skiff, ereaeder, Toby Elwin, blog

A View: Tablet PCs Must Get Cheaper, Lighter, More Connected

Skiff bendable eink reader ipad ereader telwin amajorcIn the latest issue of Wired magazine Steven Levy’s article Tablet PCs Must Get Cheaper, Lighter, More Connected is a good over view of what it might take to push the tablet into a new category of computing.

Some quick hits:

  • Tablets must be cheap enough to lose ~$149 [or cheap enough when you drop it/spill coffee/spill beer on it you don’t have an emotional breakdown on a replacement cost]
  • Tablets must be light as paper
  • Tablets must always be connected

I’ve held back on the craze.  I actually don’t want a tablet that does what my laptop, smart phone, or desktop does.  I prefer a tablet exclusively for reading as I find little enough time or uninterrupted reading and prefer to sit without “you’ve got mail” popping up and interrupting my attempt, at last, to read War and Peace.

I look forward to a device that replaces my book/magazine/newspaper/annotation/highlight/comment-style, old-world self.

Perhaps I’m not thinking broad enough, but I’m hanging back during this e-donnybrook with my eye on the Skiff Reader with the bendable screen made of metal foil, not glass – see pic.

Try that with your iPad.

I foresee a lot of iPad owners with broken screens and with >$500 on the line, I’m not sure how happy they’ll be.

Oh, and the the price point for the Skiff Reader is expected to be ~$165 and set for release this year.  By that time maybe the field tests will come back from all those iPad drops and cracked screens…

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