31–40 of 56 posts
Is anyone else looking for an inexpensive, 13-inch, read-only e-ink tablet for reading pdfs? If this exists can someone point me in the right direction? I feel like I can't be the only one who's been looking for this.
Checked out the reMarkable? https://remarkable.com/
I’m guessing, but I have to imagine production volume has something to do with it. Little e-reader screens for cheap devices like the 6” kindle are where the volume is. In any case, I’m kind of bummed that the e-ink/ereader market has sort of settled on the current state of affairs. What I’d really like to see is good e-ink laptops. First, because of battery life. I also think they could be great “focus machines.” A…
I don’t think they’d sell well at all in laptops. I don’t think the tech is far enough. The ~1 FPS performance and occasionally needing to flash the entire screen to clear artifacts are really poor selling points for productive work. Things like for example scrolling a document or moving a mouse pointer would be quite painful and streaky.
...but, Kobo in the last two years seem to have done pretty well with h2o and aura one models. I'd be very interested in seeing how the h2o in particular performs compared to their smaller models; 6.8 inches seems like a pretty ideal compromise between size and portability for me that 6 inches does not.
Mostly lack of demand. But I would really want to get a big 10 inch ebook with smooth interface.
It's mostly the screen. Manufacturing costs scale non-linearly with area due to defect rate. I think they are really worth it, though. Now some 13 inch models even accept video input, so you can potentially use it as a terminal / PDF screen.
Do you have a link/suggestions for a device? I've been wanting an eink monitor for text tasks for years (I'm not a gamer).
It's mostly the screen. Manufacturing costs scale non-linearly with area due to defect rate. I think they are really worth it, though. Now some 13 inch models even accept video input, so you can potentially use it as a terminal / PDF screen.
It's probably also partially an economies of scale thing. Amazon used to sell a 10 inch version of the Kindle but discontinued it due to poor sales.
Basically, any PDF that had vector-based statistical plots would bring the poor thing to its knees. I wished at the time that there were a large screen PDF reader with modest computational umpf.
Nowadays, it sounds like the Sony reader is great, but costly and the Remarkable reader wasn’t vaporware after all... but it’s similarly costly. $350 feels like the right price to pay for such a device. I have no idea if that price makes them worth manufacturing.
I’m guessing, but I have to imagine production volume has something to do with it. Little e-reader screens for cheap devices like the 6” kindle are where the volume is. In any case, I’m kind of bummed that the e-ink/ereader market has sort of settled on the current state of affairs. What I’d really like to see is good e-ink laptops. First, because of battery life. I also think they could be great “focus machines.” A…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're being too optimistic about the discount to defect ratio.
What happens to a defective unit? Is it disassembled with the base components put back in the assembly line? Or is it just sent to the landfill? I suppose OP was assuming defective units are just trashed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think they’d sell well at all in laptops. I don’t think the tech is far enough. The ~1 FPS performance and occasionally needing to flash the entire screen to clear artifacts are really poor selling points for productive work. Things like for example scrolling a document or moving a mouse pointer would be quite painful and streaky.
You’re probably right, but are these insurmountable hurdles, or just problems that exist because no one has solved them yet? Someone has to start making them, and they need to improve over a couple of generations. At first, the software would need to navigate around any issues they can’t solve. Surely there’re alternatives to scrolling and mouse pointers, at least as primary UI elements. I mean, is a good email clien…
I just wouldn't expect what's going to be essentially a mid-'80s word processor (Xerox Memorywriter, not WordPerfect) style user experience, complete with the screen with the really low refresh rate, is something that would sell.
I don't really see the room for demand beyond 8 inches ever growing, largely because most bigger books are just far more complicated to transform to a digital format (e.g. textbooks with multiple sections on each page and tactically positioned images) ...but, Kobo in the last two years seem to have done pretty well with h2o and aura one models. I'd be very interested in seeing how the h2o in particular performs compa…
Colour would be nice too, but I guess that's impossible.