I got a Kindle Paperwhite for ~$100 in 2016 and still use it almost every day. Easily the best value gadget I have ever owned.
I removed the 3G modem when I replaced the battery to prevent it from being turned on and draining the battery as it constantly tries to connect. The microusb port is not in great condition and only works with the cable at certain angles. On the bright side, that's only an issue every few weeks when it gets charged and a new load of books.
My wife has the newest basic Kindle because she prizes light weight over any other aspect.
On whether $100 is incredibly cheap/"chump change": It really is incredibly cheap, especially for a new electronic device you can use for thousands of hours over 9 years. That's not the same as a claim it's an easy expense for every person, if we become bound by that definition of cheap then there is no such price which everyone can easily afford and we lose the distinction. On that note, I often wonder if it's cheaper for libraries to just rent out ereaders than manage more physical book storage and exchange. I know my local library already does rentals but I'm not sure of the economics.
Once the market is saturated, you can't rely on selling more devices, even at lower prices. Companies have to turn to extracting more money from existing customers, like subscriptions and services.
Where's GPT5 anyway? Isn't that supposed to be out by now? Sorry, that's not super relevant..
I'm curious how much you think an e-reader should cost?
Let's say the BOM for a bargain-bin e-reader is ~$65: e-ink display (~$25), mainboard (~$15), touchscreen and/or buttons (~$7), radios (~$3), battery (~$3), case (~$3), assembly (~$6), packaging (~$3). Forget about a charging cable. Then you've got to iron out the drivers and software, provide support, handle returns (which will be higher if you cheap out on materials) and turn a profit (assuming you're not Amazon). Let's say you charge ~1.5x BOM, now your product is ~$98.
Maybe you "borrow" your software and hardware designs from a competitor. Maybe you're willing to continuously change your company name so you can purchase low-quality parts without having to accept returns. Maybe you ask suppliers for a discount because you just know you're going to have enormous economies of scale and you're somehow more convincing than every other company (that isn't Amazon) asking for the same discount.
You do all of the above so you can sell your new e-reader for the insanely low price of $80. Will you move enough units for all that to be worth it? Are there really that many customers who would buy your $80 no-name e-reader instead of a second-hand Kindle?
BOM for a color eink about 35$ all together for a mass produced quantity of one, delivered anywhere (until tariffs).
Assumed quantity of customers, millions? Its so cheap that governments could give it out to schools, one eink ebook per child, cheaper than one year's worth of school books anyway.
Assuming it's that simple, do you have an alternate theory as to why e-readers in this range are not more common?
I definitely agree that selling hardware at cost (or at a loss) in the hopes of turning a profit off of content sales is an extremely risky strategy. Many companies try that approach, few succeed.
But if you price it like a typical consumer product and sell it for ~1.5 * BOM (i.e. ~$50 retail price on $35 BOM) then you don't need anyone to buy books because you can survive off the profit from the hardware alone. And because I believe that a $50 ereader would sell well, I don't know why they are not more common if it really is possible to build and assemble a mass-market ereader with a $35 BOM as the prior poster claimed.
Most of the rest of your calculations mostly make sense.
I think rising consumer expectations soak up a lot of that -- you could make the main board and other components a third the price if you're satisfied with mid-2000s specs e.g. 200MB storage, slow page turns, bundled radios, no touchscreen, no PDF support, etc.
At some point the raw materials cost (which generally aren't getting much cheaper) becomes a major factor and that's harder to cut without a new approach.
Eink screen aside, it may be that we're just nearing the limits with current manufacturing approaches and that the next leap requires a wildly different approach.
A comparable entry-level model (Kobo Clara BW) today is €149 - 12% cheaper. It's also now waterproof and does bluetooth audio.
It's a niche product that doesn't really benefit much from economies of scale (think eInk displays of that size). I don't think anyone is getting ripped off here.
This progress will likely slow, patents will expire and then maybe prices will fall. But $100 for a device that will last you years seems okay.
And I've never seen anything on the market that even competes with my first reader that I brought around 2010.
Those things seem to be getting constantly more expensive, with the "cheapest price" being maintained by launching smaller models. All while constantly getting lower contrasts and less oriented towards offline usage.
Kindle is a similar story, although some value the physical keyboard and 3G.
And what smaller models? Most eReaders have been 6" since the days of the Sony Librie. Recently we have had explosion of larger readers too.
