E-Reader Ownership Outpacing Tablets

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Well, yes. You're touching a flat surface with the tablet, too. The difference would be that this flat surface would be larger and the response more accurate.

Yes, you're touching the flat surface of your tablet. With that device what do you do? Hold the tablet with one hand while balancing the virtual keyboard projector on top of it in such a way that you get an image of the keyboard on the nearest wall so that you can type with your other hand? Because if you are using a desk or a table and have the tablet on a kickstand, I think that you would be much better off with a laptop.

[CyGuy]

Perhaps once they get the eye-movement-tracking-via-camera-mouse with the blink-to-click feature we will finally have a keyboard replacement.

Anyway, I just purchased a new reader recently, a PocketBook Pro 902. I have yet to purchase a new tablet though, I just haven't really found the one I am looking for yet...

[Graham]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

I have yet to purchase a new tablet though, I just haven't really found the one I am looking for yet...

This is why this announcement doesn't surprise me in the least.

I'd like a tablet, and I've coveted one ever since the iPad came out, but I can't shake the feeling that it doesn't do that much more than my netbook. I can list the features that would swing the balance for me, but that device doesn't yet exist.

On the other hand I'm on my third eInk reader (due to my own clumsiness with the screens). It performs one key function far better than my phone, PDA, netbook or desktop, and is thus worth paying for.

Graham

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Yes, you're touching the flat surface of your tablet. With that device what do you do? Hold the tablet with one hand while balancing the virtual keyboard projector on top of it in such a way that you get an image of the keyboard on the nearest wall so that you can type with your other hand? Because if you are using a desk or a table and have the tablet on a kickstand, I think that you would be much better off with a laptop.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

That's not really what I was picturing. I was more picturing a tablet with an internal projector. The tablet could come with a stand similar to the one for the iPad, so that when it's tilted at a certain angle, you could trigger the projector to beam on to the flat surface.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

It doesn't take care of the tactile part of the equation, but what tablets really need is this technology built in.

no, it needs smaller keyboards, equipped with Swype. Swype is standard in many android phones and some tablets. But it really asks for a stylus (for non-slimy swiping).

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

no, it needs smaller keyboards, equipped with Swype. Swype is standard in many android phones and some tablets. But it really asks for a stylus (for non-slimy swiping).

I prefer Graffiti or DioPen, but I'm kinda old-school that way.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

I prefer Graffiti or DioPen, but I'm kinda old-school that way.

oh come on! You have to draw characters! How prehistoric is that?

srsl, just swyping over letters in the virtual keyboard allows me to write quite fast from the smartphone. Could be faster with a stylus -- finger oil can make quite some drag...

[5thWiggle]

Well, I could have suggested cuneiform. After all, we are talking tablets.

Seriously, I am much faster with graffiti than with swype. Years of practice with Palm devices. With swype, I have to look at the keyboard and aim, but I'm so used to Graffiti that I just have to glance down every now and then to make sure I haven't wandered over to the number side.

[Namekuseijin]

either way, it's the way to go with mobile: write down, not type.

[jocampo]

With so much progress on the electronic arena, people just forgot what really matters when reading ..

-Proper light (indoor or outdoor)
-Low or no glare
-No distractions
-Of course, a book (ereader on this case) with nice and clear fonts
-Good contrast

So far, I think that only eink devices have been able to provide all or most of those reading requirements. Tablets are getting better, but the glare issue, poor battery life and price, are still things to be considered prior buying one, especially in South and Central America, were minimum wage is not even enough to buy a Kindle 3.

I don't want a tablet as dedicated ereader. I have one, but I find myself reading on my Kindle again and again. Because it is not heavy, I don't need to charge every other day or so and I can read inside, outside, wherever I need or want as long as there is enough light; same conditions since books were invented, maybe even better now.

Tablets are multipurpose devices but with too many distractions, too expensive and not light enough to beat current eink readers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

OK, so "real" tablets don't cost less than $500. Right now we have:

ereaders < web tablets < tablets & netbooks < laptops < desktops

The lines in between are going to get very blurry in time. But we do have a wide range of prices, sizes, features, and product quality. The question is: do we need one of each?

I don't think that progression quite reflects long-term market reality
Try this:
feature phone<smartphone<webpad<netbook/mediapad<laptop<tablet pc<desktop

All the above are multi-function devices based on cheap, responsive lcd displays intended for comunication, media consumption, and increasing content *creation* capabilties. That they can be used for ebook reading is a side-effect, not a mission statement.

