The response to this elsewhere on the internet has been pretty negative, and I sort of get why. $400 is a lot of money for something like this. The website is filled with very generic tech startup...
The response to this elsewhere on the internet has been pretty negative, and I sort of get why. $400 is a lot of money for something like this. The website is filled with very generic tech startup gobbledygook, and gives the impression the display uses a harsh pixel font for text (even though it apparently looks much better in-person).
Having said all that, I actually really like the idea of having glasses I could wear to read a book, rather than having to hold a physical book or some reading device all the time. There are so many comfortable ways I could sit and lay or even stand while reading with glasses like these that would never be comfortable while having to hold a book.
$400 is not anywhere close to the price I would pay for a device like this, though.
Maybe I would be tempted, if it was being made by a scrappy startup with full open-source code and open-hardware design files. Like Ploopy, ClockworkPi, MNT, or my recent favorite: the Tangara. Then I might be tempted to support them at $400.
The Y Combinator, Silicon-Valley-esque website is actively off-putting though.
I can't believe they let the website go out with a font demo like that. I'm not even one of those people about fonts, but that display looked absolutely terrible.
I can't believe they let the website go out with a font demo like that. I'm not even one of those people about fonts, but that display looked absolutely terrible.
Oh man, that uConsole is one of the coolest looking bits of hardware I’ve seen in quite a while! I shouldn’t really be buying more random tech, but I kind of love it. The aesthetic has got me...
Oh man, that uConsole is one of the coolest looking bits of hardware I’ve seen in quite a while! I shouldn’t really be buying more random tech, but I kind of love it. The aesthetic has got me thinking maybe a home automation control that’ll let me pretend I’m in The Expanse…
Don’t suppose you have one/have any more thoughts on them? I hadn’t come across the company before.
I don't have one... yet. I'm personally waiting on the Compute Module 5 to release and to see if it could work in the uConsole (and whether it'll be officially supported). You can check their...
I don't have one... yet. I'm personally waiting on the Compute Module 5 to release and to see if it could work in the uConsole (and whether it'll be officially supported).
You can check their Discord channel for plenty of discussions about the hardware. They also have channels dedicated to collecting photos and videos of the devices. Stuff like reviews and how people are actually using them.
That makes a lot of sense! I did a little more reading after I commented and the CM5 crossed my mind too, so I probably should give it a couple of months and see where that goes. Cheers for the...
That makes a lot of sense! I did a little more reading after I commented and the CM5 crossed my mind too, so I probably should give it a couple of months and see where that goes.
Cheers for the discord link, I’ll be interested to take a proper look at that and see what people have been doing with the hardware.
I'm getting a real "moisture is the essence of wetness" vibe from their site, lol. I think they should pivot the messaging, or at least branch out a bit. Their specs mention most people don't need...
I'm getting a real "moisture is the essence of wetness" vibe from their site, lol. I think they should pivot the messaging, or at least branch out a bit. Their specs mention most people don't need to wear contacts or glasses to use these, and I could see that being a draw for the right crowd, like reading before bedtime, etc. $399 is pretty steep though.
I had to look the reference up (Zoolander, for anyone else), but I think you nailed it. This seems like it would be so isolating – I realize that is the point, but it doesn't seem like a benefit...
I had to look the reference up (Zoolander, for anyone else), but I think you nailed it.
This seems like it would be so isolating – I realize that is the point, but it doesn't seem like a benefit to me. If you're already alone, do you need to be totally shut away? And if you're not, this would make it even harder to interact with people around you.
If it was AR, so you could tune in the opacity for focus and then back to transparent to see the world, and it didn't make you look like an alien, I could see the benefits for travel by seamlessly context switching.
Maaaybe I would shell out for this for long airplane rides (paired with noise cancelling headphones) if I had to fly long flights all the time. But if you're flying that much, you probably have status for upgrades and it becomes a lot less necessary.
Maybe sometimes. I'll read on long travel stints but sometimes you get a little booked out, whether it's being tied and focusing or just too much for too long. In those cases I've definitely...
Maybe sometimes. I'll read on long travel stints but sometimes you get a little booked out, whether it's being tied and focusing or just too much for too long. In those cases I've definitely looked for opportunities to strike up a conversation to get a break, which you really can't do with something like this.
