Will This E-Reader Replace Papers?

By Eric A. Taub

The promise of an electronic device that can serve as an acceptable substitute for a daily newspaper should get a boost this Monday, when iRex Technologies releases its latest e-reader, the iRex Digital Reader 1000.

The new model, available in three different configurations and prices, features a 10.1-inch diagonal screen, big enough, says Hans Brons, iRex chief executive, to replicate the look of a newspaper’s layout.

That’s still smaller than Plastic Logic’s prototype e-reader, which features a screen more than 13 inches in diagonal, but it is bigger than iRex’s current iLiad model, with its 8.1-inch diagonal screen.

The Plastic Logic device won’t be available until next year. Both use E Ink’s screen technology, which is also behind the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

IRex is positioning the device as a business tool, able to store 20,000 pages on its 1-gigabyte SD card; the card comes with the unit, but higher-capacity SD cards can also be used. The device displays PDF, PowerPoint, HTML, and .txt files. And if you buy the $749 1000 S version, you can make pen-based notes directly on the device, transfer the page back to a PC (but not a Mac) and then convert the handwriting to text.

The cheapest $649 model is read only; the most expensive 1000 SW, available later this year at $849, includes handwriting input as well as Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity.

Customers in Europe using the iLiad service can use the iRex’s wireless connection to download newspapers and books. And Mr. Brons said that he would begin to offer American newspapers “by the end of the year.”

But at those prices and that screen size, the new models are bumping up against low-priced laptops, which also feature wireless, a bigger color screen and a keyboard for typing documents or messages.

The question is whether customers will see the Digital Reader’s lighter weight, much longer battery life and easier readability–especially in bright light–as reasons enough to buy one more device. But as these devices proliferate, the market for content is sure to expand and that should drive demand.

It should also drive innovation so the thin, lightweight and flexible e-reader arrives even sooner.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Marco Almondine September 19, 2008 · 4:13 pm

The whole value of the eInk display technology is that it’s potentially far cheaper than LCDs, and because it takes a tiny amount of the energy, the battery pack in a device can be far smaller & cheaper also. As those are the main cost drivers (not the CPU anymore), eInk devices should be able to sell for low prices.

Any eInk-based device selling for more than $200 is competing with beautiful color LCD devices like the iPhone or new mini-notebooks. eInk is very readable, great for books, but as it’s greyscale and too slow for video the usefulness is limited. For $750 you can get pretty nice laptop.

Amazon may or may not be subsidizing the Kindle with paid content. At only about 300,000 sold they’re still working off the development cost. Once they get to millions of units per year the production cost will plummet, and content/subscription/ads can take over the revenue model. Ebook reader devices should be selling for under $50. Right now the revenue chain is bottlenecked by lack of content, unpopularity of DRM, lack of subscription/ad-supported model.

rachel September 19, 2008 · 4:30 pm

A book is book. Sick of computers already.

Walter G September 19, 2008 · 4:59 pm

I’ve thought about something like this when I took a college media class in 2000. I love reading papers but it just seems like a total waste to me: paper, ink, trees. Something like an E-Reader would be great if they can replicate the paper feel element. I read the Times on the internets on an LCD and it just takes some getting used to. Nothing focuses the mind more than paper in hand. I would definitely be in the market for an E-Reader once they get it to feel like your reading from real paper.

Rob L, N Myrtle Beach SC September 19, 2008 · 5:05 pm

Short answer: no, not THAT eReader, for $650..

Maybe 5 years from now, when the price with a subscription, or two, to a decent national newspaper is around $125, yes. I’m guessing at a price point. Five years from now, most newspapers will have folded, we may all be using smartphone PCs, and all news may be controlled by Department of the Treasury.

Phil September 19, 2008 · 5:21 pm

I couldn’t agree more Rachel – enough is enough.

Abbey H. September 19, 2008 · 5:33 pm

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?. I’m not talking about online newspapers, either. I’m talking about getting up earlier than my neighbors and stealing a home-delivery copy from one of them. Yeah, it’s stamped with red ink to indicate ownership but if I don’t let them see me with it then nobody else is going to know that I’m reading a five-finger discount. So as long as my neighbors don’t buy into this reader thing then neither will I.