Dedicated ebook readers come from a totally different direction.
Going back to the days of the Rocketbook, all successful ebook reader devices have been designed to be primarily and predominantly for displaying and *selling* recreational-reading books. Mostly fiction but to some extent "casual" non-fiction. That they can be used to some extent for educational and academic use is a side effect, not a mission statement. And that any can be used for games or apps is merely opportunistic window dressing.

People who wish ebook readers and webpads/mediapads had extensive content manipulation and creation capabilities, or more capable input/output are, wittingly or unwittingly, trying to reinvent the wheel. The device they want exists and has existed for the better part of a decade. Want a touch-capable device with a tablet form factor *and* a laptop quality keyboard? Done. Usb host? Done. Pdf display, annotation, creation? Done. Precise pen tracking and activation? Good enough for handwriting capture and/or recognition? With outdoor viewable color screens? Done. Done. Done. Optional, world-class TTS and voice recognition? Ditto.
Do a web search for Motion Computing, HP, Toshiba and/or Fujitsu tablet PCs. In sizes from 5 to 12 inch screens, they do all those "blue sky" iPad/webpad/reader "missing" features that are only missing because they are not part of the target market.
And the reason those features are not in those products and won't be in them any time soon is that there is no free lunch; to do them right you need a real computer with a full-power OS and app base, not a beefed up cellphone platform; you need a high power battery-eating CISC processor, lots of RAM and storage, you need an expensive transflective screen.
All of which comes at a price.

There are two different design philosophies at work here: tablets and webpads are designed to meet a price point and their capabilities are limited to what can be delivered with cellphone tech at the target price. TabletPCs (it's a trademark, BTW) start by packing in features and letting the price float to whatever the tech allows.

Now, affordability is also a feature.
And it is a big factor in deciding the "natural" size of the market; high capability/high price products need to justify their price by delivering value in line to their cost. So you don't buy a top of the line $3000 TabletPC to surf the web and play Angry Birds. You buy one as part of a medical system for hospitals. You don't but even the cheapest $800 TabletPC to read eboks but you do if you need to mark up, annotate, and edit documents or manuscripts for a living.
Similarly, you don't buy a $500 media-capable color tablet to read fiction if a $150 b&w eink reader can display the same book at least as well.
What makes ebook readers highly attractive to the maistream is they are cheaper, don't duplicate desktop/laptop feature, and they're the best there is at what they do, even if what they do isn't very pretty.
Plus, at today's prices, you can get a celphone, laptop, and a reader for the price of wjan iPad.

As to owning more than one, it really depends on need and budget.
Me, I've serially bought and still use one of each; a desktop PC, a TabletPC, a Netbook, an Android webpad, an eink reader (3 actually), plus a fully functional PDA, and a smartphone. Each has its strengths and its weaknesses, none is perfect.
Would I buy any of them again if it breaks?
The desktop for sure, the PB360 most likely (depends on what the K4 looks like).
The rest?
It's going to depend on what the market looks like in a year plus.
I want to see what Win8 and the new ULV Cores do for low end TabletPCs first.
The android webpad buy looks least likely right now. The ecosystem boasts some excellent apps but the underlying platform I've found underwhelming; I've seen similar hardware perform much better under other, more mature OSes.

Longer term, I want to see if color bistatic displays ever amount to anything or if LCD is all we'll ever see. Not holding my breath for the former, though.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And the reason those features are not in those products and won't be in them any time soon is that there is no free lunch; to do them right you need a real computer with a full-power OS and app base, not a beefed up cellphone platform; you need a high power battery-eating CISC processor, lots of RAM and storage, you need an expensive transflective screen.

non sequitur: aside from transflective screen not being the norm, mobile devices today have hardware power far beyond the dreams of most desktops from the beginning of the decade. Yes, from the time where wacom drawing tablets were all the rage. And CPUs today are pretty much all RISC with a CISC emulation layer if at all.

Fact is: progress never stops and there's no such thing anymore as special purpose CPUs to justify a device doing a thing alone. Even a embedded special purpose processor these days would be so powerful that it'd have power to spare for side tasks, like decoding mp3 streams.

Once bistable, transflective color screens with good refresh rates are the norm among all mobile hardware, it'll be difficult to justify the cost of single-purpose devices for reading alone as opposed to an all-in-one, unless the single-purpose ones are as cheap as a magazine.

[WalkingDistance]

I also think that marketing has an effect on the results.