In general though, I've never really been distracted by things around me when I am intent on my reading, and I don't know that I would want to limit my awareness that much anywhere outside of my home.
It's not like these would have to be the only way you read. Sounds like you would be fine with using them in your home. Or if you do use them in public and get booked out...you can just take them...
It's not like these would have to be the only way you read. Sounds like you would be fine with using them in your home. Or if you do use them in public and get booked out...you can just take them off. And people will probably be ready to ask you what the hell you had on your face.
Well, I did lead with "maybe sometimes." I was simply expanding freedom your comment that people reading probably don't want to be distributed. Which is often, but not always true. And the part...
Well, I did lead with "maybe sometimes." I was simply expanding freedom your comment that people reading probably don't want to be distributed. Which is often, but not always true. And the part about situational awareness outside of the house is there regardless of interest in social interaction.
For the price it seems like a good fit for people who would use it fairly exclusively, or just have lots of money to burn.
Yeah, I think there is a niche perhaps but they need to shift their marketing to emphasize features like comfortable reading without glasses and contacts, portable, and relaxing. The whole...
Yeah, I think there is a niche perhaps but they need to shift their marketing to emphasize features like comfortable reading without glasses and contacts, portable, and relaxing. The whole illuminate your mind thing seems like trying to sell reading itself rather than sell a product to help you read.
I suspect they know that they need to sell a luxury lifestyle to be successful. If they don't, this will be super simple for a big company (Amazon) to duplicate and undercut. Any price they can...
I suspect they know that they need to sell a luxury lifestyle to be successful. If they don't, this will be super simple for a big company (Amazon) to duplicate and undercut. Any price they can afford, Amazon can afford lower. They need to sell a brand if they want to have any chance of surviving. Or at least I assume that's their logic.
I might use them on an airplane or as a passenger in a car, but not a bus, train, or cab. But only if they were free, I sure wouldn't shell out $400 for them.
I might use them on an airplane or as a passenger in a car, but not a bus, train, or cab. But only if they were free, I sure wouldn't shell out $400 for them.
Who greenlit this concept? The POV must be soo weird, Lol I don't exactly imagine that as a disconnect from the digital age lol. Edit: Yes, truly disconnected, especially with the blocky font
Who greenlit this concept?
The POV must be soo weird, like looking at a book through a magnifying glass? Lol
designed to stand out from the digital age with the warmth and texture of E Ink.
I don't exactly imagine that as a disconnect from the digital age lol.
Edit:
Yes, truly disconnected, especially with the blocky font
Apparently the font looks much better in real life: https://nitter.poast.org/johnboiles/status/1715136868290081104 Backup image links in case the one above doesn't work: one two three four
Apparently the font looks much better in real life:
Random thought but, looking at these photos again: They look like texts from an old book. I have a few books from the 1800s, and they all have that weird effect where it looks like little bits of...
Random thought but, looking at these photos again:
They look like texts from an old book. I have a few books from the 1800s, and they all have that weird effect where it looks like little bits of the ink of each letter are missing. Like they're slowly fading away from age. (Honestly, they probably are. I've been meaning to donate my old books for years now, especially since a few of them don't seem to have been digitized yet. I should get on that.)
I don't think it was intentional, but the display on this device gives that "reading an old book" vibe.
That does looks significantly better than the website. I wonder if that was just a font choice for the release images or maybe those were older prototype images.
That does looks significantly better than the website. I wonder if that was just a font choice for the release images or maybe those were older prototype images.
My theory is: That's the actual font they're using, and that's how it actually renders on a normal digital/pixel-based display. But when the font is rendered on an e-ink display with its weird...
My theory is:
That's the actual font they're using, and that's how it actually renders on a normal digital/pixel-based display.
But when the font is rendered on an e-ink display with its weird technology, the font renders out much better and normal looking.
I'm assuming the blocky font is a limitation of the screen resolution. Unfortunate because it's a strong reminder that you're looking at a digital screen. It also invokes a sense of cheapness in...
I'm assuming the blocky font is a limitation of the screen resolution. Unfortunate because it's a strong reminder that you're looking at a digital screen. It also invokes a sense of cheapness in the device.
