It's not a real touch-screen

[ProDigit]

If what's been said about the touchscreen on the device is true, then I think the touchscreen is far better than the other type of touchscreens used (plastic layer over glass, the so called 'soft touch' touchscreens).
If the display doesn't really produce a 100% accurate positioning of the pen on the touchscreen,that could be a calibration issue,or in worst case a driver issue.

I don't really think that the touchscreen is really the issue why Sony didn't incorporate handwriting recognition in the device.
I think it has several reasons:
1- It needs a handwriting recognition dictionary software inside, which on average uses up between 80MB for latin and 200MB for Chinese-type letters, of diskspace (I know because my MP3 player had one).
On top of that the reader needed a local dictionary that contains lots of words (on average about 70.000 or more words per language), plus (software for) an additional dictionary entry for common or local words that need to be inputted by the user.

2- With a screen refresh rate of 0,8 fps you will most likely have written 2-3 letters before you can see whether or the system recognized the first letters or not.
And probably by the second word, the system will have found the first word you wrote.
A 200Mhz ARM processor (let's say, since we don't really know what it has) isn't really that fast, knowing that it's main purpose is to act as software graphic processor,sound engine, handwriting recognition, external drive host, and OS loader.

3- Battery life; if the cpu needs to decipher the handwriting, then find the word in the dictionary, that itself uses a lot of battery. Not only that, but it needs to update the user constantly on the screen (by refreshing the screen constantly).
If the device supports 8000 pageswaps per battery charge, and does 1 frame per 0,8 seconds (1,25fps), that would mean you would be able to handwrite (not calculating the power the cpu needs for handwriting) for 6400 seconds, or 106minutes, or 1,8 hours.
Battery life would definitely not be more than the iliad.

And I doubt the Sony PRS-700 is intelligent enough to do local page refreshing; meaning it will probably do a full pageswap, even if only 10% of the page is changed.
This is something we might see in the coming devices that could possibly increase display speed to a point where it's possible to watch a low-motion .mov file on a e-ink screen!
The .mov codec chops original video in blocks (a grid), and whenever a change in one of the blocks has been detected, it will refresh only that block; not the entire screen.
This form of 'intelligent' motion still can be applied to the B&W screens of e-ink,allowing a reduce in screen bandwidth, as well as a reduce in powerconsumption (or increase of battery life); by changing that part of the screen that really needs to be changed.


This made me wonder, and gathering information of the charger, batteries used in the 505, prediction on what battery Sony probably would use on the 700 series, powerdraw of the various elements like touchscreen and LEDs, made me wonder how much the 700 would have in battery life.
Most of this is rough sketches, and predictions on various hardware settings Sony could use. In no way whatever I write here is definite, or measured, but after some hours of research I came to the idea the battery life of the 700 could be less than the 505; even if Sony upped the battery.


The 700 without the LED's on might last longer than the 505 in battery life.
However when the leds are used continuously the batterylife of the 700 will certainly be not better than the Iliad!

Most data I could gather made it obvious that the LEDs the 700 uses, draw about half the power the 700 would draw to turn pages.
This could mean under normal usage without the leds you have plenty of battery, around the battery life of 505 (since the touchscreen doesn't really use that much power; about 1/30th of the device being active), but with the leds on continuously battery life can shrink to about 7 hours or less.

Of course, noone uses the LED's on continuously. So say you read 4 hours per day, and turn on the Leds 30minutes per day, that would result in a battery life of roughly half the battery life of the 505(talking about a few days of battery life; upto a week),
Though the 700's battery might be 25-30% stronger than the 505's battery.

Of course, there are too many variables in the game, but unless Sony upped the battery, you will end up with 2/3th the 505's battery without,and less than half the battery with occasional use of the Leds (all depending on use ofcourse).

Still, one could choose NOT to use the Leds, and end up with a device that possibly will last longer in battery than the 505 (provided sony upgraded the battery).

The touchscreen continuously draws power, less good when forgetting to turn the device off. But the power drain of the touchscreen should be relatively small compared to the LEDS.
Also relatively small to the drain the device has when swapping a page.
But the continuous drain is huge compared to the device in idle mode (the mode the 700 gets into right after a page has been loaded).

I'd put things in this order,with an average of powerdraw:

LEDS (1-1,2Watt)
E-reader swapping pages and browsing(0,8-1Watt)
SD/MMC Cardreader active(50-75mW)
touchscreen(5-35mW)
SD/MMC Cardreader passive (2-5mW)
E-reader passive (2-5mW)

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

If the display doesn't really produce a 100% accurate positioning of the pen on the touchscreen,that could be a calibration issue,or in worst case a driver issue.