HIL September 19, 2008 · 5:37 pm

This makes a lot of sense… at least on paper.

kenh/pittsburgh September 19, 2008 · 5:46 pm

Earlier today, I accidently dropped and stepped on a book I am reading (Written in Blood … a history of Haiti). Cost of drop? Zero. Consequent stress level. Zero.

Had I dropped and stepped on a $650 dollar machine? Well … I don’t earn like an investment banker … uh … er … maybe that’s a bad example.

Dale September 19, 2008 · 5:52 pm

We’ve been looking for this electronic paper since the early 80s. It’s a nice concept and maybe this is the product that will fulfill the promise. Maybe it’s not. The market will make that decision. Until that time, ink on paper remains a viable model that continues to hold a lot of appeal. Even if this e-paper succeeds, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of newspapers and books as we know them. We’ve been forecasting the demise of newsweeklies for a long, long time and they’ve been able to adapt to the changing landscape, and I suppose they will continue to do so.

Andrew September 19, 2008 · 6:17 pm

Well, let’s see. I’m reading the Times right this minute for nothing… Can’t get much cheaper than that…

Heron September 19, 2008 · 6:36 pm

Abbey H., if you’re really doing what you said you’re doing, you’re a scummy neighbor, and I hope someone catches you.

adam September 19, 2008 · 6:48 pm

One more thing to be stolen, broken or lost.

One more way to alienate ourselves from each other.

OverThirty September 19, 2008 · 7:05 pm

C’mon, Heron.

“Steal This Book”, Abbie Hoffman, 1971.

I thought the comment was funny, and someone does steal my paper occasionally.

Steve September 19, 2008 · 7:07 pm

How ironic that I’m reading this on my iPod Touch with no readability issues, in color and for far less money.

steve b September 19, 2008 · 7:23 pm

reading can be done in many formats and mediums today–cell phones, computers, paper and ink, etc.–why would we need another exclusive device for that? just because you can make something out of plastic that does something doesn’t make it useful. ipods are broadly used because they provide new functionality. it’s getting stupid already.

Eric September 19, 2008 · 7:39 pm

Why would I spend that much for a read-only device, when for less than that I can get a full-capability laptop computer, and for substantially less than that I can get a mini-laptop?

Dave September 19, 2008 · 8:07 pm

Electronic media need electricity, software, and hardware to be read. The Gutenberg bible (over 400 years old) can still be read without any of that. My library has books that are over 100 years old. Have you ever tried to read something off a 5 1/4 floppy disk, that were ubiquitous 10 years ago, lately? Who will be able to read the e-books in 50 years? I would like to pass my library down to my grandchildren but I don’t think this year’s (or decades) e-books are going to last very long…

Janet September 19, 2008 · 8:08 pm

I read online newspaper web sites (nytimes.com and seattlepi.com) every day. It’s all the news I need.

I no longer have ink-stained hands, piles of newspapers to lug to my car, then drive to the recycle center, remove them from the trunk and haul them up the stairs to dump into the huge bins.

I do not watch TV (save for PBS), so I’m not nerve-wracked with constant commercial ad interruptions, either.

Life just keeps on getting better! This week I’m trading in my Verizon landline and switching to Vonage.

And, no, I do not have a cell phone. There are a lot of “things” out there that I just do not need in my life…and being interrupted by a phone call while I’m grocery shopping, having my hair washed or getting a relaxing pedicure is NOT one of them.

Lol, thanx for listening.

professor X September 19, 2008 · 8:14 pm

i’m a scientist with a collection of several thousand articles in PDF format i may want to consult at any moment. Currently i read them on my laptop but i’d prefer a lighter device with more readability. But that’s just me.

ray September 19, 2008 · 9:13 pm

Needs to be cheaper.
People are used to carrying laptops by now and the limited capabilities of readers with such a high price makes it not worth it.

