Looking for a next generation eb1150

[mogui]

Motorola sells the F3 Fone which has a sidelit eInk display. The phone is very cheap. But eInk is expensive, you say. True, but Moto has produced this display along the lines of the old segmented displays. It is not a pixillated display. See here for photos. I suspect that by restricting the built in electronics in this way, the display becomes much cheaper.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I take the view that you can add lighting to an eInk screen very easily, but you cannot improve the quality of a "pre-lit" LCD screen. It seems like a sensible choice, therefore, to go for screen clarity over lighting when it comes to selecting built-in funtionality.

And I happen to share your evaluation of that point, HarryT, I'm just pointing out that other folks evaluate it differently, and they have a right to do so.

All us pegs don't have to fit in the same hole on this.

[JSWolf]

What would work very well with the Sony Reader is a front light that sits on the front held on by magnets with holes for the buttons. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to do. And make it run on it's own battery and you've got a good deal there.

[NatCh]

The magnets are on the right side and the buttons are on the left and bottom, so if you just didn't make it cover them you'd be golden. But, you'd probably want to use just steel plates rather than putting magnets into the front-light, as there seems like there may be some inconsistency as to the orientation the magnets are installed with ... I guess the light's magnets could be flippable ....

Anyway, I think that LightWedge's patents are broad enough that they might preclude anyone other than them doing such a thing commercially.

[ajmoir]

I have the Sony and have been delighted with it since Day 1.

I'm a software developer with strong leanings towards open source/content. I do not have any DRM'd books nor do I use the Sony store or software.

My thoughts are as follows:-

Form Factor. Two sizes paperback and letter. Would allow for text books to be reasonably displayed with graphics etc. Keep it slim like the PRS but remove most of the buttons say leaving page turner. No MP3 player.

Screen. eInk, front lit, upgrade the res to 300dpi.

Connectivity. USB only. recharge through USB, make device emulate external disk. Access to complete file system.

Document format. Pick one open format and stick to it. Be it PS, PDF, Tex etc. Everything can then be converted to the open format. NO DRM.

Battery life. Make it last 5 days.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by ajmoir

I have the Sony and have been delighted with it since Day 1.

I'm a software developer with strong leanings towards open source/content. I do not have any DRM'd books nor do I use the Sony store or software.

My thoughts are as follows:-

Form Factor. Two sizes paperback and letter. Would allow for text books to be reasonably displayed with graphics etc. Keep it slim like the PRS but remove most of the buttons say leaving page turner. No MP3 player.

Screen. eInk, front lit, upgrade the res to 300dpi.

Connectivity. USB only. recharge through USB, make device emulate external disk. Access to complete file system.

Document format. Pick one open format and stick to it. Be it PS, PDF, Tex etc. Everything can then be converted to the open format. NO DRM.

Battery life. Make it last 5 days.

The open format needs to be epub to keep with what is happening. It is opensource and deals with ebook issues. None of the ones above meet the needs well. However there are those folks who need to view documents without conversion and conversion is not adequate on some PDFs.

DRM is likely a fact of life. As readers we don't need it but we will never get publishers convinced. They are even more paranoid than the music industry if you can believe that.

The eb1150 that started this thread has a good feel to it, but you do need a scroll wheel of some sort if you don't have a touch screen. People are unlikely to buy two readers so the paperback one needs to handle the full size documents from time to time (using landscape and 2 page modes).

With good font choices 200 bpi is probably plenty good but 300 is better but likely very expensive. There has to be a limit to the cost of this thing somewhere. 4 gray scale doesn't really cut it for images unless there is good dithering to emulate 16 (high res helps here). Again the model for this thread is a 16 gray scale device.

No need for mp3. I certainly don't want to manage two complete sets of playlists, music loads, etc. and I am not going to take a reader jogging.

Front, side, back, light: whatever works.

As you can see I really agree mostly with what you say, just a little refinement.

Dale

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ajmoir

Document format. Pick one open format and stick to it. Be it PS, PDF, Tex etc. Everything can then be converted to the open format. NO DRM.

One has to accept the realities of life. Multiple book formats do exist, whether we like it or not, and many commercial eBooks are only available with DRM.

MobiPocket is the clear choice for a supported DRM format, because it's supported by multiple retailers resulting in a competitive market. Handling plain text, RTF and HTML makes life a lot easier for the "non-techie" user who doesn't want to have to be bothered with converting formats.

PDF is, IMHO, irrrelevent for a reader intended for the fiction market.

[robvarga]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The open format needs to be epub to keep with what is happening. It is opensource and deals with ebook issues. None of the ones above meet the needs well. However there are those folks who need to view documents without conversion and conversion is not adequate on some PDFs.

I don't care what the open format is. It should allow me to view books I have and zoom in if I want and possibly intelligently re-layout the flow text.

If we want some candy, it should allow user annotations preferably tied to a certain place to a text. I don't care if it is provided by the reader only, and stored separately from the original document.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

DRM is likely a fact of life. As readers we don't need it but we will never get publishers convinced. They are even more paranoid than the music industry if you can believe that.

