It really is a shame that my e-reader doesn't have an SD slot

[GeoffR]

One of the big advantages of e-ink is the extremely low power consumption, but it is wasted if you have to use power-hungry wifi to access content.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shades

On another note, when it comes to ereaders, I think they should have an SD slot and they should have audio support. There's no reason for an ereader not to support audio books. Audio books are just another way to consume novels. We're not talking about adding video support or health apps to a reading device. Side loading should be possible because not all services have all audio books. I like to read along with recordings sometimes and one series I own adds up to something like 8gb. So what, just because it's not that popular, I should not be catered to by any company that makes ereaders?

If you want an eInk device with an SD card slot and audio support, you can buy one. Doesn't mean to say that every eInk device has to have them.

[Shades]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you want an eInk device with an SD card slot and audio support, you can buy one. Doesn't mean to say that every eInk device has to have them.

No, but it is kinda sad that two of the three biggest names in ereaders, Kindle and Nook, do not have an SD slot. Kobo is the only other big player and they do have an SD slot (as well as a pretty large selection of devices to choose from). Other than Kobo though, there are no really reputable brands to choose from, so selection goes down to Onyx or an unknown Chinese manufacturer (where returns and customer support would be a nightmare).

Choice is great, but there isn't too much of it.

Originally Posted by Shades

No, but it is kinda sad that two of the three biggest names in ereaders, Kindle and Nook, do not have an SD slot.

The three biggest names are primarily interested in delivering readers to their storefront. If anything, we should be surprised that one of those vendors decided to incorporate a feature that doesn't directly contribute to that objective.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The three biggest names are primarily interested in delivering readers to their storefront. If anything, we should be surprised that one of those vendors decided to incorporate a feature that doesn't directly contribute to that objective.

I will point out that having it does connect people to their storefront.
I bought my wife a new Kobo to replace her Sony. The SD card and water resistant were the reason for the choice.

So now my library has the first few books bought from Kobo, and if they had not offered the features I was looking for there would never have been a sale.

And the books bought? Mostly manga. Which (contrary to the deeply held beliefs of troglodytes) can fill up 4 gigs of memory fairly quickly.

The troglodyte quip is fully deserved because manga was mentioned early in the thread and the Kindle store also sells manga. Yet many people (who by definition have to be either incapable of rudimentary math or pathologically afraid of employing it) continue to insist that SD cards are overkill. The conversation on Manga and illustrated texts shot that down and the rational posters who don't personally need expanded memory all dropped out at that point.

Leaving only contrarian trolls to keep this thread going.

[Rizla]

Getting rid of the SD-card slot is only the first step. Next, dump the USB connector and charge via Wifi. Also remove almost all internal memory. Books can be delivered a hundred pages at a time (more than enough) via the cloud and stored in the miniscule buffer memory. A USB connector and significant on-board memory will become unnecessary features only desired by a a fringe minority. Amazon has already patented the technology to do this.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Take the Voyage, add in sound and TTS, card slot, better configuration on margins, line height, fonts and you'd have a much better device.

All of those things cost money, whether hardware or development time. None of those would increase my likelihood of buying one (which is currently tied to the fact that my PW1 still works just fine), and if they increased the price would only serve to decrease my likelihood of buying one.

Sound: More hardware cost, more weight
Card slot: More hardware cost, more things to go wrong
Configurability: More development cost, more options to confuse less computer literate users, leading to higher support costs, more options often lead to more software bugs and user frustration (see the Kobo forums and all of the complaints about their very useful, but buggy firmware)

Sometimes minimal but sufficient is better.

Originally Posted by Rizla

Getting rid of the SD-card slot is only the first step.

Nah. I can see most of that happening to mobile phones and tablets, but chances are that they'd stop developing ereaders before going down that path. It would involve too much of an investment for too small of a return.

Originally Posted by twowheels

Sometimes minimal but sufficient is better.

