Is the ereader dead?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

Front-lit ereaders have better hardware (bigger screen, higher DPI, faster — but still snails compared to a cheap phone or tablet), so there's plenty of reason to get them in spite of the "feature". It's just something you turn off and that's the end of it.

I'm happy with the "billions" of older eInk eReaders I have milling around my house. My wife, however, is beginning to get tired of them. She's starting to not to believe me when I say, "I'm going to sell most of them.... honest." I do think they're beginning to self-replicate, so that could become an issue.

[Alohamora]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I could also be true that, though fewer eInk eReaders have sold, the reading on eInk eReaders has not declined. In other words, there are fewer people buying new eInk eReaders but those who do buy them, also do a LOT of reading and book buying using them -- nothing in the article would counter that. We also know that tablet sales have dropped, does that mean fewer people are using tablets?

As phone screens keep getting better, larger and cheaper, it's easy for me to believe tablets are falling by the wayside.

[Alohamora]

Originally Posted by rcentros

What hyperbolic ... ahem. I've used both eInk eReaders and smartphones and tablets. It's not a matter of "misleading memes" -- it's a matter of what's more comfortable for reading. No contest for me, eInk eReaders's screens are superior. They also have longer battery lives (by far), are lighter and have the virtue (in my opinion) of being single use. You may disagree with my preferences, that's your prerogative, but the tablets and smartphones you're shilling aren't much newer than eInk eReaders. As a matter of fact, they pretty much grew up together.

Smart phones have actually changed a lot in the last 2 or 3 years. Two years ago, I had a 4.7 inch phone with terrible battery life. And a nice tablet, but also short battery life. Then prices dropped on what I'd consider "good enough for reading" phones. I got a 5.3 inch screen one with excellent, all day and more battery life little over a year ago. I kept a smaller phone as my communication device and the larger one as a mini tablet with no service. I paid less than the cost of a Paperwhite for my mini-tablet phone, it's locked to a carrier I don't use, but using it only on wifi, I don't care.

In the past year, I got an iPhone SE , tiny by today's standards to carry in my pocket as a phone and a few more 5 to 6 inch "mini-tablets" to use at home or carry in my purse or backpack (no cell service) for entertainment, music, audiobook, a little video, web forums and reading. The SE was the most expensive of the lot at $200. The phones were each under $100 as I caught them on sale. Bleeding edge phones still tend to have small batteries to keep them thin, but the second and third tier phones are showing up with bigger batteries that easily last all day. A couple of years ago, cheap phones all had dreadful screen resolution, but now you can find them with 720 x 1280 270 dpi and up.

Google has also improved Android battery life with doze mode, so hardly any battery is used while in standby.

The only thing still lacking in phones is sunlight readability. I totally understand why someone who reads outside would prefer e-ink. But for inside I don't see any problem with LCD. I think LCD makers will solve the sunlight readability issue before e-ink makes any improvements to color and refresh speed.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Alohamora

The only thing still lacking in phones is sunlight readability. I totally understand why someone who reads outside would prefer e-ink. But for inside I don't see any problem with LCD. I think LCD makers will solve the sunlight readability issue before e-ink makes any improvements to color and refresh speed.

Sunlight readability with lcd is not even a technical hurdle, someone just has to build a reflective color lcd with a frontlight.

[Frenzie]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Sunlight readability with lcd is not even a technical hurdle, someone just has to build a reflective color lcd with a frontlight.

Didn't the Game Boy Advance have a nice reflective color LCD display?

[the.Mtn.Man]

I hope the dedicated e-reader isn't dead. It's a much better experience than reading on a tablet.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by barryem

In the past decade I've read a lot of reports that, due to tablets, the PC was dead. I've read reports that due to ebooks, print is dead.

Egon from the Ghostbusters told me print was dead back in 1984

I think when people say a technology is dead they just mean it isn't selling as much this year. It's slang.

Alive means it's the leading edge. Dead means it's just doing okay.

Barry

I agree with you there.

[Flaneurette]

Well sheesh, I didn't mean to start trouble around here(thread starter op whatever). I am new to mobileread and sincerely wanted to know what "real" readers thought about this supposed decline in eink and what that means to others out there, despite the admittedly click-baity title. I do not know many people in real life who read at all much less use an ereader so I am genuinely curious to hear anecdotal stories about how people read and how they perceive others reading lives. I read no value judgement by ZodWollop and took it to mean most readers he knows personally use eink. It was clear to me that he was just making an observation about a small subset of folks he knows and we are free to apply that to the general population or not. I guess what I am trying to say is that I thought I had maybe found my people here. Other bookish places on the internets seem to skew heavily to print: see Booktube and Instagram, but I suppose they are visual media and I'm guessing nobody wants to see 40 pics of my cute socks with my kindle huh?(am I allowed to be snobby about that here guys?)

