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First Folding-Screen e-Book Reader
MJArrison writes "Yahoo is carrying a Reuters story about a laptop that isn't much more than a foldable LCD screen. It's very small screen 6.7"x5" appears to be a strange black on green monochrome, so it better be cheap. It's made by Samsung and will be launched in Korea first." It's a start; I can't wait for them to integrate an IBM 701cs style camber for both screen and keyboard. T. adds: Rather than a general-purpose laptop, it looks like this is being pushed as an specialized device for reading e-texts.
Very precise estimate. Is this a conversion from sort of metric unit count?
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
What's so bad about monochrome for an eBook reader? All of the books I read are certainly printed as black text on white paper. Why on Earth would I want to display different paragraphs in multiple colours?
If you want to create a commercially successful product, you have to choose what features are included and which are left out. For instance, if I compare two cell phones, and one has a colour screen for $100 more, then I'll likely choose the monochrome one if all the other features are identical. The colour screen gives you zero added value, so why bother? Perhaps elitist techies will pay the extra money for the cool factor, but I imagine that this device is trying to target more practical consumers.
Perhaps if you were interested in picture books... then maybe I could see it.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I have an RCA eBook. I'm starting to get to the point where I prefer to read via the ebook vs paper. The reasons?
* The ebook is readable in bed without any external light to disturb my significant other.
* I can read the hundreds (if not thousands) of books available for free on the internet from project Gutenberg and the like.
* I can load up 72MB worth of ebooks into the unit and as a result, not have to worry about not having something to read.
* It has a dictionary built in which is very helpful when you come across that word you go "what the heck is a ....."? You just click on lookup and then the word.
* Although I haven't used it this way, you can do notes and annotations into the ebooks.
On the battery issue, I chose the REB1100 because it has 20-40 hours of battery life. I think that 20-40 is conservative.
I saw someone else mention that color was needed. Although I can think of some cases where color would be nice (biology texbooks, art textbooks, etc.), for "paperback" reading, give me a good readable monochrome screen any day.
The main gripes I have are related to the slightly flaky usb support, the lack of a slightly dimmer backlight selection (20% is too bright for reading with the lights off at night), and the @#*$ publishers which think that they can sell an encrypted ebook usable only on this device (which might have a couple of year lifetime) at the same price that a paperback (which I can loan and share and keep) sells for.
On that last point, I will say that there are some publishers out there that have figured out that encryption is not good. In fact baen books have figured out that giving away books is a good way to improve sales, even of the books you are giving away!
I really think that quite a few of the naysayers out there about the ebooks haven't had one to play with.
No,
attempting
to read
a book on
a palmpilot
doesn't count.
You need
a big enough
screen
to be
able to
get more
than two
readable
words on
a line.
Having a decent number of words-per-line and page is a good thing. It also helps if you have enough resolution to set a serif font which is easier to read. The other thing is that the REB has done well is to be ergonomically designed so that the page advance button is right under your thumb when you hold it. This is the other major problem when trying to use a palmpilot as a comparison - the advance buttons are definately not under your thumb when you hold it in a comfortable reading position.
On the device mentioned in the article, it looks like this screen helps increase the viewable area. If this is the case, then I think it will definately be an improvement. I'm not sure about the color though - except I do recall from my early computer days that green was somehow determined to be easier on your eyes than white. Perhaps someone else can come up with a reference.