The problem with minimal is that different people have a different idea of what minimal should look like. For example: some people will want the ability to adjust the font weight in order to make the text easier to read, while other people will want to adjust to the margins to display more text on the screen. Some people will use both features, others will use one or the other, and (I suspect) most will use neither. Different people will give different answers based upon their needs and perspective. How do you choose?

Yes, I realize that's just two features. Now consider the feature requests that a hundred people would generate. While many would be in common, there would also be many that would address the needs of a small group of people.

One way to choose is to let the vendor impose limits. If the vendor does their market research properly, they'll have a good idea of what their customers demand and what most customers won't miss. Unfortunately, the people who expect those missing features will find the product painful to use. Is that really any different from the pain felt by people who found feature rich products difficult to use? In a very real sense, yes. Perplexed users can always learn how to ignore those "unnecessary" features or even learn how to benefit from those features. When you're missing features, the best you can do is accept your fate. In reality though, you're probably going to have to deal with diminished productivity.

[theducks]

An internal (like under the battery door on my LG phone) uSD connector can easily be had for under 50 cents US, External slot types are under $1.50 (bulk rates)

Connector Cost is not a Major expense. Board real estate could be an issue. No Access cover, an issue for internal mount.
Look at the price differences Apple charges for iPads with larger storage. 500% markup (on the difference)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Shades

Please do link to some of these eink tablets. No, not the no name Chinese models, but actual tablets made by known manufacturers. I haven't seen one... Ever.

What I have seen are things like the Sony Digital Paper, but that isn't a tablet or an ereader. That is something totally different.

Is there an excellent reason why Chinese manufacturers don't count?

You know the Chinese make everything anyway, right? So it isn't as though they are incapable of making decent quality stuff, that is for sure.

How about the one I already mentioned, the Onyx Boox T68, which is assuredly made in China.

By a Chinese company, zOMG



Oh, well, it seems to be pretty popular here on MobileRead, anyway.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When you put all the Readers sold together that are not from Amazon, there are more of them out there then Amazon. People buy other Readers because it's not Amazon. Amazon is not for everyone. It's not even for some that own a Kindle. The Kindle is one of the most fixed Readers out there in terms of hardware and software and Amazon is making it even more fixed by plugging the holes to allow for jailbreaks. Amazon doesn't want customers to customize. They want customers who take what they get like it or not. If Amazon had allowed reasonable settings, I might have gotten one.

And believe it or not, most people actually WANT that.

Yes, it might cost more. But given how much the parts cost and how much in bulk Amazon would buy, it would not raise the price much.

So I shouldn't mind the additional price because "it's not much"...

I know how Amazon doesn't work. Amazon doesn't give flexibility. They don't give much in the way useful settings while reading. They don't want you to side load fonts. When it was found out that Amazon left a hole in the system to allow side loaded fonts, they quickly patched it so that no longer worked. It's just proof that when there's something that users want that Amazon doesn't want to give, they take it away.

In other words, you know everything there is to know about Amazon from the perspective of one who wishes to think badly of them.

The fonts hole has been known to lead to devastating crashes, in fact there are warnings plastered all over the intro to the fonts hack. I personally am thrilled that the fonts hack required jailbreaking to do -- it means people walk in with their eyes open.

What I am not thrilled about is their closing of the JB hole.

What you don't transfer is reading locations and annotations. So those have to be looked up on the previous device.

In that case, transfer the entire contents of the USB Mass Storage device that the Kindle shows up as -- just like I explained HERE, that is a HORRIBLY LOUSY justification for the need for an SD card. It does adequately describe how even calibre has its faults... but so what? Use the other, fundamentally identical (in concept) mechanism for transferring the exact same stuff.

The only time when transferring directly form one device to another wouldn't work is if the device is catastrophically broken -- but the SD card can just as easily suffer the same flaw.

People are buying now because it's what's out there. If they had a choice, I think they would go for the card slot even if it doesn't get used just to have it.

It's what's out there because no one gives a darn enough to say they want anything else. People are voting with their wallets... they could've all gotten Kobos...

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Phogg

I will point out that having it does connect people to their storefront.
I bought my wife a new Kobo to replace her Sony. The SD card and water resistant were the reason for the choice.

