Tablets are the ideal form factor for things that would traditionally require a large, full-color book. That is: passing around a photo album, reading magazines, textbooks, comics, playing turn-based games like board-games and strategy games. If you use a stylus they’re excellent for things that require free-form pen-and-paper like math homework and creating art.
Now, when they were a $600 luxury item that didn’t really make sense as a product. But now that they’re like $150 for a solidly good tablet they’re absolutely a worthwhile purchase for those use-cases.
Ahh, yes, well I suppose if you’re mostly reading comics that were made in the '70s and you really want to capture that faded 32-colors-Ben-Day-dot-printed-on-newsprint feel, that’ll be just perfect.
Fair point. Will correct my above post. But either way: unless you find screens particularly eye-straining or have extreme battery-life desires, I don’t really see e-ink tech as worth the downsides at this point, at least for non-text content. For a watch where I want an always-on screen and endless battery and I’ll never watch video on it? Yes, I want more e-ink and low-power LED tech and the like. But for tablets? I’m good with the vibrant colors of a glowing LED screen.
Huh, that’s disappointing. It’s funny how everybody keeps experimenting but nobody seems to have topped the Pebble for watch form-factor: low-power gameboy-ish LED screen and more of an old-school micro-controller chip instead of a phone-like chip and just use the “shake to wake” functionality to brighten the backlight.
Pebble might not have been the smartest smartwatch, but it was definitely the watchyest smartwatch. Always-on screen and week-long battery.
I feel like Garmin is building their spiritual successor. They don’t try to do too much, but they do quite a lot. And there are so many models, they address most folks use cases in one way or another.
e-ink isn’t (edit: good) color.
Tablets are the ideal form factor for things that would traditionally require a large, full-color book. That is: passing around a photo album, reading magazines, textbooks, comics, playing turn-based games like board-games and strategy games. If you use a stylus they’re excellent for things that require free-form pen-and-paper like math homework and creating art.
Now, when they were a $600 luxury item that didn’t really make sense as a product. But now that they’re like $150 for a solidly good tablet they’re absolutely a worthwhile purchase for those use-cases.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=color+e-ink&t=ffab&ia=web
Ahh, yes, well I suppose if you’re mostly reading comics that were made in the '70s and you really want to capture that faded 32-colors-Ben-Day-dot-printed-on-newsprint feel, that’ll be just perfect.
It’s limited for sure, but there are most definitely color e-ink displays now.
But the bigger limitation is still refresh rate, and lifespan of the display in devices that try to force more frequent refreshes.
Fair point. Will correct my above post. But either way: unless you find screens particularly eye-straining or have extreme battery-life desires, I don’t really see e-ink tech as worth the downsides at this point, at least for non-text content. For a watch where I want an always-on screen and endless battery and I’ll never watch video on it? Yes, I want more e-ink and low-power LED tech and the like. But for tablets? I’m good with the vibrant colors of a glowing LED screen.
Watches sound great on e-ink, but last I looked into it, the displays couldn’t support the frequency of refreshes over a reasonable life time.
I’m with you, by the way. I do like having a compact e-ink reader, but I really don’t want to do anything but that with it.
Huh, that’s disappointing. It’s funny how everybody keeps experimenting but nobody seems to have topped the Pebble for watch form-factor: low-power gameboy-ish LED screen and more of an old-school micro-controller chip instead of a phone-like chip and just use the “shake to wake” functionality to brighten the backlight.
Pebble might not have been the smartest smartwatch, but it was definitely the watchyest smartwatch. Always-on screen and week-long battery.
I feel like Garmin is building their spiritual successor. They don’t try to do too much, but they do quite a lot. And there are so many models, they address most folks use cases in one way or another.
Btw, the dude from Pebble (also Beeper, Eric Migicovsky) is trying to build a small Android phone.
I specifically said for reading???