At a $400 price point, the screen should have a high enough resolution to support multiple font options that ship natively. Perhaps there's a limitation in ereader displays as a whole. I'm not familiar enough with the current offerings.
After posting about the Minimal Phone a week or so ago, I wanted to post something more out there using an eink display in an experimental way. This caught my attention, and I thought it might be...
After posting about the Minimal Phone a week or so ago, I wanted to post something more out there using an eink display in an experimental way. This caught my attention, and I thought it might be of interest to some of the regulars.
I'd love a way to read without holding a book or device and in a way that helps me focus without distractions. This looks like a product I'd actually want, if I trusted that I could read my whole...
I'd love a way to read without holding a book or device and in a way that helps me focus without distractions. This looks like a product I'd actually want, if I trusted that I could read my whole digital library on it and that the UX would be painless. It looks like neither of those is true, though. For starters, the website is absolutely awful, both in design and in actually giving me the information I need to know if I want to consider buying this product. I had to turn to the FAQ and tech specs pages to get answers (some of them very vague) to very basic questions that should have been answered on the product page itself.
Here are my concerns:
Your current library can only be transferred if the books are in DRM-free EPUB form (no mention of any other formats supported). This rules out Kindle books, books with DRM from other storefronts, and probably library books.
The process for putting your books on the device is through their website or email, to "your account". No mention of being able to transfer locally over USB.
No wait hold on, I found this page, https://solreader.com/app, that apparently gives an option for USB transfer, but only by downloading an app for Windows or Mac (which versions of these OSes? no idea) rather than simply using your file explorer (or, say, Calibre). Also, I only found this page through an external search engine, can't figure out how one gets to it from within the website.
The "your account" mentioned seems to be either a Google or Apple account, which I found out by looking at the page you're supposed to use for transferring your own books to the device: https://add.solreader.com/ (It gives me an option to sign in to either; I don't know how it looks to someone already signed in to one of them.)
"Otherwise," the website says, "our app marketplace has you covered for most books you'll want to read, and makes buying and managing content a breeze." No further details given. So those are your two options for reading books, which I'll remind you is the sole purpose of this device. Your own files of a specific nature, or books purchased through them with unspecified availability.
Attempting to wring information from their website is frustrating and everything I found was a mark in the Cons column. I don't want to have to interface with my e-reader through an app or account or any way that involves connecting to a server. I couldn't find their "marketplace" anywhere to get an idea of what books they even stock, and I'm wondering if their app is just a frontend to purchase books from Google or Apple, but it really doesn't say. (Do Google and Apple even let other apps do that?)
Also, the website claims in two places I could find that the reader comes in four color variants, but the only one that is available to purchase is the limited edition black and gold. It's also super unclear whether you're purchasing the reader only or the "limited edition bundle". The bundle is showcased partway down the product page, but when you click the only "Add to Cart" button available, it appears to only add the reader.
All of this seems very poorly implemented and I have basically zero trust in this product to actually deliver a good experience.
As someone who works with VR for their day job, VR (outside of games) is already a solution in search of a problem. Nobody's really hit it off yet because nobody's found a critical problem that VR...
As someone who works with VR for their day job, VR (outside of games) is already a solution in search of a problem. Nobody's really hit it off yet because nobody's found a critical problem that VR solves that isn't already addressed by other easier to use or cheaper options.
That goes double for this thing. This will appeal to a certain niche of people who will enjoy this, but broadly this is absolutely a solution in search of a problem.
I'm not sure that e-ink is the right display tech for this, at least for how I'd use such a device. One of the main advantages of e-ink is that it's not backlit and instead depends on...
I'm not sure that e-ink is the right display tech for this, at least for how I'd use such a device.
One of the main advantages of e-ink is that it's not backlit and instead depends on environmental lighting for readability. This is particularly important for e.g. before bed reading, where staring at a relatively intense light source might interfere with sleep in the hours following.
In this case, it would seem to me that those advantages are nullified since the displays are right up against your eyes, meaning you have no choice but to depend on the device's backlighting, resulting in the majority of one's field of vision being filled with a relatively bright image.
