The color screen on the bottom looks ridiculous to me. What's its purpose? Only to show other e-books covers? It feels like they just wanted to make it look different than the Kindle.
It is a touch screen. It is used for user interaction. You can swipe it to scroll through your books, but I'm sure it can be/is used for other things. Display keyboard to enter search terms, etc.
Apple detailed the many benefits of this when people complained about the iphone not having actual keys. It makes the device more flexible. Want to use the device in English and Korean? No need for a different device, just display the different keyboard.
My only negative thought about it is that the color screen has got to be a bigger eater of battery than if they had gone all hardware, ala kindle, but I don't know if it is really an issue or not.
I have a Sony eBook reader and I have to say that I would welcome a display that updates rapidly for everything else than the actual reading, i.e. menu navigation, searching, preview of the next page etc.
eInk is great to look at (and I prefer it to a lit display for reading), but it is still painfully slow.
Apple detailed the many benefits of this when people complained about the iphone not having actual keys. It makes the device more flexible. Want to use the device in English and Korean? No need for a different device, just display the different keyboard.
My only negative thought about it is that the color screen has got to be a bigger eater of battery than if they had gone all hardware, ala kindle, but I don't know if it is really an issue or not.