"Boost brightness by about 20%" Since e-ink displays are not self-luminescent wouldn't that be "Boost contrast"?
I like the idea of e-ink displays and ebooks a lot but its just definitely not there yet.
I think the hurdles they need to get over are as follows. 1: Price - This is the biggest issue anywhere, get a good e-book down to 199 and talking a new ballgame, an above poster said new hardbacks are $25 so this definitely puts it into a position thats easier to swallow for alot more people. 2: Input - It seems nonintuitive but I think its a big point. I think the number of people who buy a cheap laptop to use as a portable DVD player is much greater than the number of people who spend nearly as much on a small portable DVD player. If you could take notes at school on your ebook, doodle or do other minor computing tasks that would certainly add a lot of value. I know I'd probably start heavily considering getting an e-book that had a good touchscreen/digitizer so I could take notes at work and draw out things. The formfactor of an e-book is certainly more ideal for a lot of things where I don't really need the functionality of a tablet PC. 3: Distribution of e-books. Until a consumer can safely know that all of the books he might want to purchase are available for an e-book, I think e-books are going to be a tough sell. If all of the academic companies put their stuff in ebooks I think that would change the e-book landscape dramatically.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
saq @ May 10th 2007 5:00AM
"Boost brightness by about 20%"
Since e-ink displays are not self-luminescent wouldn't that be "Boost contrast"?
I like the idea of e-ink displays and ebooks a lot but its just definitely not there yet.
I think the hurdles they need to get over are as follows.
1: Price - This is the biggest issue anywhere, get a good e-book down to 199 and talking a new ballgame, an above poster said new hardbacks are $25 so this definitely puts it into a position thats easier to swallow for alot more people.
2: Input - It seems nonintuitive but I think its a big point. I think the number of people who buy a cheap laptop to use as a portable DVD player is much greater than the number of people who spend nearly as much on a small portable DVD player.
If you could take notes at school on your ebook, doodle or do other minor computing tasks that would certainly add a lot of value. I know I'd probably start heavily considering getting an e-book that had a good touchscreen/digitizer so I could take notes at work and draw out things. The formfactor of an e-book is certainly more ideal for a lot of things where I don't really need the functionality of a tablet PC.
3: Distribution of e-books. Until a consumer can safely know that all of the books he might want to purchase are available for an e-book, I think e-books are going to be a tough sell. If all of the academic companies put their stuff in ebooks I think that would change the e-book landscape dramatically.