Design an ideal book reader?

[folecr]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

I'd like my reader to be a sheet of plastic so I could take it with me in the bathtub, drop it to the floor without harm, have a bus roll on it, (or some wacky lab technician hit it with a shoe) use only solar energy, be wireless, color, rollable... and have a few hundred units for the same price as today's readers.

What's the reader you want in this century?

[John F]

Having owned a Sony 505 for a week now, let me start by saying I like the Sony, however...

I wouldn't mind a bigger screen (8 inches would be fine, but no huge border).

Better contrast

A built in light

Better software
When I go into a B&M book store, I don't find Stephen King under "S"
Why can't I pick border size for a page (and I don't want to hear "it's the file format")
More font size selections (finer granularity)
Why not more customization (why doesn't the bottom right direction pad page forward)
Maybe the idea of users (for things like bookmarks, continue reading)

Better mechanicals - I sometimes have to push a button twice

[bjkel]

My ideal ereader would be:

Actually would be the HTC Advantage x7501 (with the joystick toggle, not the new one with no buttons).

OK a modified version of it. I would like it slimmer and lighter. Then it would be perfect!

That would be my perfect device a slimmer lighter HTC Advantage without them taking all the buttons off it. Maybe longer battery life, though it's pretty good for a backlit device.

They could take the phone capabilities from it, I don't use it as a phone. But the wifi, gps and camera are great to have all in the one device too. Also has lots of storage space,

I still can't get over the Kindle 2 only having 2gig internal memory with no sd slot at all. I'ld be running out of room in the near future as I already have about 1 gig taken up with books and I have no desire to delete and add as need be as I re-read a lot and like having my whole library right there without the hassle.

[Over]

I just want a 9,7" Cybook. No mp3 player. Better library (folder support, for example).

[pdurrant]

300 dpi is overkill. 300dpi would be necessary if each pixel was only black or white, but with 16 shades of grey, 160dpi is plenty. It's even good enough with 4 shades of grey. I go for increased range of shades or colours before going for increased dpi.

My ideal:

Hardware:
10 cm x 16 cm screen (640x1024 at 160 dpi)
4-bit grey (16 levels) or 4-bit colour (4096 colours)
device no more than 11 cm x 17 cm x 1 cm
weight no more than 200g
robust screen - no glass to shatter
fast page turn, no more than 0.1s
no card slot, but at least 4GB storage
micro-USB data/charger connection
easy to use buttons for page forward/back
touchscreen
automatic portrait/ landscape, with manual override
Sony-style power management - auto hibernation with instant on
No Wifi
No Bluetooth
No headphones
Two weeks power on one charge, including 10,000 page turns

Software:
Mobipocket and ePUB support
User supplied fonts
User choice of alignment, font, font size
Large range of base font sizes - 72pt down to 4 pt
Computer based library/sync software (Calibre-like)
read/unread/position in book tracking
quick sort/search of library on device
quick bookmarking/annotation/dictionary lookup
on-screen keyboard



£99/$150

[Jack Tingle]

My ideal reader? A modernized version of my old Compaq Aero 1550 b&w Pocket PC:
- Win CE OS
- 4-gray scale[1] 4" LCD (the 1550 had a 3.2" screen)
- good daylight readability + low power backlight (green is fine)
- SDHC card slot (regular, mini, or micro is fine)
- low power ARM processor (100 MHz or so is fine)
- light, tough, nearly indestructable, waterproof is a plus (the Aero 1550 outlasted obsolescence by a long time)
- $100 price point

Yes, I know it's kind of low tech. Note the price point. You want to sell a lot of these. Win CE lets you put on virtually any reader anyone ever heard of, so no one can say, "...but it doesn't take the format I like."

My old Dell X51 or new Samsung SCH-i760 are decent readers, but a 4" daylight-readable b&w display would be better.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[1] AIUI, a lot of people's LCD screen complaints go away if you only use low resolution and 4 gray levels (white, lightish, darkish, and black). It has to do with the way the screen is refreshed, and the kind of backlights and reflectors you can use.

[Andybaby]

6 In Screen with less than .5 CM borders
Touch Screen
Leather
Eink
Light (lighted stylus would be cool)

thats it

[folecr]

I've been looking at LCD screen based readers especially the 5" jetbook. I'd agree with the recent posts above : a high quality LCD screen would really hit the spot for me.

WinCE though .... I mean I develop Windows Mobile software currently and .... hmmm I wouldn't trust the thing.

For those who've used Wince based devices : How has power consumption been?

Does anyone know of an OEM selling a development kit using a large LCD screen but otherwise similar to the jetbook?

[Jack Tingle]

Originally Posted by folecr

I've been looking at LCD screen based readers especially the 5" jetbook. I'd agree with the recent posts above : a high quality LCD screen would really hit the spot for me.

WinCE though .... I mean I develop Windows Mobile software currently and .... hmmm I wouldn't trust the thing.

For those who've used Wince based devices : How has power consumption been?

