Pace of Ereader/Ebook change

[ryuji35]

Originally Posted by barryem

Another reason, of course, is that more people are reading on cell phones. There's a lot less interest in dedicated ereaders today.

I'm happy with the devices I have. They all have flaws and they all have remarkable advantages. The least of them is pretty good. My hope is that they'll continue to be available in the future.

There WILL always be a market for a Dedicated e-ink reader (unless for some futuristic technology, tablets will be able to mimic the e-ink screen.)

But right now, what I am agitated about is for the new Kindle Voyage to come out. I have a 1 year old KV1 and I really wanna see if the KV2 will be worth shelling out another $200 bucks. If it will just be an incremental update, then I'll be keeping my KV1 for another year

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I'm hoping that the batteries become more efficient and degrade less in the future. It would improve the lifetime of many electronic devices, not just ereaders.

If we had easily replaceable batteries, then battery life would not be such an issue.

[Alohamora]

Nothing on the hardware side matches the joy of broad selection of content availability. I started e-reading On a palm pilot. Back then (2001?) So much of what I wanted to read just wasn't available in e- versions. Today, it's rare that I go searching for a title or author and don't find it in e- format. It seems like maybe the corner was turned a few years ago, but I'm not sure exactly when.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Alohamora

Nothing on the hardware side matches the joy of broad selection of content availability.

An excellent point. It's incredibly rare for a new book to not have an ebook version, and the backlist availability is just getting better and better.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If we had easily replaceable batteries, then battery life would not be such an issue.

Amen! That would make ereaders very long lasting and I think the technology is already so good that the need to upgrade to future devices isn't likely to be very great unless something new and unexpected comes along.

As for content being available I've been re-reading a lot of books in recent years that I enjoyed in my younger days and while most of that is now available, some of it isn't. I can think of maybe a dozen books off the top of my head that I haven't been able to find at any price and if I gave it more thought that number would probably double.

Still, it is getting better. A lot of the books I couldn't find a year or two ago are now in my library and the vast majority are available. I'm 75 and I simply refuse to die until I re-read Mackinlay Kantor's "Spirit Lake" so the longer they take getting around to it the more I benefit.

Barry

[ProDigit]

If you ask me, where can we be going with eink?
A lot of the ideas have been around for years.
What many still are requesting is:
1- A comic book size screen (10"), as a dedicated comic book and pdf reader, with front lit screen
2- plastic bendable e-ink screens, instead of glass, for lighter weight and more flexible devices.
3- longer battery life by giving the ability to turn off the front led, and larger battery or greater density.
4- greater battery life, by using multi-core processors, at lower frequencies (2 cpus at 800mhz are faster than 1 at 1000mhz, while use less power when only 1 cpu is needed for minor executions like page turns).
5- Greater battery life by using an ebook specific operating system, instead of Android.
6- better battery life when chips and ram continue to have a smaller die size (down to 14nm today),

Could lenthen battery life to almost 6 months using an hour or two of reading a day.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

If you ask me, where can we be going with eink?
A lot of the ideas have been around for years.
What many still are requesting is:
1- A comic book size screen (10"), as a dedicated comic book and pdf reader, with front lit screen
2- plastic bendable e-ink screens, instead of glass, for lighter weight and more flexible devices.

We have screens up to 13.3" now (although not front lit yet?)

Mobius (flexible) screens are available, but not used much as of yet.

[ProDigit]

Yeah, but I'd like to see one of less than $300.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Yeah, but I'd like to see one of less than $300.

It'd be nice, but they'd have to really get the prices of larger (9.7"+) screens down.

[John F]

I would like to see front lighting with adjustable color temperature.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

It'd be nice, but they'd have to really get the prices of larger (9.7"+) screens down.

I can imagine a plastic e-ink screen, an ebook hardware specific device (using low power chips, that are etched on a small die of below 21nm), plastic body and frame, an ebook specific operating system (kind of like a blackberry system vs the standard Android, or else, a seriously downtrimmed Linux or Unix os), which probably has still a few years in the making, could seriously drive cost down of even the larger ebook readers. In all honesty, I believe that even a 9.7" screen, does not give as much screen estate, as most comic books require.

With latest technologies improvements in tablets, you find more and more devices sufficiently strong, yet much lighter than the first generation tablets with metal frames. Also storage chips are getting cheaper. With the minimum flash chip soon becoming 8GB, prices of storage chips should soon cost the manufacturer mere pennies per device, while effectively doubling the storage per device,
Allowing more space for more books, as well more advanced operating systems (hopefully not equipped to do what our cellphones do, but more expansions ebook wise, like including nightmode (white text on the black background), better rotating and zoom options, and possibly some games, like sudoku, chess, cards, etc...).
The reason many manufacturers stopped including sd cards is that of device internal space and weight, cost, and energy efficiency; as a memory slot does consume a few milliamps even when not active!


On screen size,
While for me a 6" device is barely large enough to show a book at full size (I would prefer a 7" device), even a 9.7" device (aka jetbook color) feels cramped showing comics.
With a plastic body and screen, weight goes down tremendously, and that means the bezel size or width can be reduced, leaving more space for screen estate.
A Jetbook Color sized device could host an 11" screen, at a third or a quarter of the weight of one, while having the minimum required space for comic and pdf books!

I would also like to see modifications in the operating system, on pdf border and whitespace removal.
Most pdfs have too much white border. Add that to the device's border, and 50% of your view is border, with only a tiny column of text in the center.

I see it entirely possible, 5 to 10 years from now, to have one for under 300 ($259 even)

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Lets just hope that the next jump is to an actual "standard" rendering process, so that books will look the same no matter what device you read them on...

That and better use of typography features which are already available in DTP software.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by Waylander

I wish the internet was more like this sometimes. It just makes it so much easier to have a productive conversation when one remains civil.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Come down to the lounge for drinks and games.
And yes this is one of the more civilized forums.

Amen to both.
It's kind of family alike here.

[Sarmat89]

It is long overdue for HTML-based formats like EPUB et al. to be replaced by the modern semantic ones. HTML is not very useful for books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

It is long overdue for HTML-based formats like EPUB et al. to be replaced by the modern semantic ones. HTML is not very useful for books.

HTML is a semantic standard - it defines "purpose", not appearance. Eg the "<em>" tag specifies that text should be emphasised, but does not define what form that emphasis should take. A text browser will generally display the text in italics, while a speech renderer may stress the words in some way.