B & N Nook labelled "Unrevolutionary"

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Haesslich

Hmm. Let me pick up my paper book to compare it to those features.

• Contrast: This depends on the quality of the paper. Some have great contrast; others using more 'artsy' designs or poorer paper, aren't as good. I've got a few with printing errors from the publisher which have awful contrast ratios.
• Resolution: Depends on the book again. Most have good resolution, and compared to an eBook reader in the store they've got better resolution than an iPod Touch when it comes to reading, or many PDA's. Pictures also look fairly good on them, albeit in grayscale.
• Refresh Rate: This page isn't refreshing... ah, a zero-frame-per-second refresh rate. This paper book's refresh rate is awful! Turning the page takes a second! What a gyp!

Contrast: I have only rarely seen any paper book that comes anywhere near the crappiness of e-ink contrast, and I certainly wouldn't buy any of them. I always have my 505 with me when I go to bookstores, and I'm always happy to show people side-by-sides to discourage them from buying an ebook reader.

Resolution: I can easily read complex Chinese books with proper light Ming typefaces even on the cheapest paper. They are at best annoying and ugly, at worst practically unreadable on e-ink, and the only way around it is to use unpleasantly beefed-up bolded fonts. This is more a function of contrast and anti-aliasing though than pure resolution, though resolution dictates the need for anti-aliasing.

Refresh rate: It doesn't take a second to flip a page on a physical book unless you have some kind of physical disability, and it takes far far less time if you are flipping quickly.

When current gen e-ink is phased out by something a little less rubbish, I'll probably be all for it. The current stuff is to me little better than a cheap calculator LCD.

Originally Posted by Avarwen

You have to take into account that ebooks have only just become TRULY mainstream. Before this improving on problems was more then likely not though about much. Seeing as how not many people were buying ebooks. Again I'll use MP3 players as an example. The first players had boring old school screens that only displayed the song title that was playing and menu that only displayed basic info. That was good when MP3 players first came out and not many people owned them. But as more people got into them MP3 players had to evolve to meet consumers needs.

Ereaders are the same as more people buy them ereaders will have to change in order to get more users. Give it time I don't think we are too far off from an affordable and much improved ereader.

I think I agree...though it's a bit unfortunate that ePub is growing in popularity for standard ebooks...gotta wonder how many product generations it'll take to iron out kinks that are being made now.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by ahi

Are you suggesting that:

• poor contrast,
• poor resolution,
• poor refresh rate,
• poor content quality,
• poor content selection,
• and artificial limitations on the full exercise of the rights of ownership, among other things

are just in paper book readers' heads?

- Ahi

Huh? How does a shift in perspective equal imagination? Sports car buyers generally don't see a car's inability to carry eight passengers as a flaw. To that potential customer, a cramped cockpit isn't a flaw. Taking more than seven seconds to get up to 60mph, however, probably would be. Is that what you consider "all in his head"? If so, then sure, if that makes you happy.

[troykm]

well here are my thoughts on the nook. I live in Australia, so getting a nook is not possible. But i have been reading a lot about it, and indeed almost every other ereader out there, as i have just entered this market and bought my very first device only 2 weeks ago :-)

so based on all my research, i believe the nook is very nice to look at, it has form and character, its very aesthetically pleasing. Having said that, i do not think its revolutionary. The colour screen is mearly gimmicky. And you are still semi locked in to one store.

After a week of research, i bought the ECO reader (hanlin V3) from a local Melbourne company who have released it locally. I think this device is more revolutionary than the kindle 2 or the nook. I believe this because my ECO reader will do things that people who own the kindle and other wished they could do, like folder support, expandable memory, no store lock in - can buy books from any store, support for almost every format ever created for eBooks, can use my own docs on the device, can have newspapers, magazines and blogs read on the device by using RSS feeds (very easy) etc

i think my device with all these features (and i know there are other brands doing the same) are a better choice than the kindle 2 and nook, sure they might not look as shinny and new, but they all use the same viziplex eink screen and thats really what we buy them for.

what it looks like will only be nice for a short time. what it cant do will annoy you for a long time.

just my thoughts

troykm :-)

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by troykm

The colour screen is mearly gimmicky. And you are still semi locked in to one store.

You are not lock into one store in any way. Unless you say you are locked into one store for wireless shopping from the device. Then that is true. (for now).

BOb

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Contrast: I have only rarely seen any paper book that comes anywhere near the crappiness of e-ink contrast, and I certainly wouldn't buy any of them. I always have my 505 with me when I go to bookstores, and I'm always happy to show people side-by-sides to discourage them from buying an ebook reader.

Resolution: I can easily read complex Chinese books with proper light Ming typefaces even on the cheapest paper. They are at best annoying and ugly, at worst practically unreadable on e-ink, and the only way around it is to use unpleasantly beefed-up bolded fonts. This is more a function of contrast and anti-aliasing though than pure resolution, though resolution dictates the need for anti-aliasing.

Refresh rate: It doesn't take a second to flip a page on a physical book unless you have some kind of physical disability, and it takes far far less time if you are flipping quickly.

When current gen e-ink is phased out by something a little less rubbish, I'll probably be all for it. The current stuff is to me little better than a cheap calculator LCD.