OLED panels with the system rendering text in light-on-dark might actually make more sense here. With the background being inky OLED black and only the lettering emitting, light emissions are minimized, and because you're wearing glasses which reduce ingress of outside light, the brightness of the lettering can be very low minimizing them even further. OLED panels have better pixel density at these sizes too, which should fix the aliased font problem.
Just a heads up that this device is front lit, like all normal ereaders are right now. It's very different to a backlit screen and keeps the reflective feel and "softness" of eink. I assume the...
Just a heads up that this device is front lit, like all normal ereaders are right now. It's very different to a backlit screen and keeps the reflective feel and "softness" of eink. I assume the solreader lets you control the light brightness, so it doesn't have to be disruptively bright.
That's good, but I still have concerns related to field of vision and apparent brightness. It's entirely ungrounded, but my inclination is that having such a large chunk of it filled with a light...
That's good, but I still have concerns related to field of vision and apparent brightness. It's entirely ungrounded, but my inclination is that having such a large chunk of it filled with a light source (even front-lit) might push some of the same brain-buttons as being in a room with a substantial amount of daylight spilling in.
I get why people are down on this, but I honestly think it’s kind of cool. Feels like a Playdate for readers. If it were cheaper (and if it had cross-device cloud sync) I would consider getting one.
I get why people are down on this, but I honestly think it’s kind of cool. Feels like a Playdate for readers.
I want it, if I'm being honest. I want it to succeed and get better. I wouldn't be surprised if I caved by the end of the year and bought one, even, because the two things I hate about reading are...
I want it, if I'm being honest. I want it to succeed and get better. I wouldn't be surprised if I caved by the end of the year and bought one, even, because the two things I hate about reading are holding the book and lighting my room up to read. For a unique ereader concept I don't think the price is bad (look at the Boox line of tablets).
It feels like V1 of the concept, which it is. If the eink display were higher res it would probably be fine, but here we are. I think V2 will learn a ton from this.
A normal ereader will solve your second issue, I've been reading in unlit rooms at night for many years. Frontlighting is pleasant to read on and turned down is non-disruptive to other room users...
A normal ereader will solve your second issue, I've been reading in unlit rooms at night for many years. Frontlighting is pleasant to read on and turned down is non-disruptive to other room users who might be sleeping or doing other stuff. Also a current-gen 6 inch reader will come in around 150g and doesn't need holding open - which is less trouble to hold than most paper books (and that is main reason I read exclusively electronically).
The problem is that whatever else they might improve with better lenses and software or whatever - for v2 of this to be good, it really needs higher pixel density and nobody is making high pixel density epaper. E Ink Corp displays have been stuck at 300ppi since 2014 because it's enough. Reading just doesn't need more than that. Waveshare make some other displays but they're mostly for price tags and higher resolution doesn't matter there either. So the tech is unlikely to exist to make this thing suitable for such close-range use.
You could buy two Pocketbook Verse ereaders (runs linux, reads everything) for the price of a solreader and still have enough change to buy a device to hold them for you while you read (in the dark).
I've been reading in bed on phone screens for many years, with Dark Mode light-on-black text. Since the advent of OLED screens, and the current ~500 DPI resolutions, I find it a more convenient...
I've been reading in bed on phone screens for many years, with Dark Mode light-on-black text. Since the advent of OLED screens, and the current ~500 DPI resolutions, I find it a more convenient and compelling reading experience than e-ink devices. A PopSocket keeps it easy to hold. There's very little "lighting up the room" effect. My near vision is fine, so I don't have to wear glasses if I'm holding it six inches from my face. It's also one fewer device to keep track of.
Admittedly, I've dropped my phone on my face a few times (ouch), and the battery life isn't great.
It's interesting. On one hand I could see this being a product I might use. I think in practice I would end up falling asleep while reading, having the remote slip from my hand, and then spend...
It's interesting. On one hand I could see this being a product I might use. I think in practice I would end up falling asleep while reading, having the remote slip from my hand, and then spend several minutes each morning finding the remote. I read before going to bed each night and already have a tough time staying awake. I purposefully sit in bed in ways that are less comfortable so that I can read longer.
I’m really struggling to imagine a use case for this that isn’t “my bedmate goes to sleep later than me and doesn’t like me having the light on.” And as the unfortunate night owl bedmate, I still...