Unfortunately. But I could live with that if every publisher made their books available as an ebook as well, not later than the time of making the paper book available, and preferably at a cheap (i.e. half or lower) price.

And of course it must not tie me to a single device and must not report personal or sensitive information to the internet.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The eb1150 that started this thread has a good feel to it, but you do need a scroll wheel of some sort if you don't have a touch screen. People are unlikely to buy two readers so the paperback one needs to handle the full size documents from time to time (using landscape and 2 page modes).

Agree.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

With good font choices 200 bpi is probably plenty good but 300 is better but likely very expensive.

Yes, but I need the 300dpi for small characters in figures (this is for the purpose of IT books having diagrams as images with small characters in them).

Originally Posted by DaleDe

There has to be a limit to the cost of this thing somewhere.

As long as it alleviates the need of buying new bookshelves, I think we are well within the cost margin.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

4 gray scale doesn't really cut it for images unless there is good dithering to emulate 16 (high res helps here). Again the model for this thread is a 16 gray scale device.

I don't have personal experience for this, but I tend to agree.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

No need for mp3. I certainly don't want to manage two complete sets of playlists, music loads, etc. and I am not going to take a reader jogging.

Front, side, back, light: whatever works.

Dale

Agree.

Robert

[DaleDe]

From Robert.
Yes, but I need the 300dpi for small characters in figures (this is for the purpose of IT books having diagrams as images with small characters in them).

Ah, IT books with small text in an image. This is not the typical use for an ebook reader but interesting non the less. Images do need special handling. There needs to be a way to make them full size and then pan them. This will solve your bpi problem and is even better since even 300 bpi won't solve the problem completely. The latest ebook reader from Microsoft actually has a special image viewer built in. PDF viewers typically have to deal with this as well. We haven't talked much about images and image handling as a requirement but it is certainly real for a lot of folks although fiction book readers don't see the need. I believe a hardware reader should address this in an effective manner.

Dale

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by robvarga

Yes, but I need the 300dpi for small characters in figures (this is for the purpose of IT books having diagrams as images with small characters in them).

Robert,

I've attached several images of what Bookeen's fonts look like at the smallest and largest - it does 12 different font sizes for each of the seven font families, btw - as well as what the font size menu looks like.

Derek




http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...argestFont.jpg

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

One has to accept the realities of life. Multiple book formats do exist, whether we like it or not, and many commercial eBooks are only available with DRM.

Very good quote; one has to accept the reality that commercial e-books have been a major bust leading to big losses or bankruptcies for various companies.
One wonders why

[NatCh]

Heh, yeah, I think the two are related too, Liviu_5. But a big part of the ebabel problem and the bankruptcies of various e-book concerns has had a lot to do with publisher/author disinterest/hostility. If all the publishers had jumped on the RocketBook at the beginning like ants on watermelon at a Sunday School picnic, the e-book landscape might be very different.

Today, we have .epub looking like it might be ready to be the omni-lingual needed to break ebabel, and the pubs reportedly scrambling to get e-rights to their backlists. Well, it could mean nothing at all, and this current installment of e-book interest could become just that: the current installment. But it also could mean very good things.

Call me optimistic.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Today, we have .epub looking like it might be ready to be the omni-lingual needed to break ebabel, and the pubs reportedly scrambling to get e-rights to their backlists. Well, it could mean nothing at all, and this current installment of e-book interest could become just that: the current installment. But it also could mean very good things.

Call me optimistic.

Actually I am optimistic too. However the current model (multiple drm formats, high prices) is broken and that's a fact of life as the phrase quoted put it.

Considering that according to some unconfirmed rumors 70% of published novels lose money and selling 5000 hardcovers is viewed as an achievement for most of them, and also considering the big consolidation taking place in the publishing world with conglomerates with quarterly reports taking over, it's possible that the publishers are getting desperate enough to try to make some money with e-content, so they will reconsider the current broken model...

[ajmoir]

Originally Posted by HarryT

One has to accept the realities of life. Multiple book formats do exist, whether we like it or not, and many commercial eBooks are only available with DRM.

PDF is, IMHO, irrrelevent for a reader intended for the fiction market.

I see a much broader future for eReaders than just fiction, I want nothing more than the complete removal of the paper book. This would mean a revolution in publishing. It also means that the eReaders have to step up and provide the features without the crap. I think a thin letter sized reader will become the standard size, able to read fiction, tech docs and newspapers. eventually most ebooks will format for the size.

DRM is brain damaged. The only people it hurts are the law abiding customers. The publishing companies need to understand what is happening in the electronic media arena. Currently, they don't understand the tech, they do not understand the market and they sure as hell do not understand the customer.

The three formats I listed do not really on device fonts but on bit mapped displays. PDF is the most prevalent for read only documents. I use this as I have ocr'd a number of books to latex, I'm not tied to the limitations of the device fonts but the limitation of the display.

[NatCh]

I wasn't disagreeing with you, Liviu_5! Just adding to.

Your point on the state of publishing creating some pressure to reconsider the e-model is a good one, which I take as a good sign.