Tablets are the future of eReading

[Caltsar]

As an owner of both a nook and an iPad, I vastly prefer my nook for reading novels. On the other hand, my iPad is what I use to read magazines and comics.

The screen only accounts for the comics and magazines because it's in color, has a faster response time (I tend to zoom and scroll on comics and magazines), and the 9 inch screen is better suited for some formats while the 6 inch screen is better suited for others.

The great thing about electronic formats is that they can be formatted to work with multiple screen sizes as well as used across devices, so it may not be a matter of whether ebook readers or tablets win, but how many people choose to use more than one device for reading.

E-ink is getting cheaper and eBook readers may become a sub-$50 item that people buy to read novels or to carry around with them on a daily basis. They have the potential to be more durable, lighter weight, and less of an issue to have lost or stolen than a tablet (with all your personal information on it). This potential drop in price could also lead to eBook readers becoming a commodity that reaches a market outside the current tablet and ebook reader market. If I could buy a fairly decent ebook reader for $25, I'd give them as gifts very easily, I'd carry it places where I'd otherwise be afraid of losing my nook, and they may even be given as standard equipment to all students.

I personally benefit from the lack of distraction my nook has to offer. When I read on the iPad, it's too easy to move to a web browser, game, email, or whatever else I have set up. Setting the iPad aside to pick up a dedicated device helps me focus on reading. Of course this isn't the case for everyone, but most people I know who have tablets also own another (usually e-ink) ebook reader.

Paper books now have several different sizes based on use, presentation of information or text, and personal preference. Why shouldn't the tablet and eBook reader market have that same diversity? Afterall, assuming you have a standard format (and standard DRM if we must have it at all), there's no reason why you can't read on your favorite device... or jump between multiple devices.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

<shrug>

I made charging things a reflex I do out of habit. Chargers are hooked into the same power strip that handles my desktop. Before I go to bed, cell phone and PDA get hooked up.

The laptops are plugged into an A/C outlet at home, so they charge as a by-product.

I recognize that others folks do forget to charge things. Mine get used frequently and heavily enough that having them die of an exhausted battery in the middle of doing something is unacceptable, so I take pains and developed habits to insure it doesn't happen.
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Dennis

I never forget to charge my PDA, reader or laptop. But I always forget to charge my phone...

I hate phones. I hate talking on phones. I hate when people talk on phones in public areas. Which is probably why I always have a selective amnesia regarding charging it

[Elfwreck]

What I care about in an ebook reader:
1) Portable: can comfortably read on a crowded train, which means it's light enough for me to hold with one hand for an hour or more.

2) Long battery life: 8 hour active minimum; 24+ hour active preferred; it'd take solid convincing to get me to give up on e-ink.

3) My docs support: Easy access to my own documents & ebooks; not willing to be locked into a store or have sideloaded books be sorted separately from purchased ones.

Everything else is negotiable. I don't mind LCD screens; I'd love to have games & internet access; keyboard would be terrific... but I'm not willing to budge on those first three, and most the current tablets/multi-devices fail badly on all three points.

[screwballl]

Just as there is a market for multi-function devices and new markets are made all the time, there is still a strong market for dedicated devices as well such something designed specifically for book reading that many of us use. Tablets will not overtake the ereader market at least in the foreseeable future, just as the readers will not make much impact on the tablet market either.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Why, because it's one of the few cases where a multi-purpose device truly routed a dedicated one?

Nope, because they didn't.

The original Palm Pilot could be considered a dedicated device. It had an 8mhz Motorola Dragonball processor, a whopping 2MB of RAM, and PalmOS and applications in firmware. It wasn't terribly expandable, as external storage wasn't an option, and you had to fit both your data and any third-party programs you installed into those 2MB of RAM.

But that didn't last long. The PDA filled a need and created a market, and devices based on that model rapidly increased in power and expandibility, gaining faster processors, more RAM, and external storage options. The PDA I use is an example: a 200mhz ARM CPU, 128MB of RAM, a 320x480 screen in 65K colors, driven by an ATI video chip with 2D acceleration and 8MB of video RAM, bluetooth radio, IR, and two SD card slots. Aside from standard organizer functions, it can display JPGs and play MP3s with bundled software. Added third party software lets me play video, view and edit documents and spreadsheets, view ebooks in a number of formats, browse the web and get email (via an add-on Wifi card), program in Assembler, Basic, Brainf*ck, C, Lua, Pascal, Python, Rexx, Tcl and a few other things, and oh, yes...play games.

What savaged the PDA was a recapitulation of the PC market, an order of magnitude faster. When Palm first offered the Pilot and created a market, PDAs were must haves, and vendors like Palm, Handspring, and Sony couldn't make them fast enough. But the market rapidly saturated, PDAs became commodities with commodity pricing, and really low-end dedicated organizer devices grabbed the segment of the market that only wanted an organizer because they were cheaper. Margins were paper thin, and people like Sony got out of the market because while the Clie line was profitable, it wasn't profitable enough.

PDA manufacturers were faced with the challenge of what they could do in subsequent generations of devices that would add sufficient value to allow them to charge higher prices and make better margins. For the most part, they failed to come up with anything.