I’m really struggling to imagine a use case for this that isn’t “my bedmate goes to sleep later than me and doesn’t like me having the light on.” And as the unfortunate night owl bedmate, I still don’t see myself wanting to read this way.
I did not want to just leave a snarky response, looked at it through and through, thought maybe I'm missing something and it's providing an experience that's hard to describe. But no, it's ten...
I did not want to just leave a snarky response, looked at it through and through, thought maybe I'm missing something and it's providing an experience that's hard to describe.
But no, it's ten minutes later and this thing still looks positively idiotic.
So the original PSVR (the only headset I've spent much time in) had an almost 400ppi screen and when static, images suffered from a noticeable screen door effect. Text was often pretty blurry. The...
So the original PSVR (the only headset I've spent much time in) had an almost 400ppi screen and when static, images suffered from a noticeable screen door effect. Text was often pretty blurry. The best eink display right now is only 300ppi and will likely look like complete junk at this range. For comfortable text reading on a VR-like device I'd want to see 800ppi at a minimum, ideally more. That technology does not, as far as I know, exist.
From the supposedly "looks much better" images from twitter it still looks awful.
It's not a terrible idea by any means but it appears to be a pretty bad implementation.
The Vision Pro has 3,000+ PPI and I can still see the pixels sometimes. When something is an inch from your eyes, you need absolutely incredible pixel density to look “real”.
The Vision Pro has 3,000+ PPI and I can still see the pixels sometimes. When something is an inch from your eyes, you need absolutely incredible pixel density to look “real”.
To be fair, e-ink pixels look completely different than pixels of various normal display technologies, so it won't look nearly that bad. But it's still incredibly low-res for this use case of course.
To be fair, e-ink pixels look completely different than pixels of various normal display technologies, so it won't look nearly that bad. But it's still incredibly low-res for this use case of course.
I don't have anything constructive to offer, admittedly, but the design sure brings new meaning to the term "reading glasses", doesn't it? I'm also going to say, too many people want to read but...
I don't have anything constructive to offer, admittedly, but the design sure brings new meaning to the term "reading glasses", doesn't it?
I'm also going to say, too many people want to read but have difficulty, and reading is on the decline. If this helps alleviate that, good. I'm not sure the price means it will, but first generation is always a hard sell.
Like the core idea, am immediately put off whenever a website for a product spends more time on fancy images of it rather than the ACTUAL FUNCTIONALITY. I know that works shockingly well but it's...
Like the core idea, am immediately put off whenever a website for a product spends more time on fancy images of it rather than the ACTUAL FUNCTIONALITY.
I know that works shockingly well but it's also a pretty large red flag for questionable quality. I certainly wouldn't touch anything like this until I can get some post sale reviews from people who have used the tech.
yeah it's true, although i am pretty convinced (based on my own experiences) that people who don't like audiobooks should try audiobooks at 2x (and eventually much faster) speed. there's a world...
yeah it's true, although i am pretty convinced (based on my own experiences) that people who don't like audiobooks should try audiobooks at 2x (and eventually much faster) speed. there's a world of difference between listening to an audiobook at a snail's pace and listening to an audiobook faster than you read visually
The response to this elsewhere on the internet has been pretty negative, and I sort of get why. $400 is a lot of money for something like this. The website is filled with very generic tech startup gobbledygook, and gives the impression the display uses a harsh pixel font for text (even though it apparently looks much better in-person).
Having said all that, I actually really like the idea of having glasses I could wear to read a book, rather than having to hold a physical book or some reading device all the time. There are so many comfortable ways I could sit and lay or even stand while reading with glasses like these that would never be comfortable while having to hold a book.
$400 is not anywhere close to the price I would pay for a device like this, though.
Maybe I would be tempted, if it was being made by a scrappy startup with full open-source code and open-hardware design files. Like Ploopy, ClockworkPi, MNT, or my recent favorite: the Tangara. Then I might be tempted to support them at $400.
The Y Combinator, Silicon-Valley-esque website is actively off-putting though.
I can't believe they let the website go out with a font demo like that. I'm not even one of those people about fonts, but that display looked absolutely terrible.
