http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
Dang, this thing is thinner than an Adamo. It looks like I will still be able to get paper cuts, even with an E-reader...]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 5:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 9:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
You just watch.]]>Oct 19th 2009 12:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 8:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 1:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 2:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
I kind of want it if it has pen input and not just finger input.]]>Oct 19th 2009 12:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 3:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 1:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
That size in color with a touchscreen would actually be good enough to replace textbooks.]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 1:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
"... and has 3G wireless capabilities"]]>Oct 19th 2009 12:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220301369]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:04AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 10:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 12:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/

And anyway, a lot of exceedingly awful things have come from misguided efforts to bring wildly irrelevant characteristics of books to these readers. (See, e.g., the wonky first generation kindle: "people totally fold books over when they read them! yeah! so we should make our reader awkwardly asymmetrical, and, oh yes, ass-ugly. It'll be JUST like reading a book!" ...Yeah, no.) ]]>Oct 19th 2009 12:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
A thin packet of paper is held much differently than something that has no give to it. When you hold paper, it bends, it moves and you naturally adjust it to a position that is comfortable to your hands. A flat piece of plastic with a screen on it is something completely different, and the product's dimensions ans shape has to change accordingly.

Thin products like this one decrease the consumer's confidence in the product. Have you ever heard the term "I feel like I'm going to break it"? This is often directly related to how thin the product is. Even if the product IS stronger than it looks, it has to look the part and feel the part in order to gain consumer confidence.

And about designing to mimic a book... Books do have quite a lot of practical advantages to them. They fold, they're easier to read in a casual manner, you can bend a corner of a page up if the light is glaring off of the pages, and they offer a tactile experience that is quite rewarding. Now, I am not one to say that the designers of these E-readers should strive to copy a book, but ideas can be derived from this. Maybe by making the reader a little flexible, or adding a really interesting and natural way to "turn the page" rather than press a button. Now, in your mind these design aspects make the book "ass-ugly", but if they make the product more usable, more enjoyable to use, and friendlier to the person picking it up for the first time, will that matter to the customer? Yes, a product has to look great. But if a good looking product fails at functioning properly, what good is it?

This seems like it is just following suit with the other design directions going on these days in consumer electronics. "How thin can we make it, and how can we make the screen as much of the product as possible?". In a nutshell, that is the basis for physical design in a lot of product spaces right now, and it has little to no grounding with designing for real function or for the product's users.

Check out Designing for People by Henry Dreyfuss.]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
And the difference here is crucial: Princeton's e-reader trial program (for example) did not reject the Kindle because of all of the many, many ways in which the experience of reading on an e-reader is inferior to reading on paper, but for a few particularly salient ones, the awkwardness of its keyboard-based annotation among them.

Anyway, all this is to say that I agree with you that there are some design failings here, but that I disagree with where you locate them. (Plastic Logic did, after all, start with exactly what you describe -- a reader that bent and gave *exactly* like a document would -- but retreated from that design due to objections that echo yours: objections about consumer confidence in the device's sturdiness.)]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
Turning a "page" is accomplished by swiping your finger from the right to the left mimicking turning a paper page. Originally it was a forward left to right swipe but it was pointed out to them that that was a computer centric gesture and that the right to left swipe was more intuitive for moving from reading on paper to epaper.

As far as the thinness - they could actually make the edges thinner but the size it is will feel more like holding a magazine or legal pad.]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
I see what you did there.

In other news, as a musician who often totes around a stack of 8.5x11 dead trees with musical information printed on it, I'd love to have a reliable, responsive 8.5x11 e-ink PDF reader that simply displays my PDF originals at full size with no repagination. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.]]>Oct 19th 2009 12:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
Please read the fine print, the size of the device is the size of a Letter paper, the actual display is smaller!]]>Oct 19th 2009 12:59AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
Furthermore, the touchscreen does cover the whole screen, but it appears to give it a shiny hexagonal pattern.]]>Oct 19th 2009 3:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Joking aside, you're preaching to the choir, but this is unlikely to happen for the same reasons as the metric system, cellphones compatible with the rest of the world, modern large home appliances, and so on remain unknown in most parts of the US.]]>Oct 19th 2009 11:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
But clearly there needs to be more accuracy in engadget reports...]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
will the ebook be a good investment?
]]>Oct 19th 2009 1:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 1:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 5:01AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/]]>Oct 19th 2009 2:27AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/]]>Oct 19th 2009 2:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 5:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 5:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/
Can it open password protected PDF and Office documents? Is there any sort of password protection to access the device? Just ONCE I would like to see Engadget address this in an ebook reader preview/review. It's critical for any enterprise that might want to give an ebook reader to mobile users.]]>Oct 19th 2009 6:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 6:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 8:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 9:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 9:28AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/plastic-logic-teases-que-proreader-with-8-5-x-11-inch-touchscree/Oct 19th 2009 11:34AM