Meanwhile, cell phones were becoming steadily more powerful, morphing into feature phones, and then smartphones. They ate the PDA market share from the high end, by adding PDA functions. Being able to use the device as a phone as well as a PDA was a value-add users would pay for.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I never forget to charge my PDA, reader or laptop. But I always forget to charge my phone...

I hate phones. I hate talking on phones. I hate when people talk on phones in public areas. Which is probably why I always have a selective amnesia regarding charging it

I don't hate phones, or talking on them. (I can do that by reflex, as anyone who has called me early in the morning before coffee will attest. I will carry on a coherent conversation, but there will be no conscious thought involved... )

I do hate the ill manners so many cell phone users seem to acquire with the phone. Nothing like standing in a line for a check-out counter at a store, backed up behind a bozo paying more attention to their cell phone conversation than to actually paying for their merchandise. I might just trade a body part for a remote cell phone killer that could cause various people's phones to die horribly in mid-sentence.
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Dennis

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I do hate the ill manners so many cell phone users seem to acquire with the phone. Nothing like standing in a line for a check-out counter at a store, backed up behind a bozo paying more attention to their cell phone conversation than the actually paying for their merchandise. I might just trade a body part for a remote cell phone killer that could cause various people's phones to die horribly in mid-sentence.
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Dennis

I am planning to get one like this. I ran into a problem the other day with a joker standing in line at the Redbox and read off EVERY SINGLE TITLE to the person on the other end, and there was still 2 people in front of me.

[Penforhire]

I wish! The FCC takes a VERY dim view of cell blockers. Very illegal in America. Otherwise I'd certainly have mounted one on my motorcycle long ago.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by screwballl

I am planning to get one like this. I ran into a problem the other day with a joker standing in line at the Redbox and read off EVERY SINGLE TITLE to the person on the other end, and there was still 2 people in front of me.

That's tempting, but it's not what I really want.

I don't want to blanket interfere with all cell phone coverage in an area. I want to specifically kill a particular phone, permanently, and force the offender to buy a new one.

"Oh, yeah! It was so funny! I LOLed! And then I was like..."
<Zap!>
"Hey! WTF?! Hello? Hello?"
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Dennis

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

I wish! The FCC takes a VERY dim view of cell blockers. Very illegal in America. Otherwise I'd certainly have mounted one on my motorcycle long ago.

Not actually illegal... this is something else that falls into that grey area... but we can leave this for another discussion.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I do hate the ill manners so many cell phone users seem to acquire with the phone. Nothing like standing in a line for a check-out counter at a store, backed up behind a bozo paying more attention to their cell phone conversation than to actually paying for their merchandise. I might just trade a body part for a remote cell phone killer that could cause various people's phones to die horribly in mid-sentence.
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Dennis

I would like it if those people suddenly got the runs, like, oops, gotta go.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

I would like it if those people suddenly got the runs, like, oops, gotta go.

Preferably in their pants, right out there in front of God and everybody...
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Dennis

[Gwen Morse]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

People have been talking up Pixel Qi for what, 2 years now?

They've been stuck in the "Any Minute Now, Seriously, We'll Ship Product" for about a year now.

I'll wait until it has shipped as an actual screen in an actual product that you can actually buy in an actual store before considering it a solution to anything.

The actual Pixel Qi screen has been (already) sold in individual units for replacement screens for one (or more) models of netbook. They're out in the wild, you can google for them.

The Adam tablet, which has a version with a Pixel Qi screen, is due to be released later in the month, is being touted at CES, and is being discussed by bloggers.

Pixel Qi has already produced. Notion Ink, the company creating the Adam still has to prove they're not just showing off vaporware.

[brigader]

If you could buy a all in one tablet like the IPAD that could also have an E-INK display then this would be great. At the moment i love my IREX 800S and as i use a computer all day I hate reading techincal manuals on an LCD! I either print out the PDF or copy it to my IREX ;-) which i seem to be doing much more than ever... I have an IPAD too but don't like the glare of an LCD, and the killer of course is you can not read an LCD in sunlight IPAD/NOTEPAD LAPTOP etc just does not work ;-).... So for the time being i will stick with what i have, but am tempted by a larger ebook for PDF material.. the 8.1 inch screen is nice, but 10 would be better ;-) but each to their own... I still read a lot of web pages/tech info etc on the pc, but when it comes to really reading... I prefer the eink technolgy..
lets wait and see, unfortunatly i see the true ebook readers being pushed out by the tablets/lcds ;-( i hope not.....

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Gwen Morse

The actual Pixel Qi screen has been (already) sold in individual units....

That's lovely. Doesn't count as a shipping product that I can use.

Originally Posted by Gwen Morse

The Adam tablet, which has a version with a Pixel Qi screen, is due to be released later in the month

That's swell. Still doesn't count as a shipping product until it's out.

And of course, neither of these prove that Pixel Qi is going to be the End-All Be-All Screen that does everything equally well, let alone buries dedicated devices or eInk.


How many ereaders were touted at CES last year? Znet listed its "top 10" in an article ( http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetrevi...-readers/11005 ). About half made it to market, and none of those seem to have had any significant impact.