Tablets won

[danskmacabre]

I have a tablet which I use for light browsing and reading PDFs.
I also have an ereader, which I by far prefer to use for reading novels in epub format.

My wife also has an ereader, so does one of my kids... oh.. and the other one.
One of my kids also has a tablet for school.

When I catch the train into work sometimes, I regularly see people standing or sitting reading an ereader. They're just very convenient compared to a tablet.

I love ereaders for the above reasons, but I also love tablets for what they are good at.
Both have their shortcomings and strengths.

[elemenoP]

I would sooner go back to paper books than read on an LCD tablet. I certainly do worry about the declining market share: e-ink readers are specialty items for heavy readers, and there are a limited number of heavy readers in the world! It could be that most people who would want an e-ink reader already have one (at least in the US?).

But I'm encouraged that Amazon and others are continuing to introduce new models every year. Sure, we don't have color e-ink, but now we have front-lit e-ink. That's pretty new. Amazon knows that people who buy e-ink readers buy a lot of BOOKS. So they will continue to support the market. And although I have a Kindle, I hope to see Kobo and others in the marketplace for a long time, because competition feeds innovation.

eP

[cfrizz]

Why does everyone insist on an either or situation?

Coming home today I sat next to a woman reading on her phone, just like I was reading on my Note 2. on the other side another woman was reading on a generic tablet. Looked around and saw a few Kindles & a few more tablets.

I personally don't care if they are reading, playing games, watching movies, listening to music. What they do does NOT impact me in the least, I'm too busy minding my own business reading my book! And I can read on any of them just fine.

None of these devices is going anywhere anytime soon. So long as we have choices to read on whatever we are comfortable reading on that is all that counts.

Now stop looking for things to debate, fret, argue, speculate about and go read a damn book!

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by leebase

Not that plenty of folks love their eInk devices...but it's clear that the market has spoken and that far and away most people can read just fine on a tablet or smartphone.

Yeah, if you're a "reader" that reads about 6 books a year, then a tablet will be fine.

Read during a summer day, on a tablet. You don't even have to be outside. That alone is a reason to buy an e-ink device.

Originally Posted by leebase

Ereader sales are declining. Their prices are at an all time low and their abilities better than ever...and their sales are still falling.

So? Everybody who wanted an e-reader has one. After front-lighting got added, the e-reader was essentially perfect. All the rest is just fluff to entice people to upgrade; fluff that adds very little or nothing to the reading experience itself. At a certain point, the e-reader will not see any great improvements anymore. It'll settle to become a low-priced commodity, for people who want them.

All that hype about tablets is coming out of my nose. As if they're going to replace e-readers, laptops, and even desktops, because they "can do so much". As soon as you have more to do than type a one line e-mail, anything but a smartphone or a tablet is preferable.

The only two things I use mine for (and for which I bought it) is browsing the web (if I have nothing to type), and reading the occasional PDF.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Tablets are also getting better at a faster rate than eInk readers. I imagine there's more churn in the tablet market. There's never been much of a reason for me to replace any of my readers.

There are already some tablets that are starting to use reflective LCD's.

At some point, the 6-8 inch e-reader and 6-8 inch tablet market will just merge; after the display tech gets to the point that one device can do it all. The dedicated e-reader may be replaced by a tablet that has a screen that can do on it's own what e-ink and LCD do seperately now.

[AnemicOak]

Didn't know it was a competition.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Didn't know it was a competition.

E-ink already won the reader market, tablets the much bigger browsing and general entertainment market. Surprise, surprise.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by ApK

That tablets outsell ereaders says nothing inherently about which is a better reader, any more than the fact that tablets outsell the Xbox mean that tablets are a better gaming system.

That wasn't the discussion. It was said that anything but eInk would kill you eyes. But it doesn't for the vast majority.

And I'm not merely speaking of how vastly tablets have gone on to outsell eInk but that the eInk market has peaked and is in decline. Even as the prices are cheaper and the quality and features are better than ever.

One can posit that READING itself is going out of vogue and that's why folks aren't buying eInk readers...or realize that folks buy tablets and then find them good enough for reading in addition to everything else they do.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Why does everyone insist on an either or situation?

