Development of E-Readers - Next big thing?

[Pax]

Although I am very satisfied with my current E-Reader, I am curious, what do you think will be the next big thing for E-Readers?
How will the next generation of E-Readers look like and what can they do?

I can imagine, that they improve the displays. Probably quicker page turns, higher contrast.
I am not in need of colors, but I can understand that for children books this could be interesting.

Penny for your thoughts!

[elcreative]

Sorry, can't release for a penny... patent pending...

[The Terminator]

I don't know how much faster Eink can get. As for color I couldn't really care less about it. Lighter, thinner and smaller bezel and longer battery life seem to be the most popular improvements if you look at the smartphone and tablet market.

[xg4bx]

i think the next huge step will be e-ink paper and flexible screens. instead of being a relatively chunky device it'll be wafer thin.

[crossi]

I hope they don't go wafer thin. Having a little thickness makes it easier to grip and keeps the page flat. Magazines and newspapers with the pages flopping about are hard to read on a bus. I don't want that in a ereader.

I would like a touch sensitive screen that you could write on with a stylus (freehand not typing) and would save that note like an ebook and that you could recall and edit from your library.

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah, Graffiti like on a Palm would be cool!

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by crossi

I would like a touch sensitive screen that you could write on with a stylus (freehand not typing) and would save that note like an ebook and that you could recall and edit from your library.

They had that in the Entourage Edge (and possibly one of the Sonys). A great feature and one I use a lot.

[CyGuy]

Something similar to the Pocketbook 902/903 but with a better display, slimmer bezel, optional back-light, etc. It is very close to being perfect in my opinion.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

They had that in the Entourage Edge (and possibly one of the Sonys). A great feature and one I use a lot.

Quite a number of readers support free-hand annotation. The BeBook devices are another range that have it.

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Quite a number of readers support free-hand annotation. The BeBook devices are another range that have it.

[elemenoP]

The Sonys support free-hand annotation (aka drawing) as well, at least the 350/650/950 does, I don't know if they kept this feature in the T1 or not. But they are saved as drawings, there's no handwriting recognition like Palm's graffiti (which, personally I never got the hang of and always hated!).

As for the future: I am one who believes that dedicated readers will eventually go away. I imagine a tablet with a backlight that can be turned on or off depending on your lighting conditions. It will be color, but b&w text will look as good as e-ink. With the backlight off and used for reading books (as opposed to watching video), it will get as good battery life as e-ink.

In the shorter term, it would be cool to see e-ink with better resolution and darker text/whiter background. If the refresh rates were better, I could also see plugging a keyboard into it and using it as a little word processor. So, an e-ink reader and writer.

eP

[HappyMartin]

I would like a whiter white, the black is OK for me.
Waterproof
More robust, a lot more.
I want something I can stick in the back pocket of a cycling jersey and head off into a rainstorm.

[Hellmark]

I'd like to see more eInk in phones. the Motorola F3 was a piece of junk. While it toted a battery that could last upto 20 days, I'd have the battery die sometimes after 2 hours. Yeah, that was fun when I went on a trip to chicago, and my new, freshly charged phone died before I was half way there, and had no way of letting my girlfriend know I was safe when I got there.

I'm not big on games, video, etc. Most of what I do on my Android phone could still be done on a phone with eInk. Calendar, text messaging, etc.

Unfortunately, that'd be a niche market....

[Giggleton]

disposable, solar powered, thin eink screens, wirelessly connected to the network. An end to the ridiculous notion of copyright.

[fjtorres]

Screen tech is the driver for ebook reader gadgets.

So far, software features have *not* been a high-volume draw; ebook reader sales for now are more about basic ebook access than about sophisticated software feature sets.

For eInk, near term, we might see plastic substrate panels for lighter, more robust screens and/or low-saturation color displays on the reflective side. Further out, high-saturation reflective color.

For LCD, near term may see the return of transflective to the consumer market (last seen on PDAs) or other incrementally lower-power screens; probably via LED sidelighting and finer-grained lighting control. Longer term, lower power consumption and lighter, more powerful batteries will bring 20-30 hour LCD readers into the 8 ounce range.

Essentially, the race for the true next-gen (high-volume) ebook reader (circa 2014-16) will be decided by whether eink gets to near-LCD color saturation or LCD gets to near-reflective weight and power use first.

Until then, B&W pearl-type eink screens will rule.
We might see incremental contrast improvements and significant refresh-rate improvements but the products using them won't be significantly different than what we see now in the Kindle 4 and Sony T1, to pick just two.

But we're looking at a hardware feature/pricing sweet spot that is going to be with us for a while.