Nope, it sounds like it is definitely a hardware issue. Sony in my opinion simply chose an outdated solution from the start.

Sony needs to integrate features and content much better then this if they care to make E-Ink devices more popular.

Originally Posted by ProDigit

1- It needs a handwriting recognition dictionary inside,

I don't think that the handwriting recognition inside is necessary. I just want handwriting which I can recognize and perhaps others with whome I would be collaborating on annotating text for example. (the student being able to read the teachers annotations for example)

Basically, it should save handwritten annotations as kind of image files or as a new separate PDF document or something like that.

You can do handwriting recognition online using the wireless signal to upload the handwriting to a server on the cloud that does extensive advanced personalized handwriting recognition and immediately pings back recognized text wirelessly if needed. Or some software on your PC can do that recognition.

Originally Posted by ProDigit

2- With a screen refresh rate of 0,8 fps you will most likely have written 2-3 letters before you can see whether or the system recognized the first letters or not.

Nah, check the 3 year old iRex Illiad technology. Handwriting is awesomely smooth. Sure there is a small delay before it displays your handwriting on the screen, but it does not need to refresh the whole page to do that.

Originally Posted by ProDigit

If the device supports 8000 pageswaps per battery charge, (...)

The 700 without the LED's on might last longer than the 505 in battery life.

The PRS-700 touch screen probably uses a bunch of energy. So if you use it to flip pages, its battery life is probably not going to be great.

Anyways, I think the PRS-700 looks like a miss from Sony. I am sure Amazon will be announcing the Kindle 2 for Christmas, thus it could be any day now.

Though if Amazon skips this Christmas season for Kindle 2, I am sure there are going to be a whole range of options, the cheap one (perhaps even without memory card storage), and they should do a one with a real touch-screen Wacom style especially well suited for the students and profetionnals market.

[ProDigit]

Charbax, I just saw that the 700 can make annotations in books. Perhaps that's what you mean with writing notes?

It's really an exciting feat, however, if it costs me too much battery, it might not be too interesting for me...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Nope, it sounds like it is definitely a hardware issue. Sony in my opinion simply chose an outdated solution from the start.
...
Nah, check the 3 year old iRex Illiad technology. Handwriting is awesomely smooth. Sure there is a small delay before it displays your handwriting on the screen, but it does not need to refresh the whole page to do that.
...
The PRS-700 touch screen probably uses a bunch of energy. So if you use it to flip pages, its battery life is probably not going to be great.

No, I disagree with you. I think the choice of the capacitive touch screen by Sony was an excellent choice, precisely because, unlike the inductive touch screen technology used by the iLiad, it can be used with the finger (the iLiad requires a special stylus) and it doesn't use a lot of power. The touch screen on the iLiad is a real "power hog".

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, I disagree with you. I think the choice of the capacitive touch screen by Sony was an excellent choice, precisely because, unlike the inductive touch screen technology used by the iLiad, it can be used with the finger (the iLiad requires a special stylus) and it doesn't use a lot of power. The touch screen on the iLiad is a real "power hog".

Well even though finger is nice for menus and stuff, I just don't think it's a good choice of touchscreen technology if it turns out that you cannot do real annotations. Those that use a stylus and your handwriting, circling of text, and more stuff like that.

Annotations using on screen keyboard is going to be old very fast, as well as I think that the finger swipe to turn pages is going to be old very fast as well.

Although I want Kindle 2 to have touch and I want touch on my next E-Ink device, the way Sony seemed to have done it with 700 really looks to me to be a failure.

If Amazon cares to and has the production capacity to sell as many E-Ink devices as possible, they should really at least open up the Kindle 1 to the European market and the rest of the world using HSDPA, and they should also quickly release the next generation, which could be more then just one basic model.

[ProDigit]

I think the stylus pen is some real nice addition to an e-book!
Especially for annotations!
If people could use this device as their personal notepads would be awesome!

However I do agree that the swiping of a page is a bit off...
I mean, I'm not going to connect a Wii to my PC to scroll through my .PDF document neither.
But I'm still able to use the knobs, so the addition really won't bother me.

