Tablets driving out ebook readers?

[Ripplinger]

I don't think anyone is being a snob about eink.

For myself, until the day I can read outdoors in bright sunlight and not worry about the battery dying, and that's not even getting into my eye comfort, there's no way a tablet will push out ereaders for me. I don't want to carry a bigger tablet around with me, I have no reason to, I don't need my reader to do more than just let me read in comfort anywhere and anytime I want. Many readers are like me. Many are like you who prefer reading on tablets or phones. That's great. I said before that choices are good.

I'm not trying to convert you or anyone else to reading only on eink, but there's certainly room in the world for both tablets and eink readers to keep both camps happy, and one still is not going to push out the other.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

I have nothing against dedicated ebook readers, but tablet readers are just as serious about reading as you are. E-Ink snobs need to get over themselves and realize there is room for both devices.

Maybe there is some snobbery, but even without it, there's worry that falling sales of e-ink devices will lead to reduced research, development and discounts. On top of that, future DRM seems to be targeting "apps" as opposed to dedicated devices. E-ink readers may turn out to be a passing fad in the market place, and that thought is making some people snippy (me included).

[Onemack]

Originally Posted by KevinBurke

Whatever, although a tablet can do many more things than an e-reader-- reading books on tablets is just stupid :


People who want tablets instead of e-readers were never avid book readers to begin with. You illiterate people don't seem to get that an e-reader is a dedicated niche reading device for book readers and it does its job extremely well unlike a tablet which is a jack of all trades but master of none. You dumb illiterate tablet people should stop trying to ruin it for the more erudite intellectual people who actually read more than you do.

A non sequitur, as well as being nonsensical, somewhat offensive and unnecessary

[Teknikal]

I have both but I do prefer my tablet/phone over my eink reader, now it may have been a Sony thing but I never felt my T1 coped very well with a large library or even large books there was always a chance of it crashing out or freezing.

Advantages of my android devices are transferring is far faster I can just send the books over my WiFi network, I don't have to worry about crashes, I can customize the font and page themes much more to my liking, I can have bookmarks syncing between my tablet and phone so I can continue reading when I'm out and about with my G3 but go back to my Note tablet when at home.

I do like the battterylife of eink but I really wouldn't buy another one unless a manufacturer put some proper modern hardware into it, I want a huge library and I want it instantly searchable and responsive I want it to be able to cope with any size book even huge PDF files.

I see no reason they can't take some tablet hardware perhaps a stripped down version of Android (no need for the full thing as I'm sure eink would not cope well with most tasks anyway) slap an good eink screen into it and buy some decent software perhaps based on Mantano or Moon+ ideally.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I have to ask... what phone do you have that's perfectly readable in bright sunlight? I've yet to ever see one that does that.

I use a Nokia Lumia 920 with a matte screen protector (that latter is mandatory if you want to use it outside, even on a partially cloudy day). If I turn up the brightness to full (it's usually on low), it's perfectly readable even in direct sunlight (as I had plenty of opportunity to try out this spring as we were waiting to get a tow to a garage while on holiday...). Naturally, this is not good for your battery life (and unless you use a lot of sunblock, for your skin).

Originally Posted by KevinBurke

Whatever, although a tablet can do many more things than an e-reader-- reading books on tablets is just stupid :

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/bu...tractions.html

People who want tablets instead of e-readers were never avid book readers to begin with. You illiterate people don't seem to get that an e-reader is a dedicated niche reading device for book readers and it does its job extremely well unlike a tablet which is a jack of all trades but master of none. You dumb illiterate tablet people should stop trying to ruin it for the more erudite intellectual people who actually read more than you do.

Thank you for calling me a dumb illiterate person. I'm proud to be one of those dumb illiterate people that can actually read books on tablets without being constantly distracted by other functions that my tablet may or may not have.

Originally Posted by Teknikal

I see no reason they can't take some tablet hardware perhaps a stripped down version of Android (no need for the full thing as I'm sure eink would not cope well with most tasks anyway) slap an good eink screen into it and buy some decent software perhaps based on Mantano or Moon+ ideally.

I have the Onyx T68 and it's a very nice first try. The only problem is the processor, it's just too weak for most tablet functions. But Calibre Companion works perfectly on it (which is the app I use most, beside the built-in Neoreader) and my newspaper app works as well (even if a bit slow) in case I want to read the newspaper when I'm on the road with the tent (so no place to constantly charge my full tablet...)

[radius]

Originally Posted by Teknikal

I do like the battterylife of eink but I really wouldn't buy another one unless a manufacturer put some proper modern hardware into it, I want a huge library and I want it instantly searchable and responsive I want it to be able to cope with any size book even huge PDF files.