Doug September 19, 2008 · 10:18 pm

I think e-book readers have a lot of advantages to real books and will in fact be the new book of the future. The only reason for people to continue with real books is that they have the “feel” of a book. How much more sense does it make to have the convenience to carry around thousands of books, your whole library, wherever you go? You can upload your daily RSS feeds onto the device, the news, blogs, or whatever novel you want on the go.

The Iliad looks pretty sweet, but that’s quite a price tag. I agree that e-book readers will only become popular after the price becomes more affordable. The Kindle looks nice, but the thing doesn’t even support PDF files (definitely a problem for me), and while Sony’s reader supports PDF, it supposedly doesn’t show it very well.

I really liked the looks of the BeBook. It’s produced by a company from Holland called Endless Ideas, and it supports plenty of formats, has a battery that last basically forever, and its firmware is open source, so it’s constantly being updated to suit the users’ needs. Here’s a little YouTube video overview of the thing:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpxt__xqkBI

I like the direction technology is going in and it’ll be exciting see what the future holds. No more textbooks, novels and magazine? Probably not that extreme, but e-book will definitely be the new way of reading for many.

Peter Steinberg September 19, 2008 · 10:56 pm

I think books are books and newspapers are newspapers and neither should ever fade — the physical experience is just too integral to the enjoyment of the experience…

Sadly, I know that, even at the youngish age of 38, I’m on the losing side of the battle. When with a 26 year old friend lately she expressed amazement that I actually PAY for the Times to be DELIVERED to my home. For her, she just hops online.

And truth be told? Since I got a MacBook Air — a very light laptop — I read more of the Times online than I do in paper form. :-/

Peter
//www.FlashlightWorthy.com
Recommending books so good, they’ll keep you up past your bedtime. ;)

Ajay September 19, 2008 · 11:24 pm

How about reading a book without cutting a tree and killing the environment. How about doing this again and again? E books are fine with me, and they can convert whole libraries into simple storable devices with much longer shelf life.
Ajay

Zora September 19, 2008 · 11:25 pm

There are thousands of free public domain ebooks available through Project Gutenberg or Manybooks, none of which have DRM and all of which can be read on many cheap devices, such as phones or PDAs. If you don’t mind reading huge PDF files on your computer, there are many more books available from Google Books. For most pre-1923 books, ebooks beat dead-tree books hands down. They’re free, they’re reflowable if they’re not PDFs, they don’t weigh anything, and they don’t have to be dusted. You can bump the font up to size 20 if you’ve got vision problems. You can take 20 books on vacation with you.

It’s only recent books that are often issued as dead-tree books only or, if they’re e, cost the earth and have DRM hobbles.

Adam September 20, 2008 · 12:25 am

The periodical and newspaper industries’ paper houses are going up in smoke — and increasingly they know it (newspapers) or have a sneaking fear that it just might happen to them too (magazines).

— Paper costs have been increasing 30% a year for the past few years
— Magazine distribution systems are in a state of dysfunction for which it seems there may be no fix.
— Advertisers are becoming addicted to the far more precise targeting and richer and metrics available from online which print never did and probably never will (even with RFID) provide.
— The periodical industry on average prints AND DESTROYS 10 magazines for every 3 which actually get sold, merely to fudge circulation numbers. Once this fact is widely known and condemned by the green movement and (the electronic) media, there will be increasing pressure to stop this incredibly wasteful and environmentally destructive practice.
— Paper won’t go away; its market share will simply shrink and go upmarket as more and more screenagers become adults completely at home with *mostly* digital media. Already a substantial part of their life is lived digitally — even college textbooks are going digital.

e-paper readers are at the developmental stage similar to when mobile phones were the size of a brick, or PCs were the Apple 2e. But they’re technologically progressing faster and already the market for them is growing more quickly. We’re only 5-10 years away from e-paper market penetration rivaling that of mobile phones.

This represents the greatest challenge to these industries in their history. Those organizations who are keeping abreast of the technology and market inflections, reader behavior, exploring and planning to manage this transition will survive. The others….
Get informed at: //mediaideas.net/