I can't understand how anyone would prefer reading a backlit screen. I find e-ink so much easier on the eyes, especially after a day of staring at screens. I hope e-ink doesn't die out.
And it's more than just the backlight...the battery on my Kindle lasts forever and the form factor, weight included, is much better.
I tried to find a post where he mentions how much he reads. I can imagine someone who reads a bit - say 30 minutes every couple days, not really caring. But if you read for hours at a time...I just can't believe that you'd prefer a tablet.
I'm willing to bet you already have a better device for reading novels. My favourite device for reading novels is my phone. It's really comfortable to hold, its small size completely eliminates eye-scanning, and the small size means that on appropriate settings it doesn't emit enough light to cause eye strain or keep me awake, yet emits enough that you can read in the dark. The other nice thing about the phone is that it's always on me, I don't have to remember to throw it in my bag.
There are certainly situations where I prefer my epaper device. In sunlight, for example, or when the battery on my phone is dead or dying.
The iPad is great for reading non-fiction (aka PDFs with diagrams), but it's a horrible device for reading novels.
Depends on what kind of phone you're carrying. The iPhone with it's 3.5" screen is not a great size for reading books. The screen is just too small, meaning you either get tiny letters or a tiny amount of text on each page. I've read a novel on my phone, but I wouldn't do it regularly.
The iPad on the other hand works well, for me at least. The screen gives me about as much space as a hardback book, and I set the font size to match. With white-on-black, it's quite easy on the eyes. Sucks in the sun, though.
I completely disagree. I used to read novels on my Palm Pilot with its 3" screen. Its lower resolution also meant that I had to use a bigger font. Your eyes don't scan more than about 3-5 words simultaneously, so a screen width any wider than that is suboptimal.
The only problem with small screens is that you have to page more often. You can work around that by using autoscroll or using an app that lets you page easily (for instance, by using the volume buttons). If you're stuck using swipe to page, that would get annoying very quickly...
I didn't say it's impossible. I said it's not a great size. You could read a novel one word at a time on a digital wristwatch, too, but it'd be a pretty subpar experience.
> Your eyes don't scan more than about 3-5 words simultaneously, so a screen width any wider than that is suboptimal.
The fact that your eyes can't consume 20 words at once does not mean that a line length of 5 is optimal. Your brain gets context from the surrounding words. If 5 words in a line is optimal for giving context to the center word, it's decidedly suboptimal for the other words in the line, which necessarily have less surrounding context. Your eyes also don't really read more than one line at a time. Does that make it optimal to limit the display to one line?
Also, autoscroll sucks. It's not natural to read at a fixed pace. As your level of wakefulness, concentration, interest, etc. changes, so does your reading pace. Beyond that, some lines simply take more or less time to read than others.
I've read books, papers, articles, and various other things on ipads, kindles, palm IIIs, two android phones, and a Transformer prime, (I think I'm being exhaustive enough). And I completely agree with you. I tore through lots of books on my old palm III, but it was often constraining and some types of material worked much better than others.
As a more recent example. In a book club I'm in, we were reading "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (man, oh man is Veblen cantankerous, but "conspicuous consumption" is a bit of genius). Anyway, many of us passed around the ebook copy we had, and at least five people tried to read it on their phones... to unanimous, vehement agreement that the late 1800's style of long-winded rhetoric was too much for reading on small screens. Headaches, lots of paging back to find the point of things again, no one made it through more than a quarter of the book that way. Just another example of the medium shaping the possible messages.
> If 5 words in a line is optimal for giving context to the center word, it's decidedly suboptimal for the other words in the line, which necessarily have less surrounding context.
Because the lines are so short, when you're reading the word at the end of the line your eyes have already picked up the context from the beginning of the next line down.
I've read hundreds of novels on small screen devices over the last 12 years. So maybe it requires a little bit of adaptation. But with this adaptation I much prefer the size of softcover books and phones over hardcover books and 6" e-readers, let alone 10" iPads.
> Because the lines are so short, when you're reading the word at the end of the line your eyes have already picked up the context from the beginning of the next line down.
Your brain can't handle more than 5 words of context, but it can buffer up multiple lines? If you've got some evidence for this, I'd be interested, but it seems like you're just making things up at this point.
> I've read hundreds of novels on small screen devices over the last 12 years. So maybe it requires a little bit of adaptation.
It requires adaptation because it's less comfortable. Saying the iPhone is a more comfortable form factor than a small tablet/ereader is like saying that this is a more comfortable dictionary: http://dictionaryperson.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/lilliput....
> But with this adaptation I much prefer the size of softcover books and phones over hardcover books and 6" e-readers, let alone 10" iPads.