As far as getting the kindle to the European market, you must know that the majority of Belgium, sweden/Finland/denmark and that area perhaps, and the Netherlands speak English. Also UK is English.
Germany, France, Spain, Hongary,Ex-Yugoslavia and other Eastern europe countries like poland parts of russia, not many people speak English.
And amazon mainly sells books in English,with the occasional german and french book.

There are too many countries and languages in europe. I fear that might be one of the reasons Amazon as well as most of the other electronic manufacturers see Europe as the last boundry.
If it works in Asia, works in the US,then it'll work in Europe.

Besides I heard rumors about Sony going to release their ebook readers in Europe in 2009!

From the way I see things,people wanting to buy an e-reader will no longer buy a kindle 1 if they see the second gen. (Kindle 2?)
I can believe that,since I find the Kindle 1 ugly as hell.
Give or take 3-4 months after the release of the Kindle 2 in the US, it'll be sold in Europe as well (provided if they find enough carriers to carry their signal; lots of cellphone companies in Europe).
Europe being slightly larger? than USA, has way more countries, and therefor way more carriers to send the signal.

[mitchelln]

Charbax, I suggest you read this article.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/10...dle_christmas/

There is far more to it than just putting HSDPA into a device. You have to cut the deals across all the countries and that is what is difficult. The fact that Amazon has not done it yet shows you how costly and time consuming it is cutting these kind of deals.

Anyone know what McBride means when he says:
“If you buy a Kindle in the UK and want to read it on the beach on holiday in Spain, unless we have signed deals in Spain it's not going to work on that beach,”

Does the Kindle have to call home to authenticate every time you open a book?

Re. usage. Personally I'll take battery life over HSDPA any time with an eBook reader device. I simply want to copy my books over to the device and then enjoy weeks of reading without fuss. If I want mobile internet, I'll buy something else where runtime is measured in hours. Also, when I'm on holiday I'll want to relax with a book, not get drawn into surfing which inevitably ends up with looking at my emails and then feeling I have to respond etc etc.

My Sony 505 keeps things nice and simple and if I ever upgrade to the 700 I would keep that ethos

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mitchelln

Anyone know what McBride means when he says:
“If you buy a Kindle in the UK and want to read it on the beach on holiday in Spain, unless we have signed deals in Spain it's not going to work on that beach,”

Does the Kindle have to call home to authenticate every time you open a book?

No, he just means that if you'd previously bought the book, and it was on your Amazon "bookshelf", you wouldn't be able to download it wirelessly to your Kindle on your Spanish beach. Provided it was already on the Kindle, there'd be no problem.

[mitchelln]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, he just means that if you'd previously bought the book, and it was on your Amazon "bookshelf", you wouldn't be able to download it wirelessly to your Kindle on your Spanish beach. Provided it was already on the Kindle, there'd be no problem.

Ah, that's good. Thanks for the clarification

[Charbax]

Actually all the european carriers have roaming agreements already.

What seems to be the problem is that Amazon doesn't want to provide an unlocked HSDPA Kindle for Europe, where people can use any SIM card on any carrier.

They prefer locking people in, providing a seeming free wireless service where they monetize it by selling books.

Amazon should still be able to do that even with high roaming charges, they can just eigther block HSDPA in non-agreed roaming countries, or display a surchage warning if trying to download a book or otherwise downloading data when roaming in another country.

This should be a minor problem to fix for Amazon.

I think the reason Amazon is not selling more Kindles in the USA and Europe, is mainly cause the E-Ink screen manufacturer can only ramp up mass production of the screens at a certain rate. They are expanding production capacity of E-Ink screens as fast as they can during the past year, but still production capacity barely is enough to satisfy a small part of what the demand could be just for the USA. And sadly, the Taiwaneese E-Ink manufacturer probably didn't manage to build all those new factories yet, but they are working on it for Kindle 2, which should probably deliver 10x more production capacity then Kindle 1 did during this past year.

Also, Amazon wants to carefully deploy their own business models. I want to read this thread on my E-Ink reader, I want to read the whole Internet, all the blogs, all the forums and all the Google News articles and debates on an E-Ink screen, it's much better then reading all this text everyday using an LCD screen.

The browser will have a plugin and a shift click or right click feature that lets you select a bunch of pages and articles that are wirelessly beamed to your E-Ink reader.

Amazon though sadly for now seems to be focused on selling their own books only, instead of becoming a bandwidth reseller for all the webs text content. Though Amazon does know how to provide broad Internet cloud services, so I am confident, Amazon will provide an E-Ink device that not focus only on their book store (which whole business model could change completely with a new international copyright law).