Now granted, the color models don't have the best contrast, but I'm pretty sure a modern Carta 1300 BW reader will be superior to your what 8 year old Carta HD reader, even with extra layers.
> Most eReaders have been 6" since the days of the Sony Librie.
7" readers were common when I brought my current one, but nowadays there are only 6" ones out there. A bit before I brought mine, there existed 8" ones, and Amazon launched an interesting A4 sized one.
7 and 8" inch devices very much still exist. Kobo has the 7" Libra Colour and the 8" Sage. Amazon also moved the popular Paperwhite line from a 6" device to 7". Pocketbook has 7 and 8" readers. 7" only got MORE common if anything. Six inches was the most common eInk size for a long time.
You can still get big format devices with notetaking. Now the big brands like Amazon and Kobo have them in addition to smaller players like Boox or Meebook.
There are still large format paper devices. Kobo Elipsa 2E for $350, Remarkable 2 for a touch more, etc etc. They're not sold as ebook readers, but you can read books on them fine.
Still to this day, people will say that the Kindle Voyage still has the best screen of an e-ink device and well it came out just over 10 years ago.
The inflation is staggering.
Anyone else remember the $6 Burger from Carl's? It didn't cost $6 at first, it cost like $3, and was aimed at "expensive restaurant burgers" They discontinued the Burger when tbe Burger itself cost $6 a LA carte.
A $6 burger now is a steal
And yes, we have kind of a restaurant death spiral because it is expensive to eat out.
What? They are cheaper. Costing the same now that they did 10 years ago is a price drop of 25%.
It's mostly because I like owning a more portable file.
Also a paper book you'd carry every day with you for a year will look in much worse state than a Kindle.
Reading e-books is an affordable past time...
Which/why did they remove the book?
[0] https://www.npr.org/2009/07/24/106989048/amazons-1984-deleti...
The irony that it was Orwell’s 1984 that was secretly removed from purchasers’ kindles seem to have been totally lost on Amazon.
Generally not a big fan of Amazon-world, but if you don't mind reading older books kindle is good value I think. My 30pence copy of Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" was very good value, and has not yet mysteriously disappeared from my Kindles!
Infuriates me when the paperback is $4-5 cheaper than the ebook, henchman’s exactly uncommon.
I think I'm on my third now, and while I kinda begrudge buying new ones the paper-white I've got now, with backlight, is such a pleasure to use I can almost forgive it.
It's the best gadget I've ever bought.
The new one is a lot faster.
Not to mention that you can just buy an old generation, or used/refurbished, if you want cheaper than that.
That said, I am very happy with my Supernote Nomad as an e-reader as well (it is a note taking device, but runs the Kindle Android app) even if it is completely out of the price range the OP discusses.
Nine years ago, I bought a Kindle Paperwhite 3 for $259.49. It still works. It still does just one job—and does it really well. Unlike many other devices, I'm not tempted (or pushed) to get a new one every few years.
Apart from reading books, I send longer articles (using https://www.pushtokindle.com/) to read on eink, in a distraction-free, eye-friendly mode.
However, what does bother me is that eink displays are expensive in general. I had considered getting a few for my home, for dashboards (e.g., my quantified self health stats) and my favorite web strips. But these are really expensive. And, in this scenario, I'd ideally want to have more than just one display.
I had an old Kindle with a keyboard, which I got with the official jacket-and-booklight accessory.
It was great. One day years later I let it update and it got a lot worse.
I also got a Kindle Oasis. There is no booklight option. You're supposed to use the built-in frontlighting, which is so bad that I never use the device at all.
Though the models with ads (basically all of them) do track impressions of all the ad placements around the device, which includes the lockscreen (the display shows ads when it's in sleep mode, both before and after you press the power button), and a banner on the home page.
* - Amazon removed the ability to download books from them to put on your Kindle, but the new ones do still have a USB drive mode
I also wanted to switch to epub format.
You may have just had a cable without functioning data lines.
[1] after the very first time when setting up the account
Reading habits and library
Political leanings
Other associated metadata that may do more to link that device to your overall advertising profile and help deanonymize you for other data brokers.
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/SAEF-2-13-Inch-High-R...
I'd bet Amazon would be pretty willing to give away kindles that only work with a prime subscription.