Oh man, that uConsole is one of the coolest looking bits of hardware I’ve seen in quite a while! I shouldn’t really be buying more random tech, but I kind of love it. The aesthetic has got me thinking maybe a home automation control that’ll let me pretend I’m in The Expanse…
Don’t suppose you have one/have any more thoughts on them? I hadn’t come across the company before.
I don't have one... yet. I'm personally waiting on the Compute Module 5 to release and to see if it could work in the uConsole (and whether it'll be officially supported).
You can check their Discord channel for plenty of discussions about the hardware. They also have channels dedicated to collecting photos and videos of the devices. Stuff like reviews and how people are actually using them.
That makes a lot of sense! I did a little more reading after I commented and the CM5 crossed my mind too, so I probably should give it a couple of months and see where that goes.
Cheers for the discord link, I’ll be interested to take a proper look at that and see what people have been doing with the hardware.
I'm getting a real "moisture is the essence of wetness" vibe from their site, lol. I think they should pivot the messaging, or at least branch out a bit. Their specs mention most people don't need to wear contacts or glasses to use these, and I could see that being a draw for the right crowd, like reading before bedtime, etc. $399 is pretty steep though.
I had to look the reference up (Zoolander, for anyone else), but I think you nailed it.
This seems like it would be so isolating – I realize that is the point, but it doesn't seem like a benefit to me. If you're already alone, do you need to be totally shut away? And if you're not, this would make it even harder to interact with people around you.
If it was AR, so you could tune in the opacity for focus and then back to transparent to see the world, and it didn't make you look like an alien, I could see the benefits for travel by seamlessly context switching.
Maaaybe I would shell out for this for long airplane rides (paired with noise cancelling headphones) if I had to fly long flights all the time. But if you're flying that much, you probably have status for upgrades and it becomes a lot less necessary.
I mean...I think that's the point. If you're reading, you probably don't want constant interruptions.
Maybe sometimes. I'll read on long travel stints but sometimes you get a little booked out, whether it's being tied and focusing or just too much for too long. In those cases I've definitely looked for opportunities to strike up a conversation to get a break, which you really can't do with something like this.
In general though, I've never really been distracted by things around me when I am intent on my reading, and I don't know that I would want to limit my awareness that much anywhere outside of my home.
It's not like these would have to be the only way you read. Sounds like you would be fine with using them in your home. Or if you do use them in public and get booked out...you can just take them off. And people will probably be ready to ask you what the hell you had on your face.
Well, I did lead with "maybe sometimes." I was simply expanding freedom your comment that people reading probably don't want to be distributed. Which is often, but not always true. And the part about situational awareness outside of the house is there regardless of interest in social interaction.
For the price it seems like a good fit for people who would use it fairly exclusively, or just have lots of money to burn.
Yeah, the price is pretty high. I'm not trying to defend the product; I just think the arguments dismissing the design are a bit myopic.
Yeah, I think there is a niche perhaps but they need to shift their marketing to emphasize features like comfortable reading without glasses and contacts, portable, and relaxing. The whole illuminate your mind thing seems like trying to sell reading itself rather than sell a product to help you read.
I suspect they know that they need to sell a luxury lifestyle to be successful. If they don't, this will be super simple for a big company (Amazon) to duplicate and undercut. Any price they can afford, Amazon can afford lower. They need to sell a brand if they want to have any chance of surviving. Or at least I assume that's their logic.
Call me paranoid but I'm not blacking out my eyes and peripheral vision while traveling.
I might use them on an airplane or as a passenger in a car, but not a bus, train, or cab. But only if they were free, I sure wouldn't shell out $400 for them.
Who greenlit this concept?
The POV must be soo weird,
like looking at a book through a magnifying glass?LolI don't exactly imagine that as a disconnect from the digital age lol.
Edit:
Yes, truly disconnected, especially with the blocky font
Apparently the font looks much better in real life:
https://nitter.poast.org/johnboiles/status/1715136868290081104
Backup image links in case the one above doesn't work: one two three four
Random thought but, looking at these photos again:
They look like texts from an old book. I have a few books from the 1800s, and they all have that weird effect where it looks like little bits of the ink of each letter are missing. Like they're slowly fading away from age. (Honestly, they probably are. I've been meaning to donate my old books for years now, especially since a few of them don't seem to have been digitized yet. I should get on that.)