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by Charbax

What seems to be the problem is that Amazon doesn't want to provide an unlocked HSDPA Kindle for Europe, where people can use any SIM card on any carrier.

I'm not sure it's quite "doesn't want to", but more that the hardware costs of switching from what they currently have (EVDO - which is basically USA-only) to some form of HSDPA (rest of the world) is also going to be a major factor.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Actually all the european carriers have roaming agreements already.

What seems to be the problem is that Amazon doesn't want to provide an unlocked HSDPA Kindle for Europe, where people can use any SIM card on any carrier.

They prefer locking people in, providing a seeming free wireless service where they monetize it by selling books.

Amazon should still be able to do that even with high roaming charges, they can just eigther block HSDPA in non-agreed roaming countries, or display a surchage warning if trying to download a book or otherwise downloading data when roaming in another country.

This should be a minor problem to fix for Amazon.

I think the reason Amazon is not selling more Kindles in the USA and Europe, is mainly cause the E-Ink screen manufacturer can only ramp up mass production of the screens at a certain rate. They are expanding production capacity of E-Ink screens as fast as they can during the past year, but still production capacity barely is enough to satisfy a small part of what the demand could be just for the USA. And sadly, the Taiwaneese E-Ink manufacturer probably didn't manage to build all those new factories yet, but they are working on it for Kindle 2, which should probably deliver 10x more production capacity then Kindle 1 did during this past year.

Also, Amazon wants to carefully deploy their own business models. I want to read this thread on my E-Ink reader, I want to read the whole Internet, all the blogs, all the forums and all the Google News articles and debates on an E-Ink screen, it's much better then reading all this text everyday using an LCD screen.

The browser will have a plugin and a shift click or right click feature that lets you select a bunch of pages and articles that are wirelessly beamed to your E-Ink reader.

Amazon though sadly for now seems to be focused on selling their own books only, instead of becoming a bandwidth reseller for all the webs text content. Though Amazon does know how to provide broad Internet cloud services, so I am confident, Amazon will provide an E-Ink device that not focus only on their book store (which whole business model could change completely with a new international copyright law).

That seems like good news, meaning e-readers are going to become dirt cheap after the launch of the 'breakthrough' e-read devices, like plastic logics reader, kindle 2, and netronix mentor around Q3 2009; supposedly ofcourse that e-ink screens are about the only most expensive part of a reader...

A reader's hardware in itself isn't that expensive, it's probably the patenting...

I wonder when we'll start having DOS or Windows 3.1 on the reader.. LOL

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

I'm not sure it's quite "doesn't want to", but more that the hardware costs of switching from what they currently have (EVDO - which is basically USA-only) to some form of HSDPA (rest of the world) is also going to be a major factor.

I very much doubt that the hardware costs are the issue; the CDMA comms module could probably be replaced with a GSM one at minimal cost. The difficult part, as has been discussed ad nausiam elsewhere on this board, is the difficulty of negotiating data transfer deals with all the different telecoms operators. Eg, there are currently 51 separate countries in Europe - for a "Europe wide" launch of the Kindle, Amazon would need to negotiate data agreements with different telecoms operators in each of those 51 different countries, each of which has its own legal system. I'm sure that you see the difficulty...

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I very much doubt that the hardware costs are the issue; the CDMA comms module could probably be replaced with a GSM one at minimal cost. The difficult part, as has been discussed ad nausiam elsewhere on this board, is the difficulty of negotiating data transfer deals with all the different telecoms operators. Eg, there are currently 51 separate countries in Europe - for a "Europe wide" launch of the Kindle, Amazon would need to negotiate data agreements with different telecoms operators in each of those 51 different countries, each of which has its own legal system. I'm sure that you see the difficulty...

I don't doubt the CDMA module could be replaced easily enough- but I really think one reason Amazon went CDMA rather than GSM was because CDMA can be tied to a single piece of hardware unlike GSM. If you have GSM you need a SIM, which is removable.

That could open Amazon's closed system in a way they wouldn't appreciate.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

but I really think one reason Amazon went CDMA rather than GSM was because CDMA can be tied to a single piece of hardware unlike GSM. If you have GSM you need a SIM, which is removable.

That could open Amazon's closed system in a way they wouldn't appreciate.

Why would someone that has a Kindle with free wireless want to change the SIM card out to something else... perhaps something they would need to pay for? Also, if they didn't use the service then it would save Amazon money. No... worry about a SIM card is not the issue.

BOb