Oct 21, 2009

On the subject of dual-screen ebooks

There are seriously a lot of new ebook options coming out for Christmas. They've got wireless, they've got lending library capabilities, they've got touch screens and cute leather covers and color screens. You can even get a bendy one!

Personally, I want my eventual Perfect E-Reader to have all of these things. Except maybe the bendy bit...that's silly. But one thing that a lot of developers seem to be toying with is this dual-screen idea. Because it's more like a real book, y'know? With two facing pages?

So one of these has finally come out. The Entourage Edge. It is really very cute, and holy wow does it have a fun website. I mean, it's not the Mini Cooper website, but it's good times.

The cool thing about the Entourage reader is that it's got one side that's color/touch, and then the other side is the e-paper screen. So they solve the problem the Sony Reader's been struggling with of how to combine these types of screens without losing the best aspects of both.

But I am dubious-verging-on-absolutely-displeased about e-readers shaped like books. The two-page thing is actually my least favorite thing about books, and the thing I've been happiest to change since I've gotten my Kindle. I've always found the page on the right is perfect. It lays flat, you can curl the other page around to form a handle, it's just great. But the left page is curly and hard to hold and you're limited in how you can sit to hold it open and read. I realize this sounds really pathetic..."woe is me, holding open a book is so hard!"...but really, it bothers me. It's always bothered me. And it makes my arms hurt.

So count me in the one-screen camp. I don't need it to look like a book as long as I can read off of it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not a big reader, but if this product is released at a reasonable price I'll likely get it. It has touch and wireless and is bigger and thinner than than anything on the market right now.

http://bit.ly/28cT9C

E said...

Yeah, that's a nice one, eh? It's been in production for a while now, and they're really taking the time to get it right. It's meant for businesspeople though, so I don't have high hopes for the price being reasonable. Plus, we haven't actually gotten to see what it looks like yet...but I'm sure it'll be very glam.

If you get one you'll have to let me play with it!