Performance compare eink vs tablet

[webroot]

www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46546

this thread talks how mortal are eink, it may fade out in 3 years but i suspect if were made to refresh 30 times per second unlike once in a minute then it wouldnt last long, i wonder if 2 grades of eink screen are made, one used in ereader and other in expensive device like yotaphone

[Geralt]

I have two questions for you webroot and I promise they are related to your topic.

1. How often do you read on your eink reader? (in a day or a week)
2. How many ebooks (on average if you aren't sure) do you read in a year?

Thanks.

[Zetmolm]

Originally Posted by webroot

www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46546

this thread talks how mortal are eink, it may fade out in 3 years but i suspect if were made to refresh 30 times per second unlike once in a minute then it wouldnt last long, i wonder if 2 grades of eink screen are made, one used in ereader and other in expensive device like yotaphone

You are referring to a thread that is 6 years old. Fading E Ink screens may have been a problem at that time, but certainly not in recent years.

[cvkemp]

Since I have returned to e-ink readers I am reading a lot more, my eyes are not as stressed, and I am enjoying reading. I also have my tablet and my smartphone, and to be honest my eyes become so tired in a very short amount of time reading on LCD/LED screens. But I can read 6 to 8 hrs a day on my e-ink reader.

[theducks]

Fade?
Don't tell my Aztak (vizplex screen)
2+ books a week. bought in 2011
battery is going, but the screen contrast has not changed noticeably

[Teknikal]

My thoughts I like eink it's a perfect screen technology for something like reading but I find myself using my Android phone and tablet more and more, why it's because you were right the cpu/ram isn't up to the job.

I've about 2,500 books on my T1 thanks to a memory card can I browse my library on the eink device the answer is no, it's much to slow and gets slower everytime I try I've had to pin reset that thing much more than any other type of device my tablet handles bigger librarys instantly.

Sometimes on the Sony I click an option and it can take a minute or more to actually do something, it's usually a good reading device once you actually get a book loaded but then again it doesn't seem to cope well with bigger books which means I have to worry if it's going to crash and lose my place, I blame skimping on ram as the average book will be ok.

I accept the T1 is older but the newer ereaders I see haven't really done anything with regards to cpu/ram which is the problem, they just aren't up to the task for anyone with a decent sized library. I won't upgrade until theres something with the hardware to cope.

[webroot]

Originally Posted by Geralt

I have two questions for you webroot and I promise they are related to your topic.

1. How often do you read on your eink reader? (in a day or a week)
2. How many ebooks (on average if you aren't sure) do you read in a year?

Thanks.

honestly i am an occasional reader, i read technical books and some religion related stuff, i wont bother my kindle pw as it do not let me streamline those brief reading with other activities online. but lately i realized that it is no point putting additional computing power into eink unless they have the capacity to replace everything that a tablet can offer. because if it cant do everything then you are still dependent on tablet. the only useful possibility i think is a dual screen device where you flip them easily.

Basically I wanted to understand why device makers have shown little interest to make eink device progressive. modern ereader were rolled out much before tablets but now they are far behind, IMHO device makers and software developers had to choose between it, for example webkit browser engine developer had to consider extra point in mind if they were to include eink screen, that way eink was left on the journey. i mean if manufacturers and developers targeted both it would have resulted in poor product, so one of them was compromised.

Btw I do hell lot of online reading on my phablet to the point of bleeding my eyes, shouldn't the eink comfort be limited to fiction lovers alone, that itched me to post this question

[Geralt]

I guessed as much...or I had a hunch you can say.
People on Mobileread read few dozens of books a year. A lot of them read over 100. These I call book devourers behind their backs I read anywhere between 30 to 50 books a year or more on a good year.

Most of us use Calibre to organize, tweak, and transfer our book collections. I treat my kindle pretty much as one HUGE omnibus with lots of books inside.
To us our kindles, kobos, nooks are paper book replacements not tablet replacements. We use them primarily to read.
A lot of us "hoard" our books on them so there is always something to read. Hell, my kindle is ALWAYS in airplane mode. I'm never online. I turned it once this year and the damn thing updated....but that's a whole another kindle jailbreak story...

