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#31 |
01000100 01001010
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I don't think it's all that surprising. E-book readers aren't for everyone. For one thing, a moderately priced device is still $199, and that would buy quite a few paper books. To the average consumer, it's not worth the price. A recent study (for which I cannot find the link ATM) found that if you read one book a year, you are in the top 1% of people in the USA. I'm sure many of us on this forum are about 5 standard deviations above the mean.
Many of the people I know who got E-readers received them as gifts: "What do you get Dad for Father's Day?" or "So-and-so is going to have surgery and won't be able to lift books, so we're chipping in and getting her an E-reader for the recovery." |
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#32 |
Wizard
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Canada
Device: Kobo H2O / Aura HD / Glo / iPad3
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I'm impressed that 40% of the people surveyed knew what an e-reader was let alone were mildly interested in purchasing one. We've come a long way.
How many people need a digital camera? How many use them all the time? I have two dedicated digital cameras, plus the one in my phone plus a broken one in my PDA. I use one of them once a year on vacation. Do I need them? No. If you surveyed 1,000 people how many would say they were interested in buying a telescope? Who cares. There's a viable market for them. |
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#33 |
Tech Junkie
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Hmm, from personal experience I've seen that while People who don't read regularly see the device, they usually don't grasp the utility of the Device.
However people, who read a lot, either for pleasure or for Work, often appreciate how handy such a device could be. As for the quality of the eInk, while some people love it on first sight, other may compare it to LCD's. In Such cases, lending it to them for a few Hours / Days has often resulted in them getting used to it and loving the experience. I ran into the First case with My Lecture who loved it on site, while my Mum was a little hesitent in the beginning. Now she can't leave the house without it ![]() I also lent my Gen3 to my Uncle for a few weeks , who has to read a lot for work, and on getting used to it, asked me to get him one. So while the mass market might appreciate it, heavy readers can especially appriciate the utility of a dedicated device, and the readability of eInk. |
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#34 | |
Wizard
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No, the current readers are not 100% like a paper book. Most of your points are valid, but I don't feel they are important for the actual reading experience for text in books, only for books with lots of pictures. But they are so much more convenient to read, to store, to buy, or to download old books. Navigation on the Sony is very intuitive and quick. Page turns are not immediate, but faster than on a real book. Holding the reader is much better than holding a paper book. And when I am actually reading I often tend to forget I have an eboook, not a "real" paper book. Of course, when it comes to news, PDF files, etc -- then reading on the 6 inch screen and navigating is torture. |
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#35 | |
Murderous Mustela
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I don't actually disagree with anything you said. Though strictly speaking the 3Qi screens coming out this fall should, by themselves, offer a slight improvement in battery life. As Mrs Jepson explains, the real power savings will come when manufacturers optimize the rest of the hardware for it (in a way which sounds similar to how most eInk readers work now): I'd also like to point out that devices which use Electrophoretics (eInk) need not remain dedicated to one function either. We know that versions of the technology with both color and video capable refresh rate are in development. Last edited by Dylrob; 08-15-2009 at 04:21 AM. |
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#36 |
Guru
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A lot of it is because the consumer has never seen one demonstrated. Look how many people ran out and bought a Kindle after it was demonstrated on Oprah. I mean, you can tell people about it but it's a different thing to see it in action. I heard of ebook readers but when I was in Miami for Thanksgiving at the end of November 2007, I saw a morning show where a lady was demonstrating cool gifts for Christmas. The Sony PRS-505 was among them which Sony release a few weeks prior and she spent a few minutes talking about how it's a perfect gift for an avid reader in your life and I sat up and took noticed. When I put PRS-505 in Google search engine, this forum came up and that's when I learned about the newly released Kindle. I read a lot for a week since I did not really know anything about ebook readers at that point and then I bought the PRS-505 one week later. Since then 2 friends and 5 co-workers now own ebook readers (PRS-505 or Kindles) and all because I have one, now 2 and they've seen them in action!
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#37 | |
Banned
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Why don't you just add that we must all use eink to "save the children". ![]() |
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#38 |
The one and only
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The article may be true insofar as most people won't need a dedicated eInk reading device, since most people don't read a lot anymore.
For an occasional short story while commuting, the iPhone e.g. is more than adequate. Even reading a novel if you don't spend more than half an hour a day may be easily done on any LCD smartphone, organizer or PDA. Or mobile phone with a larger display. Which means millions of people around the world could read eBooks right now without the need to buy an additional reading device. |
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#39 | |
Junior Member
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Device: Kindle, PRS-600, PRS-500, Pandigital Novel, Android Phone
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Off-topic, its the "in my pocket all the time" mode that has me seriously thinking about a 5" reader. |
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#40 | |
Wizard
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Navigation through menus is relatively fine, but through books is pathetic. Page turns faster than manually? Sure, if you have only 1 finger, or if you don't do any global navigation (i.e. navigating across the document quickly, skimming the paragraph structures for landmarks; I tend to do this at around 5-10 pages per second when I'm in the local area of the relevant text). I find many situations where I like to cross-reference or flip around to different sections of the book, but then I realize it'd take forever on the reader and instead zip through it on my computer instead, which actually offers some semblance of navigation (not ideal, but at least the ability to move quickly through the book). If I only read linearly without any intratextual navigation, it'd be fine, low quality screen aside. I'm actually amused that someone else posted that popularity stemming from Oprah's endorsement was actually due to exposure, and not due to fan worship like her book club and everything else about her generally is. I sound like a hater, but I don't mind my device that much. I try to remember that I'm reading books, sometimes decent ones, and that lets me tolerate the reader. They remain more of a future possibility than a present solution though. |
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#41 | |
Beepbeep n beebeep, yeah!
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#42 |
Groupie
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Children who go to school nowadays have to carry dozens of kilos of books all day, deforming them with hunchbacks, aging the bones and cartilage in their spine, etc. With eink books children could be happy again and not need back surgery after they finish school like they do now.
If you want the children of the world to be happy and healthy you will vote only for politicians who favor burning all paper books. |
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#43 | |
The one and only
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![]() I'd rather go for "use eInk and save the whales, reduce forest fires and lower the income tax in Upper Manhattan", anyway. |
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#44 |
Banned
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#45 | |
Mommy of Many Interests
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