How many 'improvements' do we really need?

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

I disagree. In the 1980s through the mid to late 90s, the price of a computer system was about $5000. Computer, monitor, printer. And that was not a leading edge computer, but a mainstream, what you wanted to buy.

No, this is preposterous, at least for non-bleeding edge computers. I bought a computer in 1988, and XT clone from Zenith. Computer (with two disk drives!) cost $1,000. That was pretty much what everyone paid. I had to wait a couple of months before I could buy a printer.

Heck, in 1985 a 5 MB hard drive was $5000. A double sided, double density floppy drive was around $1000.

No one used hard drives in 1985. I don't know what a floppy drive cost separately,but it was much cheaper in the computer. The first Macintosh computer, from 1984, cost $1995. And was criticized for being too expensive.

In the early 90s, I upgraded a 386 computer to a 486. The motherboard and processor (with trade in credit) was $1500. Later, a 486/66 CPU for that machine was about $1000.

Yeah, but 486's were bleeding edge in the early 90's. You could have bought an entire computer for the costs of the processor.

Now days, a system is well under $1000.

Yes, to computer you buy today is a lot more powerful than the computer of before, but the prices have REALLY fallen.

I agree that prices have fallen - you can buy completely adequate computers for around $500 now. And it did seem like you used to always have to spend $1,000.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I agree that prices have fallen - you can buy completely adequate computers for around $500 now. And it did seem like you used to always have to spend $1,000.

You can buy adequate computers for $200~300 nowadays (monitor not included). For $500~600 you can already get a pretty powerful quad-core PC with a low mid-range discrete GPU suitable for light gaming. Unless a person is into heavy/high-end gaming or run a lot of CPU/GPU-intensive applications (e.g. 3D modeling), there's not much reason to get $1,000+ computers.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

The price of that hardware today would be in the low single digits and could (save for the monitor obviously) be put on something that would fit comfortably in your pocket. In fact, the Raspberry Pi single chip computer will retail for about $25, and feature 256 times the ram and a 700mhz processor.

Which is all to say that the price of computer hardware has crashed precipitously. Which is also why new features get added to hardware constantly - it becomes cheap and easy to do it as hardware prices drop.

Yes, I agree, but the point is that the price remains relatively constant, at least within an order of magnitude. What changes is the value of money and what it will get you. But a high end PC today costs nearly the same as a high end PC did 25 years ago.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

OTOH, I have multiple ereaders because I like the one I have (Sony PRS-650) and since they stopped making it, I got a spare. And a -350 for backup. And a spare for that one also.

No upgraditis, just like a particular model and want to stay with it for a few (many) years.

Unfortunately by the time you get around to using the spare you'll probably be lucky if the battery will carry half of the charge of a new battery. Lifespan on Li-Ion/Poly batteries is commonly quoted as 3-5 years. Unless the Sony's have replaceable batteries you're not going to have a fully comparable replacement spare.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

In the 1980s through the mid to late 90s, the price of a computer system was about $5000.

In the late nineties, you could, and I did, get most of the parts needed to build your own PC for free after rebate.

The several computers in that class, which I built, are indeed obsolete, if only because of the need for a modern browser, and I have trashed them. However, for other purposes, such as word processing and spreadsheets, they were fine. My wife and I were saying that we actually preferred the even older Apple II line for word processing, due to simplicity.

6 inch eReaders will remain fine for reading long texts, and are small enough that I won't need to trash them in favor of more flexible devices. I don't see any reason why the Kindle 1-3 will become obsolete, any more than paper books will become obsolete.

[flipreads]

It honestly depends on the kind of reader you are.

Some books work just fine with existing eReaders.

Others, like picture books, text books, need better formats, better technology, or perhaps cheaper hardware for people to pick them up.

Refresh rates, better resolution, e-ink vs LCD, are also factors and we could always use an improvement in these areas.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by plib

Unfortunately by the time you get around to using the spare you'll probably be lucky if the battery will carry half of the charge of a new battery. Lifespan on Li-Ion/Poly batteries is commonly quoted as 3-5 years. Unless the Sony's have replaceable batteries you're not going to have a fully comparable replacement spare.