Odd - when I look at an eBook reader like the PRS-505 or the PRS-300 in any light which isn't too dim to read by, the contrast is pretty good. I guess maybe it's the fact that I'm trying to read in a semi-well-lit area which makes all the difference. Plus, I've seen quite a few crappy books out there... some of which were on very, very cheap tissue-paper like material, whose contrast ratios are pretty bad. Worse still when the ink fades, which I've found has happened on some of the cheaper books with badly-done print runs.

As for the Chinese texts, those are more the fault of the font than the display, at least with embedded fonts. May I point to Japanese manga on eBook readers, as an example of how that sort of text looks on an eInk screen? Yes, they're not 1900x1200 yet, but neither are they as screwed up as you're suggesting, unless your typesetter (or whoever put together those books for you in whatever format you were using) was completely incompetent... and the argument ahi was bringing in was that typesetting was inherently superior on a paper book.

It doesn't take a second to flip a page... most of the time. It's harder when you're having problems 'gripping' the page through gloves, but it's about the same rate as an eInk reader since the act of page-flipping doesn't mean the next page is 'instantly visible', or at least not flat or otherwise in an easily viewable angle. Usually it's half a second unless you're speed-reading, in which case you're not spending a lot of time worrying about the 'resolution or contrast ratio' of what you're looking at, since you're too busy taking in the images and translating the content mentally in whatever your brain's using for a buffer.

I will grant current eInk looks like a calculator LCD, but I've found the resolution to be better than early LCD screens, or even some of the later-gen PDA LCD's, when I compare them side-by-side. The 320x480 screens definitely suffer compared to these, due to the lower PPI ratios on the latter, so comparing them with 'cheap calculator LCD's is something only a complete idiot would do... especially since anyone with half a brain would've returned the PRS-505 if they disliked it so, or sold it to someone else so they weren't stuck with something they so thoroughly hated.

[AprilHare]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

2. No access to Google Books?

We all have access to Google Books in epub format from the website books.google.com - the key is being able to upload them to our liseuse.

[user42]

and you can't access the book while it is loaned out.

...That's pretty much the definition of loaning out a book -- if you loan a paper book to someone, you can't access it either. If you were both able to read it simultaneously, it would be a lot more complicated to get permission from the publishers I bet...

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by user42

and you can't access the book while it is loaned out.

...That's pretty much the definition of loaning out a book -- if you loan a paper book to someone, you can't access it either. If you were both able to read it simultaneously, it would be a lot more complicated to get permission from the publishers I bet...

yeah, see I don't think anyone is making an issue out of this part of the "lending" lure

[gigercounter]

UMMMMM BN Nook labeled UNrevolutionary ??
UMMM what does the Kindle have to offer over the Nook ??
I thought so.....

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by gigercounter

UMMMMM BN Nook labeled UNrevolutionary ??
UMMM what does the Kindle have to offer over the Nook ??
I thought so.....

It was first.

[Connallmac]

Originally Posted by gigercounter

UMMMMM BN Nook labeled UNrevolutionary ??
UMMM what does the Kindle have to offer over the Nook ??
I thought so.....

Ask that question to someone NOT living in the US and I think you would get a different answer.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by gigercounter

UMMMMM BN Nook labeled UNrevolutionary ??
UMMM what does the Kindle have to offer over the Nook ??

International access, TTS, large format (for the DX), larger "new book" selection. So far the Kindle has also popularized ebook readers to the point of becoming eponymous, and that every new ebook reader is posited as a "Kindle Killer."

The Nook only has two real new things, the color LCD section and loaning ebooks. It's a step forward, but hardly a "revolution."

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

International access, TTS, large format (for the DX), larger "new book" selection. So far the Kindle has also popularized ebook readers to the point of becoming eponymous, and that every new ebook reader is posited as a "Kindle Killer."

With all due respect, this strikes me as US-centric view of the electronic reader market. I'll grant you, it is huge, especially when it comes to sales of the content, not only the hardware.

The strength of the Amazon in English speaking world (availability of broad range of published materiel, despite geo restrictions) works against Kindle internationally. For a whole bunch of smaller (how about China, Russia, huge parts of EU?) cultural/language groups, the closed nature of the platform does not mean convenience, it is (unnecessary) limitation.

[pking36330]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

International access, TTS, large format (for the DX), larger "new book" selection.

It's a step forward, but hardly a "revolution."

Kali,
You only get to pick one feature from column A: International Access or Larger Format. Remember the Kindle DX is not available in the International Access flavor.

I think you would be correct in saying the Nook isn't 'revolutionary'. If I had to characterize the industry, I would say Sony issued a 'revolutionary' device in the original Libre. There were several other small 'evolutionary' steps in recent years but no additional 'revolutionary' products. eReader devices added e-ink: evolutinary. Open formats became accessible: evolutionary. Library book lending became available: evolutionary. Wireless download became available: evolutionary. Mobile format readers became available: evolutionary. Format standardization is becoming prevalent: evolutionary.

I don't think there is another revolutionary step, or not one I can think of. There are MANY evolutionary improvements we would all like to see (and everyone has their own preference on what those desirable evolutionary trait should be), but I can't imagine a 'revolutionary' follow-on. But maybe someone here can...you know it is NaNoWriMo in 3 days and that 'revolutionary' step might make a good premise.

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Revolutionary or not, it's just another small local thing for use in that remote country located somewhere between two Oecans...

Too far away from here to be interesting.........

Well said!