Have e-Readers been superseded by Tablets and Phones

[DiapDealer]

There is never a time when my tablet doesn't get placed on my nightstand before I fall asleep. Now that my nightstand has a wireless Qi charging pad on it. There is never a time I start my day with anything less than a fully-charged tablet. 30% is about the lowest I've ever seen my battery get to in one day of reading and light browsing/social media-ing.

I know everybody's mileage varies, but seriously... when it comes to my device usage, anything over a day-and-half/two-day battery life is apparently overkill for me anyway. Because I've never NOT been able to read because my battery was dead--with eink or a tablet. I guess if ever starts happening, I'll start worrying about battery life.

[jandrew]

Originally Posted by Anthem

Also, maybe get some of those super cool (but mostly dumb) battery charging devices/extenders so that when your Kindle Fire dies at 2PM because you forgot to charge it last night, you can be the awesome person with a neato (TM) bulky quick charging thingy!

Indeed. A simple little power bank is all you need:

http://www.luxa2.com/product.aspx?s=113

With multiple ports, plenty of power, and a built-in romantic mood light, you and your date will never face that socially awkward moment when someone's device runs out of juice.

[conan50]

I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks the price of e-ink ereaders need to come down? I think the only reason there is a question about tablets superseding e-ink reading devices is price. You can get a very usable tablet that does books and so much more for nearly the same price as the lighted e-ink devices. I think Amazon's basic e-ink device for around $69 and Nook's basic Simple Touch are at the right price to remove comparisons, and I don't understand why a couple of led lights should so vastly raise the price of the e-ink devices. Having an e-ink reader and a tablet together for $200 sounds about right. We should not have these on equal footing price wise, and that's what causes consumers to choose between them right now IMO.

[OverByter]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

On PixelQi you mean? Sometimes it helps if your quote the post you are replying to - and even better if you delete the parts of the quote that you are not replying to. Makes it so much easier for the everybody to follow.

You're absolutely right, in my defense I was using Tapatalk on my phone while walking the dog down the beach, numerous distractions, (un) fortunately!
OB

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by conan50

I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks the price of e-ink ereaders need to come down? I think the only reason there is a question about tablets superseding e-ink reading devices is price. You can get a very usable tablet that does books and so much more for nearly the same price as the lighted e-ink devices. I think Amazon's basic e-ink device for around $69 and Nook's basic Simple Touch are at the right price to remove comparisons, and I don't understand why a couple of led lights should so vastly raise the price of the e-ink devices. Having an e-ink reader and a tablet together for $200 sounds about right. We should not have these on equal footing price wise, and that's what causes consumers to choose between them right now IMO.

It is not the frontlight that raises the price of the PW over the Kindle Basic.

It is the capacitive touch screen, the upgraded processor and other assorted stuff.

The frontlight is one of the several features not deemed worthy of a "basic" ereader.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It is not the frontlight that raises the price of the PW over the Kindle Basic.

It is the capacitive touch screen, the upgraded processor and other assorted stuff.

The frontlight is one of the several features not deemed worthy of a "basic" ereader.

I don't think Nook did much more than stick lights on the Simple Touch though.

[voracious71]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

So keep a charger at work and plug it in when you get there...problem solved. I honestly don't get why some of you have such an aversion to plugging a device.

I agree. I charge my iPhone and my iPad mini every night, plus I have a small power bank that I take with me. This works for me.

[Luffy]

I wish my kindle had an audio signal that told me it has been fully charged. Is there any eink device that has this feature???

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by conan50

I don't think Nook did much more than stick lights on the Simple Touch though.

Maybe...

I know nothing about the Nook, and am happier that way.

(This is a special Nook thing. I don't share the same aversion to Kobo or Sony.)

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by voracious71

I agree. I charge my iPhone and my iPad mini every night, plus I have a small power bank that I take with me. This works for me.

Oh good I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that has simply developed the habit of automatically plugging in when I get home so that I have a full charge come morning. And for those rare times that I forget, I plug it in when I get to work The charger stays at my office that way I don't have to worry about it being in my bag.

As far as not having outlets, that what power strips are for. I have two of them plugged in under my desk for a total of 12 outlets. When I leave the job my charger will go with me, the power strips belong to the job!

Chargers are very cheap these days and every time you get a new machine one comes with it. So it is very easy to have them where I need them. I have one by my pc, 2 around the corner in the kitchen, another 2 in the bedroom and one that stays in the case that I put my GMP5 into when I go traveling and one at work. I can plug up every device I have all at the same time!

That way I never have to worry about a dead battery. This works for me!

Heck this little thing will work too!!! How cool.

http://www.luxa2.com/product.aspx?s=113

[theinfamousj]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Technical limitations would include:

• loss of color when turning off the backlight
• limited viewing angles
• high energy consumption even without backlight compared to (color) eink or mirasol screens

I am not sure if in sunlight and the backlight turned on you would see any colors, but I assume not. If that was the case they would advertise it as feature. So beeing limited to black and white in the sun is going to be a no-no for consumers wanting multi media entertainment. The ones that want to use it as a ereader in the sun will not like the high power consumption. That limits the practical uses in the sun to a glorified typewriter for email and office applications and maybe limited browsing without color.