Coming home today I sat next to a woman reading on her phone, just like I was reading on my Note 2. on the other side another woman was reading on a generic tablet. Looked around and saw a few Kindles & a few more tablets.

I quite agree. Had THAT been the discussion all these years, there would have been no debate at all. Yet when the iPad was released there was an uproar on here about how eInk was they only technology suitable for reading and that computers "kill your eyes".

What was poorly understood was that tablets do not read like old computer CRT's and that even though SOME people will prefer eInk, the vast majority won't care.

By now, with eInk in decline, it should be clear. There are fans of eInk, it should maintain a market and continue to be viable. But it's a MUCH smaller market than that of the multi function tablet.

Lots of folks read for many hours at a time on their tablets and phones with no problems at all. Tablets appeal to the broad market and eInk readers appeal ONLY to readers...true. It's just a myth that there aren't folks who ARE heavy readers who do so on their phones and tablets and enjoy doing so.

Even Amazon puts out LCD tablets aimed at readers as does B&N and Kobo. Tablets that are for readers first and happen to do some other things as well.

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Read during a summer day, on a tablet. You don't even have to be outside. That alone is a reason to buy an e-ink device.

I read outside all the time. I can read just fine in the shade and don't like to read out in bright sunlight even with books. On the other hand, indoors is where I do most of my reading and tablets are better than books or eInk. Or were until they finally add lighting to the eInk devices.

And yes, I have to charge my iPad at night, but that's no big deal. The outside reading and need to recharge are more than compensated by color, speed, having apps for every book store, comics...not to mention browsing the internet and everything else a tablet can do.

Horses for courses. My argument was never that everyone would prefer tablets over eInk. My argument was that most people will find that they can read on their phone or their tablet just fine. Then the rest of what a tablet or a smartphone can do makes them the preferred device.

[pidgeon92]

Anecdotally, I read on LCD (Nexus 7). My eyes have not been "killed." They do, however, bow to a strain that they do not feel on eink devices in the same reading time period.

[leebase]

I should have started with this article from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2035666.html

Take Taiwan's E Ink Holdings Inc, which makes most of the monochrome displays for devices such as Amazon.com Inc's Kindle and Barnes & Noble Inc's Nook. After five years of heady growth during which shipments rose 100-fold, it got a jolt at the end of 2011 when monthly revenues dropped 91 percent in two months.

"The bottom fell out of the market," says E Ink Chief Marketing Officer Sriram Peruvemba.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that of those Americans over 30 who read e-books, less than half do so on an e-reader. For those under 30, the number falls to less than a quarter.

[theinfamousj]

Two things come to mind.

First: growth does not equal production. A company reaches maturity when it can meet its earning targets from non-growth production. By this logic (found in any intro accounting textbook) the eInk market is just now coming in to its adulthood from its uncertain adolescence.

Second, the use of the word "revenues" (not to be confused with "profits" or "orders") by the marketing officer, and the fact that it is applied only to an two month period is just so much "the sky is falling". I can think of a lot of reasons why you might record a smaller value for revenue in one month as compared with the previous.

(I am taking a financial accounting course on Coursera at the moment. These past five weeks we have learned nothing but ways revenues can change from month to month while a company or industry is gaining in strength.)

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by leebase

But it's a MUCH smaller market than that of the multi function tablet.

My argument was that most people will find that they can read on their phone or their tablet just fine. Then the rest of what a tablet or a smartphone can do makes them the preferred device.

The problem is, you are comparing a mulit-function device with a single use device and trying to say one is better than the other. Your argument is totally flawed.

An e-reader is better for reading books than a tablet. Just because many people prefer to use a tablet because they can use it for a ton of other things and also to read on, doesn't mean it is better for reading. It's far more adaptable, that's all (and better for some forms of reading, like comics).

Your first comment is spot on, e-ink e-reading is a much smaller market than tablets. So now that the e-ink market is pretty mature, and there isn't the same need for people to continually upgrade the same as there is with tablets, of course the market is going to have a big slow down.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

This just in folks, cars won. They outsold trucks by a huge amount last year. Yes, people aren't using their cars to carry around loads of sheep and gravel but that's not the point. They sold more so they won. Why do people keep insisting that trucks are superior devices for transporting materials when cars are clearly selling better? Fools.