Why am I telling you all this. To show you a perspective of avid readers in comparison to an occasional reader such as yourself. We worry about finding the next great book, not about whether our ereader can parry with a tablet.
We use them to read and we spend our monies on ebooks. And that's where we come to a crux of things.

Companies that make ereaders usually make their money not on devices themselves but the ebook sales. This is how this buisness is ran.

You ask

Originally Posted by webroot

Btw I do hell lot of online reading on my phablet to the point of bleeding my eyes, shouldn't the eink comfort be limited to fiction lovers alone, that itched me to post this question

Because they are made to sell fiction/non fiction ebooks. Nobody can sell you a web page can they?....well unless they are your web designer...but that's a another thing altogether. E-ink readers don't need to be made to surf the web, because the company that makes them can't make any money like that! But selling ebooks? Yeah that's the ticket

Same answer for your progressive question.

Basically I wanted to understand why device makers have shown little interest to make eink device progressive. modern ereader were rolled out much before tablets but now they are far behind,

They have been making them more progressive. I have a KK and PW2 and PW2 beats it easy. Ereaders need to have a design that will make reading books a comfortable experience. They don't need to compete with tablets.
Apples and oranges and all that

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Geralt

Companies that make ereaders usually make their money not on devices themselves but the ebook sales. This is how this buisness is ran.

Kodak used that model for years. They sold cheap 'box' cameras and made much of their money on Film and Processing.

Believe me, once you have had the cheap processor ruin your non-replacable photos on slide film, you shun the 'bargain' (Pink cast and Cigarette ashes stuck in the emulsion )

[webroot]

Originally Posted by Geralt

..because the company that makes them can't make any money like that! But selling ebooks? Y..

Do you have any proof to back above statement, it doesn't look like selling ereader is more of non-profit, because all hardware they use is very entry level. If a powerful raspberry Pi can be offered for 35 USD then a kindle which less than half in specs should hover around same range assuming that they have added screen and plastic around. Also consider that raspberry may not be mass produced at the same scale.

Funny that i have a tiny USB modem with ARM7 processor and 512MB of ram, double in power than a basic kindle. Keeping the cost down is good thing but it is not true Amazon is NOT making decent profit from it. You know in shopping mall near my place kobo reader was offered at about 32 USD where original price was approx 115 usd, they found no market for kobo reader and moved to kindle only, and I dont thing they sold last stock at loss.

Crux of my paragraph is, from top it appears that kindle or other ereader are subsidized but they have also scaled down on hardware side and that too only most basic hardwares are added, thereby keeping the profit same.

You may get the hardware quotes from alibaba I guess that for 1000 piece of 64 mb RAM they wil quote 0.5 usd per unit

[murg]

But, by the time you add the eink screen, wifi, second microsd card, plastic case and the software, the cost blooms.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by webroot

Keeping the cost down is good thing but it is not true Amazon is NOT making decent profit from it.

You know this how? I haven't seen any reports lately, but it was absolutely true a few years ago that Amazon broke even or lost money on the various Kindle models. Just wondering if you have some actual numbers from somewhere.

[webroot]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Amazon broke even or lost money on the various Kindle models.

Was that from companies periodic balance sheet? Well I dont have any figure but I gave some logic. Btw this is out of my understanding if Amazon can make profit from both, then why they would give away kindle and rely on eBook sales alone.

If I put it differently right now average price of tab is 210$ and if you buy 5 - 6 years old tablet or phablet that are closer to amazon kindle then how much it would cost? ask yourself !!

[theducks]

I was a Temp at a company in 2010 that looked into making a "Cost Reduced E-Ink reader". After close examination of the insides of the models commonly available, the answer was 'not enough to make it worthwhile' (even at high production volume).

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by webroot

Who is stopping manufactures from adding 1 GB ram and octacore processors, Annoying that Kindle stated with 64 MB ram and still today it is hovering at 256 MB. Clearly all this is due to lack of innovation.

Yeah, why doesn't my electric toothbrush have 1GB of RAM and an octa-core processor?

Clearly it is due to a lack of innovation.