So, I have a PixelQi screen on my One Laptop Per Child XO-1.

Outside, it is just black + white text. Inside you get color. I think it is incredibly nifty! I really like the screen technology and think it has serious applications as a tablet screen or a cell phone screen. How many times have I been outside and needed to see something on my cell phone? While not as good as eInk, and certainly not something I want to stare out for hours, it still does the job and communicates the information.

If anyone has any questions about how an end-user experiences the PixelQi screen, do not hesitate to ask!

[sl42]

Originally Posted by conan50

I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks the price of e-ink ereaders need to come down? I think the only reason there is a question about tablets superseding e-ink reading devices is price. You can get a very usable tablet that does books and so much more for nearly the same price as the lighted e-ink devices. I think Amazon's basic e-ink device for around $69 and Nook's basic Simple Touch are at the right price to remove comparisons, and I don't understand why a couple of led lights should so vastly raise the price of the e-ink devices. Having an e-ink reader and a tablet together for $200 sounds about right. We should not have these on equal footing price wise, and that's what causes consumers to choose between them right now IMO.

My Android tablet cost around $150. My Kobo Mini cost $48 at a local bookstore and is only $65 at full retail, I believe? But of course this is an unlighted device as you said - which has lead me to relearn the art of turning on a lamp.

[sl42]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Oh good I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that has simply developed the habit of automatically plugging in when I get home so that I have a full charge come morning. And for those rare times that I forget, I plug it in when I get to work The charger stays at my office that way I don't have to worry about it being in my bag.

As far as not having outlets, that what power strips are for. I have two of them plugged in under my desk for a total of 12 outlets. When I leave the job my charger will go with me, the power strips belong to the job!

Chargers are very cheap these days and every time you get a new machine one comes with it. So it is very easy to have them where I need them. I have one by my pc, 2 around the corner in the kitchen, another 2 in the bedroom and one that stays in the case that I put my GMP5 into when I go traveling and one at work. I can plug up every device I have all at the same time!

That way I never have to worry about a dead battery. This works for me!

Heck this little thing will work too!!! How cool.

http://www.luxa2.com/product.aspx?s=113

This depends on a device that can actually deliver a day's use from a full charge. My tablet gets a total of maybe six hours with a dimmed screen and no wifi usage, which just isn't good enough. If it lasted ten hours or so per charge I might never have upgraded to an ereader.

I'd believe that ereaders are a niche market - phones and tablets are perfectly fine for most people's needs. On the other hand, it is a niche market in which tablets can hardly hope to really compete - the battery life, text quality, and honest to goodness outdoor readability is just so much better that the two devices aren't really comparable on these fronts. But you don't need all of that to enjoy just reading text on a screen.

I got by - not always happily - with a tablet for a couple years, and reading on a netbook/laptop screen before that. Reading on them, well on the tablet at least, wasn't "that bad", if it were it wouldn't have taken me this long to get an epaper device. On the other hand, the readability and quality as well as battery life really are "that much better" - leaps and bounds better - better in ways that can not be exaggerated..... they are just *that* much better in areas that most people are perfectly satisfied with already.

As you said, as long as you remember to charge your device every day and you actually *can* get a day's use out of it then you aren't faced with a significant problem that needs a ten or twenty fold improvement as offered by switching to an e-reader.

The display improvement *is* amazing, going from a 1024x600 7" tablet screen to e-ink - in fact it is so good that I can't imagine being enticed to upgrade to a newer or better e-ink display since I can't possibly imagine a need to ever improve it (heck I can't tell it is a pixel-based display at all no matter how hard I squint). In fact I doubt if I will be buying another reader as an "upgrade" unless something tragic happens to the one I currently own. What is there to fix? It doesn't need to be faster - even if the battery life halves with age it will be great - I *could* replace the sdhc card tucked within if I ever want more storage, but probably I won't.

So we have a niche market product which is so great at the focused task that it performs that most repeat purchases are likely to be replacements only.

[sl42]

On the other hand, tablets and phones aren't exactly competing against ereaders, they are substitutes for them - in fact they vastly increase the pool of readers building up collections of text and becoming more used to the convenience of a digital library - and until battery technology improves, many of these people will buy ereaders to fix a limitation, and even after tablet battery life catches up enough there will still be many more readers who start by using their existing tablets and phones and wind up purchasing ereaders as second devices for the improved text/page quality. These are people who wouldn't have gone from paper to epaper directly, but might make that transition with the help of their tablet devices so they already have an existing elibrary built up that finally goads them into purchasing an ereader. Personally, I'm glad my tablet's battery was as bad as it was or I would never have switched over to a "real" ereader - now, of course, switching back would be out of the question until tablet displays improve enough to compete.

[Tarana]

they at least will want to make dedicated e-readers to cater to, um, dedicated readers.

Pretty reasonable. Dedicated readers buy far more than the 12 book average than the 'average' reader. Sortof like frequent-flyers.

The non-reflection is still the primary selling point for an ereader vs. a tablet. SO much less eye fatigue as well as permitting reading in daylight. Weight is also going to be a factor for at least older readers. I just bought the new Nook Glowlight a couple of weeks ago and it is SO LIGHT it is hard to believe. Switching is going to be difficult for those who are in a walled garden and don't know how to remove DRM from their previous purchases.