[ignoreme]

I can't agree that e-ink is a dead end. Perhaps you have never had the opportunity to spend some serious time to compare reading on an LCD screen to a e-ink display.

Tablets are great, but as long as they still have LCD (backlit etc.) screens they can't even be considered an alternative for anyone who actually does any serious reading. You can also pick up an ebook reader where I'm from for about 1/5th the price of even the most basic tablet.

If anything I think ebook readers are going to become even more popular. As e-ink or similar technology is refined and becomes even cheaper to produce I can easily imagine them becoming almost like disposable "throw-away" devices.

Also, in my opinion, your initial logic is incorrect. You talk as if "full-featured web-browsers like on the PC" is the "end-goal" for future reading devices. Well, we have always had that -on PC's- and they were the problem, not the solution. The e-ink display is the "solution" to the eye strain (among other things) that come with reading on a backlit display. So to suggest that is the goal seems to be as if we are going backwards.

[roc]

> "I can't agree that e-ink is a dead end"

I would say that e-ink will stay around for reading, but there are critical differences between linear reading and textbook use. As far as textbooks are concerned, I would say that e-ink is a non-starter. The refresh rate is poor, navigation other than linear page-to-page progression through a single text is poor, annotation is poor, interactivity is non-existent, etc.

It's not a bad or doomed technology, it just isn't the right tool for this particular job.

[tel]

This.

I own an iPad and a kindle and use the kindle far, far more often because of its non-backlit screen. This argument has absolutely nothing to do with resolution, it's just far easier to read an eink screen for long periods of time.