Why the Sony Reader is doomed
One of the great joys of reading ebooks -- which I do all the time -- is reading in the dark, when your partner is sleeping. But the much-touted e-ink in the Sony ebook is passively illuminated: it depends on ambient light falling on it to be visible. It's great if you're reading outdoors, less so if reading in dim light, and unusable if you're in the dark ...
... unless you CLIP ON AN EXTERNAL FLASHLIGHT, just like those geeky little book-lights they sell at the check-out at bookstores.
To make the experience LIKE A BOOK doesn't mean duplicating the drawbacks books have. What's next? An ereader with a curved screen?
Posted by Rob on Sunday, October 01, 2006
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13 comments
13 Comments:
Passive lighting is fine, of course, when the ambient light is bright. But until they find a way to light up e-ink displays without a stupid add-on like this, they're not improving on the experience of reading a paper book.
Robert,
The strength of the E Ink display is its ultra-low power consumption. If you used a backlight with it, you'd exactly defeat the purpose of conserving battery lifetime.
Yes, I understand this. Paper has an even lower power consumption, and can be read in the same range of lighting conditions. :) Seriously, what this means is that we don't yet have the answer to providing a reading device for the range of lighting conditions most people encounter in a typical day.
That said, as you know, there are lots of backlit ebook readers now, and have been for years, with impressive battery lives; I own several (although my favorite is a non-dedicated device, a Sony Clie TH55, which has great battery life and is readable in all but direct sunlight).
A combo display, optionally backlit at an acknowledged power hit, seems a good solution; there's been lots of progress in lower-powered lighting sources in the last few years. (However, most ereader backlights are TOO strong -- the amount of light needed to read in the dark is quite small, and even the lowest setting on most devices is too bright.)
But clamping a light onto an ebook is ridiculous (and comes at a power cost of its own). There should be no need for such an accessory; the design goal in creating a new ereader should not be to show off e-ink's low power demands; rather it should be to build a device that's equally comfortable to read for extended periods in bright or dim light, employing whatever technology or technologies are required. E-ink may be part of the solution, but it's clearly not a complete answer, as this clamp-on nonsense makes clear.
You say your PDA "is readable in all but direct sunlight". This is huge to me and many others. I love to read outside (beach, park, deck, ...) and it is a real pain with my PDA. I'm not looking forward to the clip on light for reading at night when my wife is sleeping but I think it's a fair trade off. As for the readability of paper outside, I have not read a paper book for the last 5 years. I'd rather squint =).
Yes, I agree it's a drawback. I agree we don't have an ebook reader yet that does what an ebook reader needs to do -- be readable in a wide variety of lighting conditions. But the ereader that will ultimately suceed will have all the positive features of existing ereaders (let's not even begin to talk about DRM and the Sony Reader) and all the positive features of books, while dealing with the shortcomings of both. The Sony Reader is not a superset of what you can get with existing ereaders; it's a partial intersection set. It's like saying, yeah, here's HDTV, oh, but guess what, it's only in black-and-whtie ... ;)
(And, in fact, the Sony reader is only a monochrome device ...)
I never like reading things on screen, PDA or otherwise. A lot of the experience of reading a book is in the tactile sensation of it, but maybe I'm just old fashioned. (At 22 years old no less.) I still print all the articles I have to read for school, as well as any ebooks I come across that I really want to enjoy. I got a PDF of Rollback from Analog's electronic edition, and I was very tempted not just to print it but get it bound as well. I'll hold off until I get the next two parts, at which point I might as well just wait to buy the real thing.
I'm lukewarm on ebooks because of the variety and accessibility of titles. I can go into Chapters and there are hundreds of books in my genre but with ebooks you've got to hunt and find them. There are sources available but paper back books for me is still the best way to go.
The other option of course is to scan the paper back book into a pdf format and read from a PDA but that could take a lot of time.
I'm still waiting for the day when they come out with the soft screen design (and a solar charging system!) My wife would be horrified to know that I'm rough on books (but I am). I want something I can stick in my pocket and that can take a beating. Till then, keep mine paperback.
I agree with Sean, a little bit. I live in Florida where we take our beach books to the beach, where sand and salty air destroy all but the most durable hardware.
Having said that -- it's GREAT to take a dozen classic titles (thanks to Project Gutenburg) on the plane with you. And it's wonderful to have dictionaries that can tell you the definition of a word with a couple of clicks. I have friends in the Phillippines (paper books = extremely expensive) who love ebooks for their reduced cost and instant delivery time.
Ebook readers will never be able to replace paper books (you know -- the ones with flowers pressed in them, with directions to a party scrawled on the inside front cover) but they definitely have their place.
I for one don't want to "improve the experience of reading a paper book." I want a digital reader that has the perfect readability of paper. No backlight!
You're eyes must be genetically different than mine if you can read long texts from a backlit screen.
Well, anonymous, the Sony Reader doesn't give you a paper-like experience, only an approximation of one. Its display is dark gray on light gray (not black on white), has ghosting problems (the previous image isn't completely erased), and takes a second or more to draw a page. :)
Of course, with a back-lit screen, you use inverse video: a DARK background, with softly glowing lighted characters -- nobody wants a reading experience like trying to read the wattage number off an illuminated lightbulb ... :)
I totally agree with OP.
I had actually thought of buying one until I knew it's not back-illuminated. That's plain dumb.
I just got the sony ebook for christmas from my son. He was excited that he found a great techie gift for both of his parents. I got to this discussion for the very flaw that is mentioned no backlight. I like reading books in bed. Without the light this device is extremely frustrating. It feels good and looks good but in the day of finger flicking screens on my Itouch this feels klunky. I'd put up with the slowness of screen refresh if only there was a way to read in the dark of the bedroom..This must be why Sony has lost it's edge in consumer electronics.....
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