A 6" ereader already has a smaller page than about 99% of softcover books. You can't lump together phones and softcover books based on size unless you're talking about those Lilliputian dictionaries. Seriously, pick up a Nook at your local B&N and hold it up next to nearly any paperback on the shelf. Even most mass-market paperbacks have larger pages, and trade paperbacks positively dwarf the Nook. You'd need two Nook screens to equal the size of a page in a Harry Potter trade paperback.
Before that, I've tried a lot of other devices - CRTs, LCD, LED screens, Android and Symbian cell phones, I even read quite a few books on a secondhand Palm III.
The Kindle is light-years better. I used to get my eyes tired from reading on CRTs and LCDs, I did manage to read a lot of books on them but that's because I was too poor to afford them (shipping to Uruguay is incredibly expensive).
As other posters said, e-ink is truly better for reading, and the almost eternal battery and form factor and light weight do make for a much better reading experience.
While the iPad is very nice, and has a lot of advantages, I think that if you're a book lover, you'd get a lot of mileage out of a Kindle or equivalent e-ink reader. (especially if you've read 80 books on your iPad already!)
I have a Kobo [1] that was an impulse purchase at deep discount when a Borders I was dragged to was having their close-out sale.
It's fine -- very convenient -- for "standard" reading.
Load an O'Reilly text, and the code examples extend off the right end of the display. Which doesn't scroll (perhaps "pan" is the better word).
I also favor others' comments, that when reading some texts you want to "flip" back and forth for reference.
I've waited for years for something mainstream to come along with e.g. a PixelQ display. That's what I'd prefer: Reflective, preferably with a higher DPI, but quick enough to enable convenient scrolling, panning, flipping, etc.
Yes, I could have been more proactive in acquiring something, personally. Nonetheless, herewith my major dissatisfaction with current "e-paper" e-readers.
I'll probably end up getting a Nexus 7. I just wish it had a microSD slot. But I can work around that. (And, I'll buy the 16 GB model.)
It looks to be good enough, without spending $500 and having a super-obvious, "look at me"/"steal me" device.
I also hope it's jailbroken. I want a device that does precisely and only what I want it to. The security problems people are having cause me worry, but so does the corporate over-lording that is being extended to locked down platforms.
--
[1] The Kobo does have a fairly open, Linux-based firmware. It's modified from another upstream company's. That company's version now offers a landscape mode; however, Kobo only does landscape in PDF mode (dog slow, by the way) but not in ePub mode.
Some people claim to have wedged the other company's firmware onto the Kobo. There's also the possibility of modifying their too-large font selection for [code] text. But... that all involved more steps than I was willing to go through at the time.
At night in bed I read on my iPhone using iBooks. I use the 'night' theme which has a black background and light text. I then turn the brightness down to the minimum. Zero eye-strain, you can read in the dark, without disturbing your partner.
I love the e-ink on the Kindle with the only downside being that reading in the dark requires a lamp. Battery life is another huge plus in favour of e-ink.
Absolutely. When I first got mine my friend was shocked that I could be so enthusiastic about a device that doesn't have social apps and integration or notifications.
Like what you'd want when you're concentrating on a book is constant reminders of what's happening on Facebook.
I bought a Galaxy Note since my main reading time is either spent in the dark or grabbed in small gaps of time when I'm on the move. And since it's AMOLED it's not technically back-light and gray on black text works very well for me.
Some people get motion sickness from the e-ink page transitions -- my daughter has this problem. (I do too, a little, but it's less of a problem for me.) Whereas, reading books on the Kindle Fire doesn't bother her.
Backlit is great for reading in bed at night. But I prefer the e-ink for all other times. I'm looking forward to getting an e-ink reader with the glow backlight like the new Nook.
If only there was a soft and comfortable harness that I could drape over my knees upon which to prop my iPad, I'd be very happy with the 9.5 in tablet. I've got a design in my head but no spare cycles at the moment...I'll keep looking on Etsy since I'm sure I'm not the first person with this idea.
That is basically it. I basically limit most of my heavy ready during the daylight and the iPad is great for finishing up a couple of chapters before bedtime...
E-ink readers will likely stick around the same way MP3 players have; at least until e-ink improves (or we get a new e-ink like display tech) that's more competitive with general-purpose LCD/AMOLED. It's likely we'll eventually see something that resembles e-ink replace LCD, just not for a while.
Yeah, obviously an e-ink display is easier on the eyes, but having a separate grayscale e-reader is a waste of space and resources. A color e-ink screen would be perfect - I'd say we'll see tablets using them in a couple of years...