That hasn’t been true for a very long time? Unless by "technical" you mean sending an email with the file in question attached. E-Book platforms sometimes even directly support sending that mail.
> Other than Kobo and Amazon, no book retailer
… in the UK. From what I’ve heard, Tolino devices are decently popular in Germany, they are made by an alliance of booksellers.
Amazon isn't winning because it's the least expensive, it's winning because it's the easiest. They have a huge selection and one click to buy a book that shows up on all your devices without having to do anything more is where the bar is. If you ask people to manage their own books or expect them to understand what an epub or pdf or azw is (never mind encryption!) you are limiting your market to a pretty small slice.
I believe you, and I'm sad about this. I had hoped as the Internet grew in importance, the proportion of people with basic computer skills would increase.
I think electricity offers a useful analog. Today is ubiquitous and relied upon by almost everyone in the world. Yet I would bet that the percentage of people who have a good understanding of amps, volts, etc. is roughly the same as it was 200 years ago.
Again, I would compare it to electricity. There’s all sorts of possible futures from its invention, but in each one, I think the pattern would be the same – an initial rise in understanding and awareness as people learn about the new thing, and cope with early limitations, followed by a decline back to near zero as it becomes infrastructure.
To be clear, this saddens me too. I’m not saying this is good necessarily, only that I think it’s inevitable. When I was younger, I was so certain that computers would change the world, and that this change would involve more people discovering the beauty that I had discovered within the machine. Several decades on, I believe that I was mistaken. There is still beauty in there for those who are interested, but most are not, and never will be. It’s just a tool, it’s just infrastructure, that either works or doesn’t.
The list of things they should know about computers is quite a bit longer because computers are more complex. A rudimentary understanding of files, directories and email attachments would make my list.
"Should"?
Almost every device I have, there's a bit that goes in the wall, and a bit that goes in the device. If it fits in the wall, it's meant to cope with the voltage in the wall. If it fits in the device, it's meant to supply the voltage the device can cope with.
That the bit in the middle for most of my devices is a modern miracle of semiconductors which contains a CPU more powerful than my first four or so home computers and games consoles to automatically negotiate* voltage and current, is cool, but not what I'd call a "should know".
> and that thin extension cords might not be safe with an appliance that has a large motor or heating element.
I didn't even think about that and I do know what amps and volts are — reason being, I assume that anything I buy in a store for general use is suitable for general use unless specified otherwise.
* e.g. but not only: https://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surp...
That's not a safe thing to assume, or at least, the way it's specified otherwise is with a current rating.
I had to work at it a bit to find one on Amazon; a search for "lamp extension cord" led me to the sort of thing I'm talking about[0]. These do show up in retail stores, especially low-cost stores (e.g. dollar stores, but I wouldn't be shocked to find one at a Walmart). This cord is rated for 5A. A standard American household breaker is rated for 15A (and it's possible to encounter 20A). Plugging in a hair dryer, toaster oven, or space heater with this cord is a fire hazard.
I note the plug shown in a photo says 10A while the description says 5A. I don't know which is true.
So yes, should, because you can walk out of a retail store with a combination of electrical devices that will burn your house down when used in a way that would appear safe without that knowledge.
So, here's my equivalent: https://www.action.com/de-de/p/2520398/pro-max-verlangerungs...
Germany's mains is 230 volts, so the 3680 watt limit implies 16 amps.
Other than hard-wired things like the oven and heat pump, I'm not sure my house has even one single item that draws 3.7 kW…
I found an easy way to create an unsafe combination on German Amazon: a Europlug to IEC C8 cord into a C8 to C13 adapter. That's much harder to do by accident than the American version.
I have some concerns in this area related to outlet adapters, though.
The average person who drives a car, for example does not need to know that the stoichiometric ratio of air to gasoline is about 14.7:1, but they do need to know that their car will run worse if the air filter is clogged. They should probably also be able to change a tire, and have practiced it in the past decade.
Understanding computer fundamentals shouldn't be a specialty field when nearly everyone uses computers (smartphones included) every day in a way that would yield better results if they had some idea what they were doing.
But I guess lots of people treat their devices (in general: cars, computers, fridges...) just as black box appliances until they break. Probably I'm doing it with something I haven't noticed yet.
