Tablets won

[jscarbo]

I own and use both e-ink Kindles and tablets on a daily basis but do the bulk of my reading on my Paperwhite and am certain that the majority of avid readers prefer reading on e-ink devices.

Although Amazon doesn't release sales figures, I'd guess that the vast majority of their ebook sales are made to avid readers who buy 3 to 5 ebooks a month. I generally buy about double that amount, spending $50 or more per month on ebook purchases. I'd be surprised if the average tablet owner reads more than a book a month on their tablet.

The market for tablets is much larger than the market for e-ink readers because it's a multi-purpose device but I doubt it will ever replace e-ink devices for avid readers. Again, using Amazon as an example, I'm fairly certain they make far more profit on ebook sales to e-ink Kindle owners than they do on ebook sales to tablet owners.

[DuskyRose]

I've never seen the contest between eReaders and tablets as being between eInk and LCD. Those of us who read a lot make our own decisions on personal preference, and many of us have both. I'm in the camp of having several tablets and several eInk readers, and the eInk is what I read on for long periods of time. The tablets are better for short bursts, like reading a magazine. Bright, flashy and handy, but not what I chose to read on for long periods of time.

I may walk out of the house without my Apple mini, but never without an eInk reader.

For most others, I think it's really more a competition between netbooks/laptops and tablets. People who want a portable computer to carry around didn't all cotton to the netbooks or laptop sizes or power demands. My husband is a computer guy, through and through, and we've only had one laptop through out all the years (which he hated) and we never had a netbook because neither one of us liked the size. He has a laptop for work and hates it as well. But we have a slew of different tablets, because the size fits us a lot better.

(Hubby blames it on Star Trek. He says you can't grow up wanting their hand held devices and not feel like a laptop is just not quite 'there'. LOL)

So I don't think it's the eReaders tablets are crowding out, it's the laptops. That's who they're competing against.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by leebase

Horses for courses.

Exactly.

At the end of the day, both have merits. Until front-lit eInk readers came along, tablets were (IMHO, of course) better for low light reading. EInk still wins in very bright situations. Screen size and colour makes a difference for some reading, but not for others (I prefer my iPad for reading technical documents/books, but my PW for other reading).

The "backlight causes eye-strain" argument is, IMHO, bogus - it's all photons hitting your retina. The issues here can be solved by an appropriate backlight brightness.

My personal main reason for preferring my PW for general reading is the single-function nature of the device - I'm not constantly being tempted by other activities, checking my email etc. I'm just reading.

/JB

[ProfCrash]

I moved from my Kindle to an IPad (love Marvin) but have oved back to a Kindle PW. I just don't read on my iPad. I wanted a device just for reading.

[DiapDealer]

I read. Which means I won. The rest is hooey.

[QuantumIguana]

VHS beat Betamax. Blu-Ray beat HD-DVD. It didn't take long before you couldn't buy a Betamax machine or a Blu-Ray machine. Cars beat horses as a practical mode of transportation. Tablets may outsell e-ink devices, but they haven't beat them in any meaningful sense. MP3 players haven't driven CD players off the market. None of us are going to have any difficulty finding an e-ink device to read, there simply is too much advantage for that segment of the market to disappear: low power consumption, lighter weight and ease of reading in bright light. It doesn't matter to me whether tablets sell more, I'm not interested in being on the "winning team", I only want to be able to have an e-ink device to read by books.

I do think that dedicated readers may eventually fall by the wayside when e-ink improves to the point when it can match the color and refresh speed of LCD. Not that long ago, e-ink was something out of science fiction, it's a young technology with a lot of upside in the future. When you go into a store, you see monitors used for static displays. E-ink would be ideal for that, but color needs to be made practical for that to happen.

[Mivo]

I read on both the Nexus 7.2 (the first LCD device I feel comfortable reading books on) and the Kobo Glo. The e-ink screen does feel nicer to read on and I prefer it, though I miss the responsiveness of the tablet and the great way to handle books and the library (Moon+ and CC). Perhaps that new Android reader will address the latter issue.

The Glo's advantages are the "calmer" screen, better battery life, lower weight, fewer worries that it falls off the bed and breaks, and fewer distractions (I won't check mail every few minutes). Also, I get more easily sleepy due to the lower light levels.

I appreciate both devices, just in different ways.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by jbjb

The "backlight causes eye-strain" argument is, IMHO, bogus - it's all photons hitting your retina. The issues here can be solved by an appropriate backlight brightness.

"Bogus" meaning "not something you experience", right?

It's possible, of course, that lowering the backlight much more may lead to less eyestrain - unfortunately for me going any lower than what I have my iPad set on (no percentage that I can see, but I'd say the slider is at around 38-40%) means that the contrast and brightness get uncomfortably dim and that causes my eyes even more strain.

(I should say I never read in a dark room. I always have a light - not a booklight but general room lighting on when I read.)

I'm on my second iPad and I've experimented with the levels quite a bit, not the least because I got my first iPad before my first Kindle (when I only had a Sony 505 with its, in hindsight, very dim and dull grey screen - which still gave me a much more comfortable reading experience than the shiny new iPad) and didn't want to give up easily - I wanted to use my shiny and extremely expensive new toy for reading as well.