I always factor in battery longevity (as well as the relative availability, expense and trouble of replacement batteries) -- esp. when considering a refurbished or discounted device that has an internal battery and has been out for a few years.

The X50 series seems robust in other ways, and I've read about people replacing the battery successfully here, so I think our friend might be safe.

The question is whether we'll be able to put up with the sluggishness now that processor power in dedicated e-readers is improving.

I've also thought about color (Mirasol, for instance) and improvements in resolution and contrast -- an even more paper-reminiscent experience. These aspects are improved in LG's recent iteration, but that doesn't mean their plastic screens are satisfying to read. We'll have to test that out.

The other way to look at this: The iPad and other such color tablets are handling the effect of reading glossy magazines, while readers and tablets with matte screens are giving us more of the sense of opening a book.

De Chirico felt nostalgia for the infinite, but we seem to be wistful over a medium that only lost currency a few decades ago (and dominance sixty years before that).

Then again, I recently inherited a steroopticon and slides made a century ago. One of the cards is a double photograph of Abraham Lincoln.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Then again, I recently inherited a steroopticon and slides made a century ago. One of the cards is a double photograph of Abraham Lincoln.

Cool ...I have an imprint of his bust on a metallic disc

[haydnfan]

I embrace any upgrade that improves contrast and/or resolution. Ereaders have a long ways from being of the same quality as a new release hardcover. The contrast is just so low! Under bright light they look great, but under normal lighting the screen is so grey that at least for me there are legibility concerns. If you always use a reading lamp and don't care about this upgrade then fine, but I will upgrade.

Now my beef is that I want a better screen, not a bandaid. A backlight is a bandaid. I also really hope that they up the resolution because in smaller fonts the text does not remain crisp.

[Fozzybear]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Cool ...I have an imprint of his bust on a metallic disc

What cup size was he?

[Freeshadow]

I'd welcome an upgrade in functionality far more than in raw power. A reader properly making use of typesetting features instead of another one doing half of the job, only twice as fast as its predecessor.

From a more general point of view, what we currently get is that computing devices are getting faster, but alas less universally usable. Personally I dislike where this leads to, especially because most of the additional computing power is not used for the appointed tasks but wasted for eyecandy.

[Iskariot]

"How many 'improvements' do we really need? "

I think there is a lot of room for improvements.

I bought my first reader, a Sony PRS950, a year ago. I adore it.
I had to pay a lot for it, because officially the model is not available in europe.
I am very disappointed with the new cheap plastic, shiny Sony PRS-T1 reader that has no internal space to store the stylus, but I love most of the software improvements.

I am willing to pay twice or even three times the money of a PRS-T1 if...
- it had the looks of my PRS950 with the software of the PRS-T1.
- and if it had more contrast, with an almost paperwhite background,
- a twice as fast processor,
- higher resolution (like the 'new' iRiver model),
- and at least three times the internal memory.
- also I would like it to be able to read mobi too.
- I want to be able to install as many TT fonts as I like
- and user made dictionaries.
- TTS
- user replaceable battery
- color would be nice, but is not very important to me.

So all in all there is still some stuff to wish for.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Fozzybear

What cup size was he?

Thank you so much for that image of Abe Lincoln in a bra. I don't find it at all disturbing.

What's next, ear worms in corsets?

[charmian]

I totally agree about the e-ink contrast. E-ink is okay now, but it could be better. Unfortunately I haven't heard any news about any possible improvements. Right now e-ink is about the level of newsprint in terms of contrast. Acceptable, but it would be better to have it more like higher-grade paper. That alone would be worth an upgrade to me.

Is there a technical reason why the contrast can't be higher, I wonder?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by charmian

Is there a technical reason why the contrast can't be higher, I wonder?

The technical reason is that they haven't managed to work out how to make it with higher contrast yet.