I see no reason they can't take some tablet hardware perhaps a stripped down version of Android (no need for the full thing as I'm sure eink would not cope well with most tasks anyway) slap an good eink screen into it and buy some decent software perhaps based on Mantano or Moon+ ideally.

The reason is commercial.

Think about it. If such a hypothetical reading tablet had the same kind of CPU and memory as a normal tablet, it would cost more than a general purpose tablet since an eink screen is likely more expensive than LCD since the volumes are so much lower.

That said, Kobo's Arc 10 HD is discontinued and a steal at less than $200 for an Android tablet with a 2560x1600 screen.

[Teknikal]

Originally Posted by radius

The reason is commercial.

Think about it. If such a hypothetical reading tablet had the same kind of CPU and memory as a normal tablet, it would cost more than a general purpose tablet since an eink screen is likely more expensive than LCD since the volumes are so much lower.

That said, Kobo's Arc 10 HD is discontinued and a steal at less than $200 for an Android tablet with a 2560x1600 screen.

Not necessarily you can actually buy decently specced tablets cheaper than most ereaders these days recently I've seen tablets with quad core bay trail Atoms costing £75 (linx 7 as an example) while most ereaders are averaging about £100 or so with in comparison pretty rubbish freescale type chips.

I also find it hard to believe eink would cost more than a good LCD worst case I think would be a similar price.

Truthfully though I think the reader manufacturers seriously need to up their game if they want to have a future otherwise tablets will definitely kill them off winning in price, power and functionality.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Teknikal

Not necessarily you can actually buy decently specced tablets cheaper than most ereaders these days recently I've seen tablets with quad core bay trail Atoms costing £75...

Such a tablet, though, is likely to have a pretty horrible screen and a pathetic battery life. Those are the two components of a decent tablet which cost the money. CPUs are pretty cheap.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Such a tablet, though, is likely to have a pretty horrible screen and a pathetic battery life. Those are the two components of a decent tablet which cost the money. CPUs are pretty cheap.

Well, if you take a cheap tablet and replace the (horrible, I agree) screen with a decent e-ink screen, the battery life should improve...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Well, if you take a cheap tablet and replace the (horrible, I agree) screen with a decent e-ink screen, the battery life should improve...

True!

[Ghitulescu]

Assuming there are people that still read today, I mean books not aggregated news or facebook infos, yes, I believe the tablets will drive out eReaders.

The only trump a dedicated device, be it TV, player, printer, refrigerator, is that it is supposed to do its job better than universal devices.

And this was true up to these days, when eReading software for Android/iOS/W8/W-CE matured and they are a good competition to "true" eReaders.
Probably all new models shoot themselves in the foot by dropping audiobooks support, as a small community still exists (and replaced them with smartphones and small tablets).

The only advantage (so far) remained that they have a longer battery life (due to eInk) and the ability to read both in sun and in the dark (for those with backlight).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

The only advantage (so far) remained that they have a longer battery life (due to eInk) and the ability to read both in sun and in the dark (for those with backlight).

The fact that the screen is so very much better on an eInk device than an LCD is reason alone to use one at present. I'm sure that over the next decade, however, screen technologies will emerge which will provide high-quality colour screens that can be read in sunlight, and at that point dedicated reading devices are likely to disappear.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

The only advantage (so far) remained that they have a longer battery life (due to eInk) and the ability to read both in sun and in the dark (for those with backlight).

Yes, those are exactly the reason I still use an e-ink reader. While reading on a tablet does work in the sun, it'll drain the battery faster than you can finish a page, and the contrast does suffer, even at highest brightness. And when you're on holiday with only a small tent and a car battery to charge your tablet battery, you don't want a tablet that empties itself within a day.

But for dark (read: darkened bedroom) I still prefer my tablet, with the brightness all the way down, a black background and gray lettering.

[conan50]

Cheap tablets used to be 'cheap tablets'. If you have been watching, just in the past year tablet prices have dropped and specs have improved. I just bought one of these a couple weeks ago, and it it cost me ten bucks more than it does this week:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o01_s00
Good specs, nice screen, decent battery. Look at Amazon's least expensive e-ink device compared to that. And that is why e-ink devices are going to continue to lose ground. You can read on a decent tablet, and do most of your computing on it. Economically e-ink devices become a harder choice as time goes by. Doesn't mean that are not better for reading on in a number of ways, but if they had kept pace with tablets on price and improvements, we would have awesome $30 e-ink devices right now and it would be a different story.

[Jai Angel]

I'm really thinking about getting a tablet now.