I don't think it was intentional, but the display on this device gives that "reading an old book" vibe.
That does looks significantly better than the website. I wonder if that was just a font choice for the release images or maybe those were older prototype images.
My theory is:
That's the actual font they're using, and that's how it actually renders on a normal digital/pixel-based display.
But when the font is rendered on an e-ink display with its weird technology, the font renders out much better and normal looking.
I'm assuming the blocky font is a limitation of the screen resolution. Unfortunate because it's a strong reminder that you're looking at a digital screen. It also invokes a sense of cheapness in the device.
At a $400 price point, the screen should have a high enough resolution to support multiple font options that ship natively. Perhaps there's a limitation in ereader displays as a whole. I'm not familiar enough with the current offerings.
It really reminds me of the font used in the old Lucasarts point and click adventure games, a la Secret of Monkey Island
After posting about the Minimal Phone a week or so ago, I wanted to post something more out there using an eink display in an experimental way. This caught my attention, and I thought it might be of interest to some of the regulars.
I'd love a way to read without holding a book or device and in a way that helps me focus without distractions. This looks like a product I'd actually want, if I trusted that I could read my whole digital library on it and that the UX would be painless. It looks like neither of those is true, though. For starters, the website is absolutely awful, both in design and in actually giving me the information I need to know if I want to consider buying this product. I had to turn to the FAQ and tech specs pages to get answers (some of them very vague) to very basic questions that should have been answered on the product page itself.
Here are my concerns:
Attempting to wring information from their website is frustrating and everything I found was a mark in the Cons column. I don't want to have to interface with my e-reader through an app or account or any way that involves connecting to a server. I couldn't find their "marketplace" anywhere to get an idea of what books they even stock, and I'm wondering if their app is just a frontend to purchase books from Google or Apple, but it really doesn't say. (Do Google and Apple even let other apps do that?)
Also, the website claims in two places I could find that the reader comes in four color variants, but the only one that is available to purchase is the limited edition black and gold. It's also super unclear whether you're purchasing the reader only or the "limited edition bundle". The bundle is showcased partway down the product page, but when you click the only "Add to Cart" button available, it appears to only add the reader.
All of this seems very poorly implemented and I have basically zero trust in this product to actually deliver a good experience.
As someone who works with VR for their day job, VR (outside of games) is already a solution in search of a problem. Nobody's really hit it off yet because nobody's found a critical problem that VR solves that isn't already addressed by other easier to use or cheaper options.
That goes double for this thing. This will appeal to a certain niche of people who will enjoy this, but broadly this is absolutely a solution in search of a problem.
I'm not sure that e-ink is the right display tech for this, at least for how I'd use such a device.
One of the main advantages of e-ink is that it's not backlit and instead depends on environmental lighting for readability. This is particularly important for e.g. before bed reading, where staring at a relatively intense light source might interfere with sleep in the hours following.
In this case, it would seem to me that those advantages are nullified since the displays are right up against your eyes, meaning you have no choice but to depend on the device's backlighting, resulting in the majority of one's field of vision being filled with a relatively bright image.
OLED panels with the system rendering text in light-on-dark might actually make more sense here. With the background being inky OLED black and only the lettering emitting, light emissions are minimized, and because you're wearing glasses which reduce ingress of outside light, the brightness of the lettering can be very low minimizing them even further. OLED panels have better pixel density at these sizes too, which should fix the aliased font problem.
Just a heads up that this device is front lit, like all normal ereaders are right now. It's very different to a backlit screen and keeps the reflective feel and "softness" of eink. I assume the solreader lets you control the light brightness, so it doesn't have to be disruptively bright.
That's good, but I still have concerns related to field of vision and apparent brightness. It's entirely ungrounded, but my inclination is that having such a large chunk of it filled with a light source (even front-lit) might push some of the same brain-buttons as being in a room with a substantial amount of daylight spilling in.
I get why people are down on this, but I honestly think it’s kind of cool. Feels like a Playdate for readers.
If it were cheaper (and if it had cross-device cloud sync) I would consider getting one.
I want it, if I'm being honest. I want it to succeed and get better. I wouldn't be surprised if I caved by the end of the year and bought one, even, because the two things I hate about reading are holding the book and lighting my room up to read. For a unique ereader concept I don't think the price is bad (look at the Boox line of tablets).
