change to the new screen, the price may increase. but i think it will still be much cheaper than the sony. that, and the fact that it will support a lot more file formats.

the sony 13.3" pdf reader is now available for all in the u.s. but at $1100, get it now or wait for the pocketbook cad reader later?

[toronado]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Or it is because the students have at least a laptop and/or tablet anyway.

I think not. Innovative companies will always find a way to make some previously unneeded and unimagined product seem absolutely essential.

[Huyggy]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

no, the stand is included. Nothing fancy here, it's only a plastic foldable stand but it's okay.

Hey, little update here.
I've still got my FamilyPad 2 bought more than 2 years ago!
And guess what? At 13.3", this is the only affordable largest display reader (I prefer not to think about the "alternative" reader like the $1k sony reader Digital Paper DPTS1... ).
Unfortunately, the FamilyPad 2 is now discontinued, so I may have a very rare product here (search into Ebay if you can...)

Thanks a lot. 2 years, and absolutely no evolution in this field...

I've got the impression that the manufacturers want more and more to follow the masses (IPad mini 3 : what innovation ). A sign of the economic crisis?

[toronado]

Originally Posted by Huyggy

$1k sony reader Digital Paper DPTS1

Price has dropped to $799.

No competition (from Amazon), so no downward price pressure.