Seconded! I frequently find myself frustrated that I cannot read ${programming_book} on an eInk-style display (generally in PDF format but the EPUB versions I've tried haven't been much better). Yes, there are e-readers out there that can open the format, but the display is either scaled into illegibility or paginated weirdly or I have to scroll around to see the whole page (all of which are tremendous impediments to the goal of transferring information into my brain). ~brandishes fistful of dollars~ If something like what you suggest existed, I would absolutely buy at least one. I might even spring for overnight shipping, which is unheard of for me! ;)
One of my highest priorities for several years has been a full-page, portable PDF reader. My mountainous "must read" inbox is increasingly electronic instead of paper, with most of the serious stuff in PDF format. I can listen to fiction in audio format with half of my brain while grocery shopping with the other half, but my serious stuff requires my full brain capacity (or more) plus hi-rez graphs, equations, charts, maps, etc. to give me a fighting chance at figuring it out and learning something. These little eBook formats are fine for things that I could just as easily listen to in audio (if only they were available), but I need a better reader for my REAL stuff.
The iPad is the closest I've come, but I'd hoping for something more like a touch screen eInk reader in a form factor like the lid of my RetinaMBP.
It may be that those of use who read full-sized technical textbooks after graduation could all fit in the same elevator and aren't worth building devices for, but there must be a huge market for students reading textbooks and everyone else reading magazines. I hope I'll be able to piggyback on their market someday.
Another maddening trend is about 3 years ago I bought a 19201200 display for $325. I thought I'd look to see if higher res was now available. Turns out, the only 19201200 displays are now all over $900. Everything else is 1920*1080.
I.e. display res has gotten 10% worse, not better.
I'd really like about 2000 horizontal lines. I'm tired of blurry text.
Walter, I'm with you, but I think what's going on is preparation for a sea change toward 4K Ultra High-Definition TV and 8K UHDTV. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_televisio... for the news.) These TVs are all multiples of the 1920x1080 areal unit and anything large that isn't will have bad economies of scale.
Okay, fine, give me a retina eInk touch screen tablet like the lid of my RetinaMBP for reading PDFs, and give me a comfy chair and small desk facing a wall-sized, wall-embedded 8K UHDTV monitor (7680 × 4320 = 33.2 megapixels) for software dev.
And maybe by then I'll be writing all my software in D. ;-) (I've been a fan of D for years, but that's a topic for a different thread.)
Briss often does a great job of cutting away the margins in PDFs making many of them quite readable on a regular kindle (and I can only imagine that it is quite a bit better on a kindle paperwhite or other devices with a similar resolution).
I have suggested to the Kindle team that they trim the margins off of the pdf files, which will make for a big improvement in pdf readability. But, nobody listens to me :-( Perhaps if more of you guys made the same suggestion, it will bubble up in priority.
P.S. I will check out the briss app. Looks like a great idea.
Thanks for the tip; I'll definitely check it out. I have an HP TouchPad (running Cyanogen Mod) that those might be readable on (still not the e-Ink, full-sunlight-readable experience that I truly crave, but it would still be a step in the right direction ^_^)
It'll probably happen. Right now as mass market devices the 6" screen is the only one E Ink makes enough to be a viable product at the prices people are willing to pay (kind of circular logic but that's the situation).
Soon though, after tablets eat enough of the e-readers' lunch, they'll have to specialize and do some more interesting things. Right now there's so little differentiation between the e-reader products that it's embarrassing to everyone involved. I hope that in a year or two they'll diverge, though.
I'd like a full 8.5x11 size eink tablet even better. I'd buy one today if I could.