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How can a standalone screen technology kill an integrated consumer device with the world's best infrastructure behind it? The article clearly states that the p

How can a standalone screen technology kill an integrated consumer device with the world's best infrastructure behind it? The article clearly states that the product is the screen, not a complete netbook. Stuff and nonsense. If anything, Amazon might license the screens.

stcredzero 17y ago
Have you ever tried to use something like a reference book on an e-ink device? There's a reason why Sony Readers didn't have any kind of search. The refresh is sloooowwwww. A 1 second overhead on each click on top of normal processing will kill most web apps. For a device that's accessing data locally, it's murder. Better interactivity will also give a better online shopping experience on the device. It will open up lots of other uses. Damn straight Amazon will license the screens. How about an Amazon branded netbook that had the Kindle functionality, but also could boot as a netbook?
- ahoyhere 17y ago
  I own the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2. So yes, I have used e-ink devices quite a bit :) The screen refresh on the K2 is waay, waaaaay better. Much less painful to type and use UI elements. But I have learned not to use ref books on them not because of the slow UI/search (it's not so bad), but because I require a physical book for memory "wayfinding," to flip back and forth, to rescan, and remind myself, "hmm it was about in the last quarter of the book..." or "Where did I read about that study? I'm thinking... yellow book about yea big... aha, that one", etc. With a digital reader that always looks the same, and feels the same, you lose something. That is where the Kindles (et al) fall down - nothing to do with the screens, just that the natural UI of books is very good for these things.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    But I have learned not to use ref books on them not because of the slow UI/search (it's not so bad), but because I require a physical book for memory "wayfinding," to flip back and forth That's exactly what I'm talking about! If the Kindle 2 had better interactivity, there could be a highly responsive interface that could give you the same "wayfinding" feel. (Think of the flick-scroll contacts on the iPhone.) Such is impossible on the Kindle.
    - blhack 17y ago
      A netbook-type replacement for the kindle isn't going to improve this at all. What is your point?
      - stcredzero 17y ago
        You can't implement a flick-scroll type interface without immediate feedback. A delay of 1 second or even an large fraction of a second makes this untenable. My point is not a Kindle replacement being a netbook. It's about being interactive. 1 second screen refreshes cripple interactivity. When I use text search to find things in electronic references, I find myself doing one find, quickly perusing the results, then often doing another refined search and perusing those results. Adding 1 second to each input is going to add something like a half-minute to each search session. That's death.
        blhack 17y ago
        I think that your confusion here stems from your misunderstanding of the people who are in the market for the kindle. They're not using it for anything other than reading books, and most of them don't want to. You know what demographic represents a large portion of kindle users? The elderly. While we geeks might enjoy envisioning kindle users as the sort of technical elite that salivate over the kindle's wireless distribution model, or its e-ink screen, the people actually using the device don't care. It is a book reader, not a mobile computing platform, I'm not sure how hard I can drive this point home. The people who really are geeks (people that use websites like HN), carry things like netbooks around because they have real keyboards on them. Putting a real keyboard on the kindle would ruin it. The refresh time on the kindle's screen (kindle 2) is almost perfect. It is almost exactly the ammount of time that it takes my eyes to transition to the top of the page and continue reading. For me, the experience with the kindle is better than experiences I've had with dead-tree books. I (and I suspect the overwhelming majority of kindle users) hope that amazon never changes it.
        stcredzero 17y ago
brfox 17y ago
Furthermore, I think the kindle resolution is like 2x more dpi than a traditional lcd screen (and also this new screen) which is one of the reasons it is so pleasing to read. It sounds like this screen just turns off the backlight and switches to BW to save battery life?
- MaysonL 17y ago
  No - the big point of this device is that the b/w (epaper) mode has the same enhance resolution and low power consumption as the Kindle!

stcredzero 17y ago

Have you ever tried to use something like a reference book on an e-ink device? There's a reason why Sony Readers didn't have any kind of search. The refresh is sloooowwwww. A 1 second overhead on each click on top of normal processing will kill most web apps. For a device that's accessing data locally, it's murder. Better interactivity will also give a better online shopping experience on the device. It will open up lots of other uses. Damn straight Amazon will license the screens. How about an Amazon branded netbook that had the Kindle functionality, but also could boot as a netbook?

ahoyhere 17y ago
I own the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2. So yes, I have used e-ink devices quite a bit :) The screen refresh on the K2 is waay, waaaaay better. Much less painful to type and use UI elements. But I have learned not to use ref books on them not because of the slow UI/search (it's not so bad), but because I require a physical book for memory "wayfinding," to flip back and forth, to rescan, and remind myself, "hmm it was about in the last quarter of the book..." or "Where did I read about that study? I'm thinking... yellow book about yea big... aha, that one", etc. With a digital reader that always looks the same, and feels the same, you lose something. That is where the Kindles (et al) fall down - nothing to do with the screens, just that the natural UI of books is very good for these things.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  But I have learned not to use ref books on them not because of the slow UI/search (it's not so bad), but because I require a physical book for memory "wayfinding," to flip back and forth That's exactly what I'm talking about! If the Kindle 2 had better interactivity, there could be a highly responsive interface that could give you the same "wayfinding" feel. (Think of the flick-scroll contacts on the iPhone.) Such is impossible on the Kindle.
  - blhack 17y ago
    A netbook-type replacement for the kindle isn't going to improve this at all. What is your point?
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      You can't implement a flick-scroll type interface without immediate feedback. A delay of 1 second or even an large fraction of a second makes this untenable. My point is not a Kindle replacement being a netbook. It's about being interactive. 1 second screen refreshes cripple interactivity. When I use text search to find things in electronic references, I find myself doing one find, quickly perusing the results, then often doing another refined search and perusing those results. Adding 1 second to each input is going to add something like a half-minute to each search session. That's death.
      - blhack 17y ago
        I think that your confusion here stems from your misunderstanding of the people who are in the market for the kindle. They're not using it for anything other than reading books, and most of them don't want to. You know what demographic represents a large portion of kindle users? The elderly. While we geeks might enjoy envisioning kindle users as the sort of technical elite that salivate over the kindle's wireless distribution model, or its e-ink screen, the people actually using the device don't care. It is a book reader, not a mobile computing platform, I'm not sure how hard I can drive this point home. The people who really are geeks (people that use websites like HN), carry things like netbooks around because they have real keyboards on them. Putting a real keyboard on the kindle would ruin it. The refresh time on the kindle's screen (kindle 2) is almost perfect. It is almost exactly the ammount of time that it takes my eyes to transition to the top of the page and continue reading. For me, the experience with the kindle is better than experiences I've had with dead-tree books. I (and I suspect the overwhelming majority of kindle users) hope that amazon never changes it.
        stcredzero 17y ago

brfox 17y ago

Furthermore, I think the kindle resolution is like 2x more dpi than a traditional lcd screen (and also this new screen) which is one of the reasons it is so pleasing to read. It sounds like this screen just turns off the backlight and switches to BW to save battery life?

MaysonL 17y ago
No - the big point of this device is that the b/w (epaper) mode has the same enhance resolution and low power consumption as the Kindle!