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Laptops stealing biz from desktops: The e-book angle
December 12, 2006 | 3:58 am
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By David Rothman
Laptops are stealing business from desktops, according to BusinessWeek. So could laptops help make up for the slowdown in PDA growth—and thus help bail out the e-book industry?
I myself dislike the ergonomics of most laptops and prefer tablets. The keyboard literally gets in the way between me and the book. Clearly, however, others disagree, and even I see possibilities in the design shown here.
What’s more, at least with full-powered laptops, you can just download a book and start enjoying it rather than worrying about HotSync and similar fun associated with most PDAs as e-book machines.
So what do you think about laptops as an e-book platform? And which laptops—excluding those that you can use as tablets, too—are best for e-book reading? And why?
Related: Comments by Joseph T. Sinclair. I disagree with his enthusiasm for PDF, but I think he raises a valid question in discussing the possibilities of laptops as e-book readers.
Useless fact department: I wrote the How to Choose and Get the Most Out of Your Portable PC or Mac (St. Martin’s Press), which, as far as I know, was one of the first several laptop books in the world. I am, by the way, friendlier toward Macs now than I was back then—given the mess that Microsoft has made of Windows.
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Comments:
I read a lot on my iBook, but ergonomically it’s no fun at all–sitting upright reminds me of work, and my neck and back think there’s enough work in the day.
Even if laptops were as light as paper, they’d still be less than ideal for reading–their keyboards vestigial, and their wide screens more suited for, well, windows rather than the singular text.
Laptops can be terrifically social. They’re good for collaborations, and for fun. My wife and I love to read and surf together. But there are times we’d rather be horizontal with a text, and that calls for a device that can be held and handed off without fuss–not laptops.
The ideal device is still in embryo but I imagine in size it’s somewhere between the tablet and the PDA, and combining the elegance of e-ink with the versatility of (optional?) backlighting. I don’t expect to see it soon. The main problem, as ever, is that society doesn’t read. So reading technology is underdeveloped–it’s an eccentricity at a time when the mass mind wants Java cellphone games and a GPS locator to plot waypoints between Wal-Marts.
I agree that the power of the PC is compelling. Then there’s the larger screen size–a non-trivial advantage compared to PDAs. Also, support for HTML and the ability to read native PDF rather than have to reflow it in the PDA.
Personally, I like to carry my books in my pocket. But I’ve certainly read more than a few books on my laptop. For one thing, it’s a bit easier when you’re at a meeting, trying to look like you’re working.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com