I've been reading as many Nexus 7 reviews as I can in a vain effort to sedate my excitement for its arrival later this month. I know this is going to sound ungrateful, but this review seems a bit thin.
The idea of using the Nexus 7 as an ereader seems kind of silly to me - surely if you're into ebooks (like I am) then you'd be better off with an actual Kindle. Staring at a backlit screen like that for hours on end can't be good for your eyes.
And I still haven't seen anybody take photos or video conference with it yet, so I have no idea how good that 1.2mp camera is.
> "surely if you're into ebooks (like I am) then you'd be better off with an actual Kindle."
Unless you're into content that is more than just ebooks. [1] Or you like to be able to flip from your reading to research [2].
Don't get me wrong: I'm iffy on how large the market is for the 7" form factor myself. But even I recognize that if you're looking predominantly for reading++, it makes a strong case.
>"Staring at a backlit screen like that for hours on end can't be good for your eyes."
... you say on a forum by and for people who generally spend at least 8 hours staring at backlit screens at work and then go home to stare at them some more for their side projects, hobbies and pass-times...
[1] Instapaper, PDFs, CBRs, mixed-media presentations, research papers, etc.
"I'm iffy on how large the market is for the 7" form factor "
I haven't done much validation, but over here (Uruguay), cost is a huge factor in purchasing decisions, so people get the 7' chinese knockoffs with non-authorized Androids, and I've seen a few Kindle Fires (although the user experience is awful outside the United States, it is very US-centric).
Only relatively rich geeks have an iPad, they're outsold 100 to 1 by the chinese 7 inch tablets. Although they ARE a status symbol and highly desired (like iphones and ipods, which lose out vastly to Android here as well).
Sure, but you're only talking about form-factor inasmuch as it's a proxy for price.
So rather than suggesting people want/will be happy with the 7" Chinese tablet, the Uruguay experience is weighing in on whether the 7" Chinese tablet one can afford is better than nothing.
Which is not unrelated, but not quite the same question.
As the internals speed up, and good-enough 10" Chinese tablets arrive, I'd be interested to hear how satisfied people are with the 7" form-factor and how many stick with it rather than moving to 10".
I think even if you like reading books, unless you know you will do it every day for at least a year or two, to get your money's worth, you're probably better off with a multi-purpose device that you can use for a lot of other stuff, too.
I tend to disagree. The best Kindle device out there, in my opinion, is only $79. That's well into the range of disposable for most people in tech, and it performs the task (reading) better than anything else out there. It doesn't take long for that to be a great deal.
Maybe it's just me, but I find the e-paper Kindles to be absolutely terrible reading experiences. The text is still relatively low contrast, but the real deal killer is the refresh flash. It's jarring and disruptive and it is nothing like a page turn.
I disagree strongly about the text, I find e-ink wonderful to read from. When I 1st used my e-ink kindle and noticed the refresh flash I actually thought it was a problem. I asked a friend who had one prior to me if his did the same and initially he said no. Then he went to check and realised that yes, it does. He then yelled at me for pointing it out as it wasn't something he'd even taken notice of in the past but now couldn't avoid focusing on every time he turned a page.
For me, I got used to the refresh flash and it doesn't bother me in the slightest or disrupt my reading. I don't really see the need for a page turn metaphor. The fact the next/previous buttons are right where I'm holding the device is a huge plus in my mind. Devices where you need to swipe the screen to turn a page seem to be missing out on the huge advantage.
The one thing which I absolutely needed to learn how to hack was the margin size. It struck me of a waste of space to have a 20mm margin on the screen. I found a guide to edit a config file on the device and changed to 5mm margin and love it.
I disagree with you. You start ignoring the refresh flash and it is not distracting at all once you get used to it. Really the fancy page turn animation does not add any value to my reading experience. I would care less. What I care about is I can read my book outdoors in bright sunlight and go without charging for a month. And, my eyes don't get tired after long hours of reading.
Nothing beats being outdoors and reading my books.
That being said, both the Kindle Fire and iPad 2 we have are inside devices only. When going on trips its the Kindle that is always packed with the question of, are we taking the iPad? Oh, yeah, kids want to play Angry Birds.
e-ink just cannot be beat outdoors, I haven't found one active display that works well in that environment.
I actually love using the Kindle Fire (backlit screen) for reading, especially at night. Having a separate light for my reading is a pain, and using night mode in the reading application suits me pretty well.
This is why I'm excited about the new Nook, it's eink but has the ability to backlight itself when needed to be read at night, but still has the eink benefits when read during the day. Mind you that one's $139.
