I had the same thought when e-ink tablets started coming out. It seems like the obvious solution for people who don't buy e-ink tablets because they "aren't bo

I had the same thought when e-ink tablets started coming out. It seems like the obvious solution for people who don't buy e-ink tablets because they "aren't books". But ... what exactly does it solve? Fundamentally all it provides is a way to mechanically flip through the pages of a digital book. It doesn't replicate a real paper book, in terms of feel, smell, or nostalgia. Ignoring nostalgia, is the ability to mechanically flip through a book important? Is that the ideal way to traverse a large volume of text? I doubt it. It's unlikely that, when humanity designed paper books they stumbled on the ideal way to handle a large volume of text. When I'm reading things on my computer, whether they're articles or books, I never really think "man I wish I could flip through this text like a book." PgDn handles that just fine. What I usually long for is a more portable form factor, which tablets solve, and more space. Side-by-side pages is great, not just for reading, but also for looking at different sections of the book at the same time. Again, a tablet _could_ solve that. If they made e-ink tablets larger ... Heavy readers and researchers I'm sure will argue about bookmarking and notes. That's not unique to physical volumes; tablets can handle that. And again, probably better. Maybe we don't have the right UIs for them yet. But I guarantee we eventually will. Basically, I don't think having a bunch of e-ink pages is what we need. We just need the readers to be bigger, faster response time, color, physically flexible, and have better UIs. Of course, none of that addresses the nostalgia factor. But I don't think people are going to have such a strong desire for old fashioned books once we have e-ink readers that are fundamentally easier to use than physical books.