RandomFailure

Now that Amazon’s Kindle 2 (electric boogaloo) is out, I’ve decided that I don’t like it. It’s not what I would consider to be an ideal electronic reader. I’m looking for the following features, and I’m not buying one until somebody meets these criteria.

1. Color screen. This is a must. Why? See #2 below.
2. Standard magazine-size. I read more magazines than books of late, and it would be far easier to carry around a single device that had all my magazines on there. Magazine publishers should be jumping at the idea (like Hearst is; see this Fortune story).
   
   One of the largest costs to a magazine (if not the largest cost) are publishing costs (paper, printing, and distribution). With ad revenue down, reducing costs can probably save many magazines (even newspapers might benefit, but they’d need to redesign for the smaller page size). Going to a standard 8 1/2 by 11 (roughly) screen size for the reader is necessary for both layout purposes and advertisers; nobody wants to design a magazine for too small a size. Large-format magazines will need to adapt (I’m talking about you Wine Spectator; Rolling Stone went to a standard print size in October 2008). But color would also be necessary here, especially for advertisers. A publisher could design one issue, suitable for both print and electronic delivery.
3. At least a 4-6 hour battery life. The reader will be displaying static images, so the display wouldn’t need to be constantly redrawn. I want to be able to charge and sync my reader before I leave for work and have enough power to read during my public transit commute to and from the office without having to recharge. Being able to use it for a cross-country flight would be nice, too. I think this criteria won’t be that hard to meet.

Plastic Logic is working on a reader, but it’s only black and white and not set to be released until 2010. That’s OK. I can wait…

Tags: electronic reader, Plastic Logic

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 14th, 2009 at 5:27 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.