Why There Isn't a Perfect Ebook Reader

The feeling I got while reading this was the same one I got many years ago when reading why Microsoft's PocketPC was going to wipe the floor with the simplistic PalmOS. Ironically, I agreed with those PocketPC articles at the time but now see why the simplicity of the Palm made it the winner back then.

Amazon clearly understands readers better than Gizmodo does and the Kindle, if Amazon's sales pronouncements are to be believed, clearly resonates with people. I think that's why Kindle sells so well and will continue to do so.

One final point, the author thinks the disappearance of actual paper books is inevitable but I don't believe that. Paper is easy to produce, easy to recycle and most people like the tactile feel of books. So paper may disappear but it's not inevitable imho. Paper Books are certainly here for a long time to come.

Shorter Mary Lou Jepsen: My company's magic vaporware will solve every single display problem by 2010.

I'm kinda in the Cory Doctorow school of thought. Whenever I see it reported that this or that e-book reader will soon be the thing, I can't help but think of: http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/03/cory-doctorow-you-d...

Those waiting for the e-book to "arrive" may have already missed the fact that it's here.

I think the important part was when integrated carefully with the device. Laptops spend energy on other things than just the LCD. However, reducing energy in other places has diminishing returns when the LCD is draining a lot of juice. Take the 17 inch mackbook's battery and use it to power a dell mini 9 with this type of LCD and you might get a weeks worth of use (7 * 8hours + standby) out of the thing.

I don't want to be a dick and argue with Cory Doctorow, who is bright and famous, but every time I read this article I feel frustrated. I tolerate computer screens, yes. I can read off one for eight hours a day. It is not a good screen for reading a book off of. It's bright and very slightly stresses my eye and most importantly, it's not invisible. I don't sink into the content. E-ink vanishes as I read it. I curl up into it mentally the way I'll physically curl up with a good book. I gladly put down money for the Kindle. It was utterly worth my money.

The problem with Doctorow is that he's a geek more than he is a writer. Yeah, he got himself published thanks to BoingBoing, but he's not from the breed of writer that lives and breathes for language. I'm not the best spokesperson here because I'm lodged in between the two types, but I'm close enough to the one side, and I'm friends with enough people over the brink, to be able to definitely say that the people who are obsessed with language will never tolerate something like a light-based screen. Some people I know are in fact physically sensitive: they won't watch TV because they don't like how jumpy and powerful the screen is. Those same people are fine with e-ink, because it's so neutral.

Maybe most people here either don't get that or don't care. I've been in arguments with people here who think that literature is overrated and overblown by English majors: it's a typical elitist hacker response. Doctorow absolutely has that opinion. But as somebody whose startup is focused entirely on the English language, and on emphasizing beautiful language, I rather disagree, and I'd say that the people who are really pushing literature forward today are still the ones who read ink and write ink, and a lot of those people won't put up with screens as a primary reading type. I'm sure that many non-writers are the same way.