It feels like V1 of the concept, which it is. If the eink display were higher res it would probably be fine, but here we are. I think V2 will learn a ton from this.
A normal ereader will solve your second issue, I've been reading in unlit rooms at night for many years. Frontlighting is pleasant to read on and turned down is non-disruptive to other room users who might be sleeping or doing other stuff. Also a current-gen 6 inch reader will come in around 150g and doesn't need holding open - which is less trouble to hold than most paper books (and that is main reason I read exclusively electronically).
The problem is that whatever else they might improve with better lenses and software or whatever - for v2 of this to be good, it really needs higher pixel density and nobody is making high pixel density epaper. E Ink Corp displays have been stuck at 300ppi since 2014 because it's enough. Reading just doesn't need more than that. Waveshare make some other displays but they're mostly for price tags and higher resolution doesn't matter there either. So the tech is unlikely to exist to make this thing suitable for such close-range use.
You could buy two Pocketbook Verse ereaders (runs linux, reads everything) for the price of a solreader and still have enough change to buy a device to hold them for you while you read (in the dark).
I've been reading in bed on phone screens for many years, with Dark Mode light-on-black text. Since the advent of OLED screens, and the current ~500 DPI resolutions, I find it a more convenient and compelling reading experience than e-ink devices. A PopSocket keeps it easy to hold. There's very little "lighting up the room" effect. My near vision is fine, so I don't have to wear glasses if I'm holding it six inches from my face. It's also one fewer device to keep track of.
Admittedly, I've dropped my phone on my face a few times (ouch), and the battery life isn't great.
It's interesting. On one hand I could see this being a product I might use. I think in practice I would end up falling asleep while reading, having the remote slip from my hand, and then spend several minutes each morning finding the remote. I read before going to bed each night and already have a tough time staying awake. I purposefully sit in bed in ways that are less comfortable so that I can read longer.
I’m really struggling to imagine a use case for this that isn’t “my bedmate goes to sleep later than me and doesn’t like me having the light on.” And as the unfortunate night owl bedmate, I still don’t see myself wanting to read this way.
I did not want to just leave a snarky response, looked at it through and through, thought maybe I'm missing something and it's providing an experience that's hard to describe.
But no, it's ten minutes later and this thing still looks positively idiotic.
So the original PSVR (the only headset I've spent much time in) had an almost 400ppi screen and when static, images suffered from a noticeable screen door effect. Text was often pretty blurry. The best eink display right now is only 300ppi and will likely look like complete junk at this range. For comfortable text reading on a VR-like device I'd want to see 800ppi at a minimum, ideally more. That technology does not, as far as I know, exist.
From the supposedly "looks much better" images from twitter it still looks awful.
It's not a terrible idea by any means but it appears to be a pretty bad implementation.
The Vision Pro has 3,000+ PPI and I can still see the pixels sometimes. When something is an inch from your eyes, you need absolutely incredible pixel density to look “real”.
To be fair, e-ink pixels look completely different than pixels of various normal display technologies, so it won't look nearly that bad. But it's still incredibly low-res for this use case of course.
I don't have anything constructive to offer, admittedly, but the design sure brings new meaning to the term "reading glasses", doesn't it?
I'm also going to say, too many people want to read but have difficulty, and reading is on the decline. If this helps alleviate that, good. I'm not sure the price means it will, but first generation is always a hard sell.
Like the core idea, am immediately put off whenever a website for a product spends more time on fancy images of it rather than the ACTUAL FUNCTIONALITY.
I know that works shockingly well but it's also a pretty large red flag for questionable quality. I certainly wouldn't touch anything like this until I can get some post sale reviews from people who have used the tech.
If audiobooks didn't exist this might be cool, but audiobooks exist
Some people don't like audio books though. I do think they're distinct markets for some people.
yeah it's true, although i am pretty convinced (based on my own experiences) that people who don't like audiobooks should try audiobooks at 2x (and eventually much faster) speed. there's a world of difference between listening to an audiobook at a snail's pace and listening to an audiobook faster than you read visually
Whatever use case they're targeting with this is already better served by audiobooks.