The kindle is a revolutionary device, most would agree. Since it was released it has spawned many, many e-book readers just like it, but trying to improve on certain aspects. Barnes & Noble decided they wanted a piece of the e-book reader market, and they, in my opinion, are doing it the best. However, there are still many problems.
Barnes & Noble recently announced the “Nook”, powered by dual screens, the main one being an E-Ink black and white display, and the other being a color, touch screen, navigation display. Its powered by Android, which is a major plus in my book. I haven’t really seen anything in videos that really show off the potential of Android, which is a downer. I’d like a e-book reader that is more android oriented, maybe similar to an android phone with a e-book app? It could be done to allow for MUCH more than just the normal reading aspect of an e-book. Gotta make it worth the $250 (the average rate on e-book readers) to sell more! To me, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, $250 for something that ONLY reads books that you have to pay for, which is another 10+ dollars per book. The nook comes with 2gb of built in memory, so if each book takes up 100mb’s of space (just a guess), and there’s 1000mb’s in each gb, you’ve spent $2,000 just to fill up the memory that comes with it! That’s a heck of a lot of money, even if it is spread out throughout time. They need to find a way to make it good for the publishers/authors, AND for the readers. Each book needs to be as cheap as possible, DRM free, but still make the authors and publishers happy. Will it ever happen? I doubt it, but you can always wish.
As for the books themselves, how come the main books available are pop fiction/non fiction books? Where’s the classics (Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Jung, etc)? Without them, e-books will never be a popular alternative to paperback books.
The perfect e-book reader to me would be powered by android, and actually be shown that it’s powered by android! I want to be able to download applications and browse the internet! Sure, I want the e-book section of it to be the main part of the device, but I also want those features, and I won’t settle for anything less. Luckily, Barnes & Noble are almost there with the Nook, and I can’t wait to see what goes on after it’s actually released.