E-Reader Ownership Outpacing Tablets

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Hispanics own more tablets and ereaders than any other group? Did I read that correctly?

The *percentage* of hispanics with tablets and readers is higher than the other groups but not the absolute number of owners.

Makes sense, when you think of it;
1- the best source for pbooks in spanish has always been online since the local stores can't carry anything like the catalogs at B&N and Amazon so transitioning to ebooks is less of a leap.
2- the study found a higher penetration among adults with children under 18. Hispanic families tend to be larger and have a value education and culture, both mainstream and ancestral, and many (most?) insist the children grow up bilingual/bicultural. Books have always been a symbol of educational achievement in most hispanic cultures so ereaders are seen as an educational tool.
(Plus, the elders themselves probably put them to use while the young ones hog the TV. )

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Actually there are quite a few tablets that sell for under $300. I think that you are referring to the lowest price on the iPad.

Yes and no.
There are a lot of low end, low-grade android tablets selling in the eink reader price range but they're all second and third tier vendors with minimal visibility among mainstream buyers. The tablets from high visibility vendors with iPad-like hardware all sell at iPad prices, which explains their underwhelming sales.

Hobbyists/enthusiasts like us might be willing to experiment and take a chance on the likes of Archos, Viewsonic, and Velocity Micro but the mainstream buyer isn't. The price spread needs to be bigger before they'll chance an APEX (remember them) , Westinghouse, or Vizio.

Also, webpad tablets are a new category and their value is not immediately apparent; ebook readers have an easier sell: lower price deep in impulse buy territory, clear value equation, and known brands, readily available from first-tier channels.

This is all short-term stuff, anyway.
Both categories face longer-term challenges beyond people's attempt to drum up competition between two product categories with very different usage profiles, pricing, and customer bases.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Both categories face longer-term challenges beyond people's attempt to drum up competition between two product categories with very different usage profiles, pricing, and customer bases.

OK, so "real" tablets don't cost less than $500. Right now we have:

ereaders < web tablets < tablets & netbooks < laptops < desktops

The lines in between are going to get very blurry in time. But we do have a wide range of prices, sizes, features, and product quality. The question is: do we need one of each?


As a fellow enthusiast, what do you think of this? I was looking around to see if there are tablets running ubuntu and I stumbled onto that site. I think it's funny that they call the 11.6-inch display enormous when I would like to have one closer to 14, but at least this is going in the right direction.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

it's selling to the Malusaphiliacs

Malusaphiliacs?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Malusaphiliacs?

Apple-fanatics.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Yes and no.
There are a lot of low end, low-grade android tablets selling in the eink reader price range but they're all second and third tier vendors with minimal visibility among mainstream buyers. The tablets from high visibility vendors with iPad-like hardware all sell at iPad prices, which explains their underwhelming sales.

worse: they have horrible battery life in the range of 2-3 hours at best and resistive and awkward touchscreens.

Nook Color is amazing at what it offers.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

for me, and many people, the problem with touch screens is the loss of tactile feel for WHERE you press, and not that you've pressed. Especially on smaller devices, with smaller widgets, did you press the button you wanted, or the one next to it? Hard to tell if your finger covers them.

Exactly.

I have two Android touchscreen devices, and the problem I run into with both of them is that I hit one part of the keyboard, and it registers a keypress on an adjacent key. And screen calibration only helps so much.

For tablets to be useful, the keyboards need to be large, and the calibration needs to be spot on.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Apple-fanatics.

Oooh, ok.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

For tablets to be useful, the keyboards need to be large, and the calibration needs to be spot on.

And then you run into the problem that the keyboards are limited by the screen, so you need a bigger tablet.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

And then you run into the problem that the keyboards are limited by the screen, so you need a bigger tablet.

It doesn't take care of the tactile part of the equation, but what tablets really need is this technology built in.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by sabredog

I am sure the cloistered handcrafted, handwritten book industry suffered from distribution loss once Gutenberg got his act together.

And the price of a book probably went down considerably as well. I mean when a book can be printed in a matter of a day at most as opposed to taking months to hand write a copy the cost had to drop. I think the argument of ebooks costing less than pbooks stems from that perceived model to an extent.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

It doesn't take care of the tactile part of the equation, but what tablets really need is this technology built in.

I've heard of that tech. It does look good though I imagine even it has its limits. The Kindle Keyboard may be small but I do know when I press the key that I will get the letter I want. Of course it isn't the most handy for typing symbols as is though either.

[Ken Maltby]

As a new owner of the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, I would add that even the addition
of a physical keyboard might not provide a viable answer to this issue. In the case of
the Transformer (TF), I find that there is a lag in the display of what is typed that is a
real distraction, also the touchpad on the keyboard interferes with my typing.

One of the "attractions" of the larger tablets, from the human interface point of view,
is the use of the multi-touch fingerpaint GUI. Personally I think the addition of a stylus
for highlighting and precise selection would be a great idea. The addition of the input
functions mentioned earlier would only make it better.

( I seem to remember running across a piece about how to make your own capacitance
stylus using a bit of foam. I'm thinking it was the foam that CPUs are sometimes shipped
with the CPU stuck in the foam.)

Found this:
http://pocketnow.com/tweaks-hacks/ho...acitive-stylus

http://www.instructables.com/id/Poor...citive-Stylus/

http://www.instructables.com/id/iPad...d-iPhone-Touc/

Luck;
Ken

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

It doesn't take care of the tactile part of the equation, but what tablets really need is this technology built in.

It locks you into touching a flat surface. What is the advantage over a laptop? Just the weight?

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

It locks you into touching a flat surface. What is the advantage over a laptop? Just the weight?

Well, yes. You're touching a flat surface with the tablet, too. The difference would be that this flat surface would be larger and the response more accurate.