3. Hardware Shortfalls, Continued

In addition to the paper look of the E Ink screen, it has a very high resolution of 170 pixels per inch (GemStar averaged around 100 pixels, while laptops are in the 80 to 90 pixel range).

An illustration showing how the E Ink digital paper technology works. (source: E Ink)

Because the screen uses power only when an image is changed, the four AAA batteries last longer than the batteries in older eBooks. The internal memory is a bit sparse (only 10 MB) but you can increase storage with 512 MB memory sticks. In addition to eBooks, LIBRIe users can convert Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe PDF, (X)HTML and RSS documents to the LIBRIe format.

The price is a bit steep - around $400 - but the real problem is that Sony hasn't released it in the U.S. yet. It's only for sale in Japan, and it hasn't set the market on fire over there either. Darren Bischoff, marketing manager for E Ink, says that there will be an eBook reader released in the U.S. using the Electronic Paper Display in the next nine months, but he would not say if it will be LIBRIe or a product from another OEM.

Other hardware issues are the battery power and weight. "To drive the electronics in the displays takes a fair amount of battery power, if you are going to have a decent display," says Curt Goszyk, president of iPREPPress, publisher of college prep and study guides eBooks for the iPod. "eBook battery life is good for two to three hours, whereas an iPod is good for up to 15 hours."

The third issue is a real catch-22: the trend in wireless devices is smaller and lighter. iPods are now the size of a cigarette lighter, and cell phones are smaller than pagers were ten years ago, but for an eBook reader to be usable, the medium demands a large screen. This makes for a large, bulky piece of hardware to carry. "It's sort of contradictory right now," says Goszyk. "Cell phones are getting smaller, iPods are smaller. The need for a book to have a larger display is contrary to that direction."