So now my library has the first few books bought from Kobo, and if they had not offered the features I was looking for there would never have been a sale.

And the books bought? Mostly manga. Which (contrary to the deeply held beliefs of troglodytes) can fill up 4 gigs of memory fairly quickly.

The troglodyte quip is fully deserved because manga was mentioned early in the thread and the Kindle store also sells manga. Yet many people (who by definition have to be either incapable of rudimentary math or pathologically afraid of employing it) continue to insist that SD cards are overkill. The conversation on Manga and illustrated texts shot that down and the rational posters who don't personally need expanded memory all dropped out at that point.

Leaving only contrarian trolls to keep this thread going.

I happen to agree entirely that for manga and manga alone, more space is acceptable and needed. I would also like to point out that most Kindle buyers -- and people with ereaders in general -- are not heavy manga readers AFAIK (the definition of a fringe group), so it wouldn't really contribute to Amazon's bottom line to cater to them in E-ink devices... but I certainly don't blame any manga readers for wanting an ereader with an SD slot.

Personally, I cannot help but think that you are going to get better mileage out of reading manga on a tablet anyway



All I'm saying is that I don't expect an SD card to be an intrinsic goal of ereader manufacturers, and additionally that the majority (non-manga readers) of the people who insist they need them, don't.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Getting rid of the SD-card slot is only the first step. Next, dump the USB connector and charge via Wifi. Also remove almost all internal memory. Books can be delivered a hundred pages at a time (more than enough) via the cloud and stored in the miniscule buffer memory. A USB connector and significant on-board memory will become unnecessary features only desired by a a fringe minority. Amazon has already patented the technology to do this.

And our token Amazon paranoiac has arrived....

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by twowheels

All of those things cost money, whether hardware or development time. None of those would increase my likelihood of buying one (which is currently tied to the fact that my PW1 still works just fine), and if they increased the price would only serve to decrease my likelihood of buying one.

Sound: More hardware cost, more weight

You'd never notice the difference in weight. The cost might be negligible.

Card slot: More hardware cost, more things to go wrong

So if there are more things to go wrong adding in a card slot, then lets take out 3G on those models. Let's take out any physical buttons and make it wake/sleep via a sleep cover. We'll just have touch. Oh and the front light, it has to go. It could go wrong. Oh and we also have to dump the ad supported firmware as the WiFi has to go as it could go wrong. And the software to deliver the adds could have bugs in it so it has to go too.

Configurability: More development cost, more options to confuse less computer literate users, leading to higher support costs, more options often lead to more software bugs and user frustration (see the Kobo forums and all of the complaints about their very useful, but buggy firmware)

If the interface is done in an intelligent way, it won't be confusing. Take the Kindle options as they are now. Add in more fonts and properly weighted fonts. That would do for a start. Now take the second and third set of settings and dump them. They are useless. Keep the current settings and make it the last options. Have a set of options for a smaller line height. And have options for a smaller margin. There's nothing complicated there. You can keep the interface very similar to what's there now and give useful options.

Sometimes minimal but sufficient is better.

But in this case, we have too minimal and it's not better. It's a lot worse. It's not actually sufficient. The options given go from bad to worse. How is that good?

So what we'll have is a Kindle with Touch and USB. We won't have a light. No buttons at all. No WiFi, Everything will be done via USB and Kindle for PC or Kindle for MAC. You'll use it to download your eBooks and you'll use it to side load. You won't be able to get any eBooks not from Amazon. You won't be able to have have any options for customizing. Just the one font family and the one set of margins and line height. All you can do is read. That's about it. We'll make it the most minimal device possible and do away with all models except this one. Will that satisfy your minimal is best because more hardware means it might break, might weigh more, might cost more and the firmware will stick with Mobi because AZW3 might has bugs and we only need one format anyway as more format is not minimal enough. We'll make this the lightest dumbest, minimalist hardware/software possible in case there could be at least one person out there that needs it like that. How's that sound?