Note that I said Win CE, not PocketPC or WindowsMobile. This is just a reader. Win CE, as I understand it is perfectly stable. It's all the bells and whistles that much things up. That said, the only data I ever lost on one was a static spark that erased an SD card as I was putting it in. I really can't blame Microsoft for that.

The best battery life seems to be on my new cell phone. With the phone on for a couple of days, and using it as my primary PDA, I'm down 40%. The Dell X51 can go a couple of days with light use, a full day with moderate use, or a transatlantic flight with the backlight and the MP3 player going. Same for the b&w Aero 1550. My old HP 1945 wasn't as good, but that was a much earlier generation of color display. It also didn't have processor speed modulation like the Dell.

eInk will almost always have better battery life, but one or two days of normal use seems adequate. Considering the cost difference, that has to count. Win CE devices also usually have replaceable batteries. I have two batteries for the i760, two for the Dell, and 3 for the 1945 (due sadly to the poor screen durability of the 1945).

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by folecr

What's the reader you want in this century?

This century is pretty young!

Look back about 25 years, would you have dreamt of a color laptop for under 500$ ? It would have been impossible if no one had imagined them first. An eink reader was unthinkable 4 years ago. A transparent battery 2 years ago!

I say this reader is fact in ten years max!

BTW it is a plan in Plastic Logic's future.

[jj2me]

- Whiter background, not tan-gray. (I would have been really disappointed with a Sony PRS700.)
- Multiple dictionary support, per book. E.g., a "?" popup icon, like what pops up on the NY Times site when you select a word. Then selecting the "?" gives you a pop-up defn. from your pre-defined dictionary. For example, reading a novel for pleasure? You'll get your default dictionary for the device, say, English-English. Reading an Italian book for language learning? You set that book's default dictionary to be Italian-English.

[cerement]

I find the generic 6" screen perfectly comfortable for extended reading, it matches pretty closely the size of a standard paperback ... what I'm not so happy with is all the extraneous real-estate around the screen. Larger screen may be more useful for diagrams, letter-sized PDFs, etc. but (like large books) they are not comfortable for day-to-day reading. I'd like a dedicated ebook reader that did just that. I don't need an MP3 player, I don't need wireless browsing, or a keyboard, or text-to-speech. I just want to read, comfortably, easily, for extended periods of time.

[Sweetpea]

Hmm, my ideal reader...

- 8" screen
- Win CE
- battery life of at least 1 week
- SD card slot (any size)
- e-ink display, with a low level back light and colour
- at least 126Mb free memory on the device itself
- a scroll button on the left side of the device, for page turning
- a minimum amount of buttons on the device
- a minimum amount of bevel all around the device (just enough to hold comfortably, and the same on all four sides)
- wifi
- touchscreen

Hmmm, lots of nice ideas. Gives a fellow a good feeling (like the various fantasies that you have when you buy a lottery ticket). And as ideas said:

6-11 inch screen (different models, different needs)
memory slot
open source (or at least an actual developers kit)
folders
on/off wifi

Basically the same as others. Except a perfect reader in my opinion would have a few things not mentioned here and not strictly reader related.

1) a secure ID chip on the hardware and
2) a server program for computers.

First let's look at the second. (Yea, yea, I could have renumbered them but I'd rather type out an entire sentence commenting that I am too lazy.) A server program (combined with the wifi) would let the reader and computer interface thus treating the entire power and storage of the more flexible desktop as an extension of the reader. With a properly designed program you could follow blogs, get your news, buy your books (yes, I know, just like the Kindle) as well as browse through all the books sitting in your nicely categorized library. Yes, it would need to be a library organizer as well as a server. Something unthinkable a few years back but now so simple to make. Especially if every downloaded book had its ISBN number in the metadata (if it has one. If no number, just imports the metadata). Imagine easily browsing through your entire collection by cover, author, date, whatever and either using your reader to feed as your read straight from the computer or transferring over the entire book, section or article for later use.

Second, the first. (sigh, really, I had a english teacher in school. They learned me good!) A secure ID chip. Something that is an accepted form of identification for that unit by all (not just a mobi, ereader or kindle number). Why? To ease the panicky jumping and skittish behavior of publishers and help bring libraries and ereaders together. Libraries still have to pay for books and have to keep track of how many times each went out. A secure chip would let libraries (or even businesses with time sensitive data) lend out the book to a particular reader for a certain time while the publishers can take comfort in knowing that the lent books is a single lend and not copied, transferred or enjoyed by anyone but the person it was lent to. So libraries connect to more of the community while publishers can still get their accountability (and if they work a smart deal, automatic weekly feedback on what books are being lent out so they can adjust marketing as well).

I guess for me the reader is more than just about the hardware. It's the implementation of everything else that makes it useful. As long as I have a clear screen that's easy to read from, everything else can be built around it. Well, it could if they would let it.

Now excuse my while I daydream about browsing though my entire library from the couch between book buying binges at any online store.

[Sweetpea]

You know, I just noticed I was describing an upgraded version of my PDA (e-ink display instead of LCD, 8" instead of whatever-size-I-have)...