Yes tablets are very rigorously marketed now because of the tough competition for a marketshare. The success of the first iPad prompted others to really hop aboard and now you can't watch TV, listen to the radio, or drive on a highway without running into a tablet ad.

I just want to bring this topic up to discussion because it hasn't been discussed in depth yet:

-Demographic aim and Marketing strategies.

Tablets seem to be more popular amongst the younger crowd. BUT does the younger crowd have the money to support a $500 piece of electronic. Yes and no. People this age-range purchase Console Gaming Systems/Computers/Laptops around (or higher) than this pricerange. But the tablet is pretty limited functionally compared to computers and laptops so the price is a more important factor when deciding to purchase the device. Also, tablets are the hot-new-electronic-toys that everyone drools over. That is a factor explaining why the device tends to be more popular amongst a younger demographic

Ebook readers appeal to an older crowd compared to tablets. They are advertised MUCH LESS than tablets. There is less competition (less companies make ebook readers than tablets). I think a big thing (For me at least) is that there is a subcommunity of people with e-readers. And almost all the people i know who own e-readers are passionate about their devices. There is less hate in the market. Just last week I saw someone with the new Nook (simple reader) at the airport and we had a conversation about how great the device is despite the fact that I own a Kindle and am passionate about it. Therefore, there's a more supportive community of e-book reader readers and word of mouth is spreading more effectively than commercials.

Also, Nook-stands in front of every Barnes and Noble may help as well. There are physical salesmen/women there to sell you the nook. I know they have there are iPad salesmen/women at Apple stores but usually they're so packed that the people there take less time to actually sell you the device. In general I just see tablets on display at various stores and no real person talking/describing it to you.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

Once bistable, transflective color screens with good refresh rates are the norm among all mobile hardware, it'll be difficult to justify the cost of single-purpose devices for reading alone as opposed to an all-in-one, unless the single-purpose ones are as cheap as a magazine.

There's no reason for a single-purpose device *if* the multi-purpose devices arrange their hardware well for the single purpose. Some of us don't like touchscreens (or don't like *only* touchscreens; I want to manage my reading one-handed), and some touchscreens aren't set for reading efficiently--the whole "make it look like a printed page is being flipped over" graphic is a useless frippary. (If I wanted to flip pages over, I'd read paper.)

Unless the makers of multi-purpose devices decide to make ebook support as good as their video support, there'll be a continued demand for single-purpose ebook readers that cover the 5-10% of readers who care about features not available on the tablets.

E-ink quality. Extended battery life. Ergonomic button arrangements. Lack of app-hunting to remember which books are under which program. Easy memory card use. Categories/tags of ebooks. Sideloaded & bookstore books in the same lists. Etc. None of those are dealbreakers for the general public, but there will continue to be people willing to pay for them.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

There's no reason for a single-purpose device *if* the multi-purpose devices arrange their hardware well for the single purpose. Some of us don't like touchscreens (or don't like *only* touchscreens; I want to manage my reading one-handed), and some touchscreens aren't set for reading efficiently--the whole "make it look like a printed page is being flipped over" graphic is a useless frippary. (If I wanted to flip pages over, I'd read paper.)

100% agreed on the useless frippery. As with "paper" texture image in the background too.

That said, my general purpose device also got the sound volume buttons, which can be used to flip pages by the ereader software. I too read one-handed, even standing in a crowded bus.

If only screen would be slightly larger, matte and reflective on sunlight, would be perfect. As it is, I either put screen brightness to maximum or just try to find a shadowy spot to sit.

Extended battery life.

That is a very valid point, but I have to say with very moderate web browsing, photo taking and mail/news checking, I can go all day long of listening to music and reading ebooks. As soon as I get home, I plug it to the outlet and after a shower and diner it's ready for more.

Lack of app-hunting to remember which books are under which program.

I have an icon for my main ereader, FBReader, in the main area, along with Kindle app, browser, email, news and a daily comic strip reader app. Shouldn't be confusing at all to touch one of them. Well, FBReader has a book icon, Kindle has a tiny figure reading under a tree, but still recognizable for people used to it.

Easy memory card use.

what are you talking about? Saving downloads from the web? From OPDS catalogs? Connecting via USB mass storage to a computer? Can't be any easier...

Categories/tags of ebooks.

What makes you think there's nothing of that in soft ereaders? FBReader sports author, title, tags, recent and favorites categories.

Sideloaded & bookstore books in the same lists.

I bought 2 commercial books via kindle so far and use that to read them. All the rest via FBReader. Blame Amazon's DRM. Will try B&N and others next to see how it fares...