Only reasons I haven't already got it was some EXPENSIVE surprises recently mixed with kinda hoping they take one more leap in features within the next year to make the upgrade from my regular nook just a bit better.
the camera app is not included with the device. the front-facing camera is intended for hangouts/video calls. i just tried installing Camera+ from the marketplace and it says my 7 is not compatible. this is one way Google kept the device below $200.
Paul O'Brien from MoDaCo created an 'app' that adds the shortcut to the default camera app back into the Nexus 7. For some reason, even though Google included the entire camera application in the build, they removed the launcher icon. You can find it on the Play store at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.modaco.cam...
I'm guessing a lot of the camera apps check for a rear camera and block themselves if it's not present. Since Google seems set to sell a bunch of these Nexus Tablets I'd imagine those apps will all get updated to work with its front camera.
well i think google's exclusion of their native camera app is telling. this device is not intended to be used as a camera. you most likely have a much better one in your pocket at any given time: your mobile phone.
I find it really annoying how so many people are now praising 7" as the ideal tablet size when Google puts one out, but when RIM did it a year and a half ago, everyone said it was too small. Us playbook owners have been saying this for over a year, but people are too caught up in the destroy RIM bandwagon to be open minded.
I'm sure the same people that were dismissive of the Playbook are also dismissive of the Nexus 7, at least until Apple releases a 7" iPad. That said, the bigger complaints I heard about the Playbook had nothing to do with its size and everything to do with the Blackberry ecosystem as a whole.
It's exact same thing that happened when the mainstream found out about iOS 5's notification system - there was a big hullabaloo about how revolutionary it was, despite it having been present in Android in a more complete form for almost 3 years.
It's probably going to happen again with turn-by-turn navigation when iOS 6 is released.
I got a PlayBook from one of the giveaways. I was really looking forward to the form factor for two things: Skyping and giving it to the gf for reading Facebook. But if your Facebook app is slower than the HTML5-based, universally hated Facebook App on an iPad 1 on iOS5, then you deservedly lose. The only video calling app is limited to PlayBook-to-PlayBook, or maybe RIM-to-RIM. A bad ecosystem is one thing, but builtin apps must be useful.
i got a playbook. i tried to use it. i found the OS very frustrating. we put it in our reception area at USV and 9 out of ten people (and these are tech types for the most part) couldn't figure out how to use it.
I'm blown away by how good technical books look on Google Play Books on the Nexus 7 (and maybe all tablets?). I normally use a 2nd generation Kindle and can never read tech books on there because of the code wrapping lines and the monochrome text. But the difference between a tech book on the Kindle app and the Google Play Books app (both on the Nexus 7) is night and day. I highly recommend at least getting a sample of a book and trying it.
You can also zoom out far more than you can on Kindle, which probably helps it look so great.
It is fairly plausible, however. A shrunken iPad would be a perfect replacement for the (hasn't been updated in nearly 2 years) iPod touch as the iOS "gateway drug"; and it could still get away with a slightly higher (~$250) price point without lagging too far behind the iPhone and regular iPad in terms of components. That it would happen to put pressure on a segment Amazon and Google are currently exploiting Apple's non-presence in is just convenient.
I don't remember any credible rumors (WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg) in 2009 about an OSX tablet. All the rumors back the centered around a iOS tablet (and they were right).
This time there's a lot of smoke from credible sources, as well as some great explanations (iPad mini screens cut from 3GS glass). I'd be surprised if we didn't see it hit by next February.
The 7" size sounds great. I basically want something that I can use almost exactly like how I use my smartphone around the house (ie browsing the internet while lounging in bed or on the couch) but with a supersized screen. The 10" form factor fails that test for me, getting fairly awkward if I'm reclined at all. The fact that Google have gone out of their way to make it a usable GPS as well (with downloadable maps and functional voice commands even without an internet connection) is a nice bonus.
I brought my Galaxy Nexus and Kindle Fire to Asia last month after my Galaxy Tab 10.1 died on me the day of the trip. Within 2 days into the trip in Hong Kong, the Nexus stopped charging itself, leaving me with only the Kindle Fire for the remainder of the trip. Although it was a mediocre email machine due to typical android lag in typing, it survived the trip, and let me read web pages reliably.
Ironically, the Galaxy Nexus magically resurrected itself once plugged into a US outlet. Go figure...
I noticed that the Samsung Note with its 5.3" screen is really popular in Hong Kong and Vietnam. This makes me think the 7" pad is going to be a real market segment - It's big enough to play games and type email/text yet small enough to stuff in a coat pocket, which is exactly what I saw going on with the Samsung Note. And wherever I took out the Kindle Fire, people were very curious about it.