Anyway I love to read, especially on my eink devices. I do read on my iPad and print occasionally but those are not my preferred mediums but more power to you if you prefer a different one. It disheartens me a bit to see people get offended about who is or is not a "real" reader here because I think if you are on this site you are by default right? To be honest it makes me afraid to comment and maybe I have *not* found my people here...

sorry for rambling!

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by Flaneurette

Well sheesh, I didn't mean to start trouble around here(thread starter op whatever). I am new to mobileread and sincerely wanted to know what "real" readers thought about this supposed decline in eink and what that means to others out there, despite the admittedly click-baity title. I do not know many people in real life who read at all much less use an ereader so I am genuinely curious to hear anecdotal stories about how people read and how they perceive others reading lives. I read no value judgement by ZodWollop and took it to mean most readers he knows personally use eink. It was clear to me that he was just making an observation about a small subset of folks he knows and we are free to apply that to the general population or not. I guess what I am trying to say is that I thought I had maybe found my people here. Other bookish places on the internets seem to skew heavily to print: see Booktube and Instagram, but I suppose they are visual media and I'm guessing nobody wants to see 40 pics of my cute socks with my kindle huh?(am I allowed to be snobby about that here guys?)




Anyway I love to read, especially on my eink devices. I do read on my iPad and print occasionally but those are not my preferred mediums but more power to you if you prefer a different one. It disheartens me a bit to see people get offended about who is or is not a "real" reader here because I think if you are on this site you are by default right? To be honest it makes me afraid to comment and maybe I have *not* found my people here...

sorry for rambling!

Hope you stay on mobileread, Flaneruette . You will find lot's people who like to talk about how they read and what with. This one got out of hand, I hope you'll give Mobilereads another chance

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Wearever

...This one got out of hand, I hope you'll give Mobilereads another chance

Yeah, this isn't typical. Unless you start talking about the finer points of international copyright. Or if listening to an audiobook counts as reading. Okay. It happens from time-to-time

[crich70]

Originally Posted by rcentros

As they say, "figures don't lie, but liars figure." I think if you look closely at who's doing the research (for just about all sides of this argument) you'll nearly always find conflict of interest and inherent bias. Research figures are usually "massaged" to "prove" a point -- the point they researchers started out to prove.

You find that same bias in any study on anything I think. We all have our own point of view no matter the subject under discussion. That's one reason I think that the politics and religion forum is seperate from the main one. Everyone does have their own bias and it can get heated even at the best of times. Even this discussion on e-readers has had it's warmer moments.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Flaneurette

Well sheesh, I didn't mean to start trouble around here(thread starter op whatever). I am new to mobileread and sincerely wanted to know what "real" readers thought about this supposed decline in eink and what that means to others out there, despite the admittedly click-baity title. I do not know many people in real life who read at all much less use an ereader so I am genuinely curious to hear anecdotal stories about how people read and how they perceive others reading lives. I read no value judgement by ZodWollop and took it to mean most readers he knows personally use eink. It was clear to me that he was just making an observation about a small subset of folks he knows and we are free to apply that to the general population or not. I guess what I am trying to say is that I thought I had maybe found my people here. Other bookish places on the internets seem to skew heavily to print: see Booktube and Instagram, but I suppose they are visual media and I'm guessing nobody wants to see 40 pics of my cute socks with my kindle huh?(am I allowed to be snobby about that here guys?)

Anyway I love to read, especially on my eink devices. I do read on my iPad and print occasionally but those are not my preferred mediums but more power to you if you prefer a different one. It disheartens me a bit to see people get offended about who is or is not a "real" reader here because I think if you are on this site you are by default right? To be honest it makes me afraid to comment and maybe I have *not* found my people here...

sorry for rambling!

Discussions can get heated at times but I for one thing that is all to the good. After all if no one ever disagreed with anyone else here at MR that would be a very boring state of affairs. We have some very detailed conversations in the topics at times. I remember once it was about how the English language has changed or something. The thread got pretty long. Very informative as well though.

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yeah, this isn't typical. Unless you start talking about the finer points of international copyright. Or if listening to an audiobook counts as reading. Okay. It happens from time-to-time

I must have missed those or already forgot about them. Lol.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

...Mind, new/enhanced features such as Night Shift and darken colors has gone a long way in reducing my migraine attacks from reading on LCD.

I would suggest that you would get the best results by using the control of color and brightness that is available within the better reading apps themselves. They give almost infinite control of color for text and background and will control and take brightness down to much lower (and more appropriate for reading in environments of low light or darkness) levels than the device's normal control will.

For myself, I use a background tinted slightly off white, black text (except where the ebook's css uses color) and control brightness appropriate to the reading environment by the app's screen gesture for that (or its menu).

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Sunlight readability with lcd is not even a technical hurdle, someone just has to build a reflective color lcd with a frontlight.

Reflective color LCD has been around for quite a number of years (and, of course, monochrome has been around and used by most of us for many decades), but among other things it runs into similar barriers as other reflective displays in that even with front lighting reflective light efficiency is low so poor colors and consequently not much used.