Edited by author 01-28-2005 06:03 AM
Cheap Notebooks! - the new Centrino machines look nice enough to command high prices... but the market doesn't look as if that's what will happen.

quote: "At the moment, the PC is the only e-book reader worth looking at"
Have you ever read an ebook ???

Even Microsoft's own research shows that 95% of people who do read ebooks use PocketPCs.

Do you actually know someone who read an entire book on a PC ? I don't. On the other hand, we have custommers with 50+ purchased ebooks for PDA/Smartphones in their libraries.

PS: mobipocket is an ebook technology company

Edited by author 01-28-2005 06:08 AM
That's a fair comment, yes. The point is worth making! I was one of the first ever users of Deja News e-readers for newspapers, when the first Palms came out, so I agree - in principle.

But e-readers for pure text aren't my main interest. A good book can be pure text, sure... but a lot of books have illustrations. And books of the future will have interactive features, too.

I've seen some very good e-readers for PDAs, and some of them try to achieve this. And if you're under 40 years old, and can hold the thing right to your face, it's not too bad! as long as you only need the vague outline of the illustrations.

For a good magazine, it's just not on. Tables, illustrations, diagrams, are illegible. You need at least a 12-inch display and frankly, most of the readers like Zinio and Quvu look absolutely pants unless you have a big plasma display...

And I look forward to seeing more of Mobipocket too.

:-)