It was partly why I got it in the first place, when importing a Kindle was mega-expensive and quite a bit of hassle but for a while, no ePub shop would sell me anything (UK shops stopped selling internationally, others didn't sell to me yet) and Amazon books seemed to be the only option. So, yes, I tried.

And I tried again when I got the iPad 3 with its much newer, better screen. Same thing.

Eye strain is not bogus. Eye strain from reading on an backlit LCD screen doesn't happen to everyone (my mother is very happy with my old iPad for reading ebooks - she also reads for much shorter periods at a time, but she's probably just luckier than I am), but it's not bogus, not for the many people for whom it's a real concern. And just assuming that those people haven't tried the different options, haven't experimented with background and font colour and brightness ... well, some probably haven't, but I'm quite sure many have. Because a tablet is an expensive thing and I'm sure most readers who've got one have made a good effort at trying it out.

[Moe The Cat]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

... sheep and gravel ...

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by colinsky

This may be "apples and oranges"--I'm not convinced that the majority of people buying tablets are doing so for reading.

You're probably right-but I think it's also true that few people who buy tablets, for whatever reason, will also buy an ereader. If they have one (and really like it) it's likely they'll continue using it-but to buy a new one after they already have a tablet? I doubt if very many will do that-which is probably why ereader sales have fallen. It's not that the tablet is the better reader, it's that it's the better general purpose device-and few people will want to buy both.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by leebase

With the slowdown of eInk sales and the continuuing explosion of tablet sales...can we finally put this issue to bed?

No... and your post sounds like flame-bait.

Those numbers are pointless to the discussion. I have both, use them for different purposes. Carry my Kindle PW everywhere for reading. I use my tablet for web browsing, games, music making (MIDI controller), watching streaming video, etc. Completely different devices for different uses. I NEVER read long form text on it. Those tablet based tasks require more horsepower than reading -- the incremental upgrades are much more significant to the primary use cases than any upgrade to an e-reader could be. eInk readers from any generation that had at least a Pearl screen have shown only minor improvement, leading to a slowdown in sales. Why upgrade a device that works so perfectly?


Another anecdote: I bought my mom both a Kindle Fire and a basic K4B... she uses the fire for games, texting, web browsing, etc... NEVER reads on it -- she STRONGLY prefers the K4B for reading.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by jscarbo

Although Amazon doesn't release sales figures, I'd guess that the vast majority of their ebook sales are made to avid readers who buy 3 to 5 ebooks a month. I generally buy about double that amount, spending $50 or more per month on ebook purchases. I'd be surprised if the average tablet owner reads more than a book a month on their tablet.

The market for tablets is much larger than the market for e-ink readers because it's a multi-purpose device but I doubt it will ever replace e-ink devices for avid readers. Again, using Amazon as an example, I'm fairly certain they make far more profit on ebook sales to e-ink Kindle owners than they do on ebook sales to tablet owners.

As you say Amazon doesn't release sales figures so this is all speculation but I doubt if you're right on an aggregate basis. There are a *lot* more casual readers than avid readers. You wouldn't think so by reading this forum but if you ask around I think you'll find casual readers outnumber avid readers by at least 20 to 1. I'm sure you're right that Amazon makes more profit from the individual Kindle owner than from the individual tablet owner-but 20 times as much? Or more? (Non-scientific poll in my neighborhood, trying to donate my old pbooks, ran about 50 to 1 casual vs avid readers. May or may not be similar for ebooks.)

[twowheels]

Another point... an anecdote. I suffer much more eyestrain when reading on a tablet. Also, there's the "keeps you awake" issue... just a few days ago I was nodding off trying to read on my Kindle PW. I finally put it away after re-reading the same paragraph four times, but suddenly remembered that I needed to check something online first. Picked up my phone and went from dozing to insomnia for the next hour -- until I went back to reading on the Kindle -- ZZZzzzzz. That was using a dim screen and a night theme.

This happens to me frequently...

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by twowheels

Another point... an anecdote. I suffer much more eyestrain when reading on a tablet. Also, there's the "keeps you awake" issue... just a few days ago I was nodding off trying to read on my Kindle PW. I finally put it away after re-reading the same paragraph four times, but suddenly remembered that I needed to check something online first. Picked up my phone and went from dozing to insomnia for the next hour -- until I went back to reading on the Kindle -- ZZZzzzzz. That was using a dim screen and a night theme.

This happens to me frequently...

Your point about eyestrain-and others' simple preference-reminds us that there will always be a market for eInk readers. Hopefully it'll be large enough that there will always be a supplier for that market too. Only time will tell, I guess-or we can all guess but I don't think it'll change what happens, whatever that turns out to be.

[ApK]

The "it's all just photons" comment reminds of those people who think that a digital signal can't ever degrade or be effected by cables or connections because "it's all just ones and zeros.". Suffice to say: if you really don't understand that there are other qualities of light that effect our eyes and brains besides brightness then you might want to consult a photographer.