I noticed the Nexus 7 home screen uses a "smartphone style" layout, with the favorites tray at the bottom of the screen, the All Apps button located in the center of the tray, and the Back/Home/Multitask soft buttons centered.
As far as I remember, previous Android tablets after Honeycomb used a dedicated "tablet style" layout, with no favorites tray, the All Apps button located in the top right of the screen, and the soft keys left-aligned.
Why isn't the Nexus 7 using this? Is it because the 7-inch screen was deemed too small for the tablet style layout? Or has the tablet style layout been deprecated entirely from Jelly Bean?
You have apps and widgets tabs, but probably one can rearrange everything to his own needs. Also, projects like Chameleon offer further customizations.
That's a great idea! Home and office phones are just begging to be pulled out of the 1980's and into the modern world. I'd love to have a stationary desk phone that runs Android, integrates with my Google contacts, etc.
Unfortunately, the 2.4Ghz spectrum is overcrowded in my area, the Nexus only supports 2.4Ghz wi-fi, and packet loss is especially annoying for voice calls. (Although the word on the street is that the Nexus 7 supports USB ethernet. Hmm...)
I disagree. The way I see it the 7" form factor is big enough to be a pain in the ass to carry yet small enough to be useless for most tablet stuff I'd actually want to do anyway.
In my opinion, a mobile device should have a keyboard big enough for me to type using ten fingers, or it should fit in my pocket. Using something in between baffles me.
I think it's coming to UK around mid-July, too. From there you might not get it in your country through Google and their partners, but I'm sure there will be plenty of offline and online retailers getting it from UK and reselling it in your own country, probably for around 200 euro or so.
I've been wondering if I should get the Nexus 7 as my main and only development device. I imagine it could be great to test both mobile and tablet layouts on the same device.
It could prove very good for that. If you root the device it's possible to run apps (from Google Play) allowing you to modify the reported screen density, which you should be using to alter the layout of your apps.
Given the screen res, price and capability if you're going to have one dev device it looks like the one to get.
The Kindle app screenshot shows a huge margin on the sides of the text. Readability feature to make the lines shorter or what is the purpose of that? Is that configurable?
The one thing that really annoys me is that in the UK there's a 40 GBP difference between the 8GB and 16GB version. I'd rather pay extra for an SD card slot when I can get a 32GB class 10 SD card for around half that.
It seems like Google's deprecated external storage in Android. I'm under the impression they don't want to force the average user into seeing the filesystem, and they couldn't find a way to make ext. storage seamlessly coexist with onboard (apps, etc.) without showing the FS.
If I'm not mistaken (it happens often) the exclusion of external storage was to avoid paying licensing costs for FAT/FAT32. So really just to keep the price down.
Optional external storage doesn't force anyone into anything. You can live in long-term bliss with a device having an SD card slot having never plugged a memory card in.
Having said that it does seem that Google is trying to move away from external storage, likely to try to recover from the horrendous original implementation of it (still one of the nastiest, ugliest parts of Android). The original intent of external storage was largely as a read mechanism allowing you to plug in a card with your entire music collection, etc. When it got delegated to read/write needs, primarily because early devices had ridiculously low internal storage, things fell apart.
I'm torn between getting a Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. I have a lot of Kindle books, but also a lot of video content purchased through Amazon as well. I feel that the Nexus 7 is a better device as it's not locked down to Amazon's eco system, but the lack of a Amazon video player for Android (without having to sideload the apk that is) leaves me in a weird predicament.
My wife has a Kindle Fire, I love the form factor -- my iPad 1 is getting long in the tooth and isn't as "portable" as the KF -- but I'm still bothered by the lock-in of the device.
I haven't seen a Nexus 7 personally, but from my experience with the Kindle, it looks like it will be a better and more flexible device (I appreciate the Play store and other benefits of stock Android).
Not that the Kindle Fire would be a bad choice, but I'd personally choose a Nexus 7.
The higher-res screen might change things, but I've never found reading letter/A4-sized PDFs particularly enjoyable on anything under 9". PDF is a print-focused format to begin with, it's never quite handled varying screen sizes well.
My experience this far -- comparing to a Xoom and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 -- is that the Galaxy Tab feels the most comfortable. The Xoom has sharp edges and feels extremely dense/heavy in the hand (and a much worse screen). The Nexus 7 is too small to comfortable hold in two hands, and the keyboard on a 7" screen is too small to comfortable type two-handed. Imho, the 7" form factor is ideal for two things: eReading and sliding into an airplane seat back pocket during takeoff & landing. The Galaxy Tab feels lighter than the Nexus even though I'm sure it probably is is twice the mass, simply because it's thinner and less dense. As Nick said, it's all in my head. :)