Case in point: several years ago my wife's car died while we were on a trip (fortunately we were close enough to home that we could get a ride back from family and have the car towed). When I took the car to the shop to fix, they informed me that the engine had seized, and that the most likely cause was that the oil hadn't been changed for too long. When I asked my wife when the last time was that she had changed the oil in her car, she said "I'm not sure but I think it was before we got married". That meant it had been at least 5 years since the oil was changed in that car!
I have always changed the oil in my car reasonably regularly (every 3000 miles, or whatever the oil is rated for). I never knew why, that was just what I was taught about how to maintain a car. My wife obviously didn't get that lesson from her parents (or didn't listen), and unfortunately the neglect of maintenance killed her car.
So it's a good to change oil every so often even if you don't do a lot of mileage. A year and a half or two might be OK (unless you're doing tens of thousands of miles a year), but five years... over the top, I think.
I just expend 150 a year on the yearly maintenance (oil and filter change, air filter, some other stuff...) and forget about it.
(Mind my English, not my first language and I might be butchering the car terminology)
If you tried to play games online in 1999 using Windows 98, it would break, and you would learn to fix it or you wouldn't play games anymore. Using Windows 7 in 2009, you'd probably have to know what compatibility mode is but it usually wouldn't break beyond that.
iPad kids just know "tap the square with the tiktok icon and swipe to make it go".
People still learn those things to manually install mods and cheats, but it represents a fairly small subset of the overall gamer crowd. And if you look at the kinds of questions people ask on Steam forums that are related to that, it's clear that many users today have no concept of file system at all.
So its not entirely black-and-white, but I agree that for a large portion of people they do indeed never need to care.
I needed to edit something for a tether, IIRC.
Combine this with the fact that corporations are locking down what you can do on work computers, and forcing everyone to save files in the cloud (Office365 / Sharepoint / etc).
And you end up with a world where owning a computer is a niche thing, and most people only use it in a limited way for work or gaming.
Also for me, Amazon is winning both because the paperwhite has incredible value, and (that’s the sadder part) because of KDP Select which gives a higher share in exchange for 100% exclusivity, so those books (which includes some authors I read; > 99% of the releases are very badly written trash, though) are not available elsewhere.
Attaching documents to an email is the one thing most people can actually do because without it you're unable to deal with your insurance, doctor, tax guy or what have you. In addition to web browsing it's the only thing my boomer parents with very few computer skills have figured out. You basically bureaucratically die otherwise in the modern world
The biggest issue is that most people probably don't know that Amazon even offers that feature, they I assume intentionally don't really advertise it much.
But, yes, Amazon is also deliberately vague regarding those emails. Most of their documentation presents it as a way to "keep your documents in your Kindle"; the fact that books are a subset of those documents is not exactly highlighted.
Took about 20 minutes to have it jailbroken and KOReader installed, I can now wirelessly copy over books from Calibre on my Mac to the kindle and don't have to touch amazons storefront at all.
Mine was £94 here: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4079659
Searching around for the pocketbook it's not sold in the UK but on their German store the cheapest model looks to be the 'Basic Lux 4 Ink Black' for €109 so seems the most price comparable.
The Kobo is more expensive though, the cheapest model is the Clara black & white edition and costs £129.99, at which point you may as well get a Kindle Paperwhite kids* as those are only £10 more.
*All kindle kids editions are the same as the non-kid versions, but come with a case, charger and extended warranty, there are no hardware or firmware differences.
I believe that stopped many years ago: https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/baen-books-can-no-l...
Its not difficult but I think a lot of non-technical users will have trouble with it:
That does suck indeed.
Pretty sure that, these days, Tolino devices are literally just Kobo hardware with Tolino firmware loaded onto them.
Which admittedly has made some of us regular Kobo users a bit envious, because Tolino devices somehow support sideloaded cloud syncing, while standard Kobo does not. So Kobo clearly knows how to do it, they just choose not to. :(
I only read the German Wikipedia entry [0], but the way that sounds is that they are different hardware, but now using an adapted Kobo OS (with ways to switch between the normal Kobo mode and Tolino). But that’s just my impression, I have no further clue :D
edit: This [1] says you are right
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolino
[1] https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/the-kobo-cla...
https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/tolino-epos-3-e-reader-...
> The Epos 3 hardware is based on the Kobo Sage. Kobo took over manufacturing and product design for the Tolino Alliance a number of years ago, when they bought a controlling interest from Deutsche Telekom.
Was it ever true?
It's even easier to just load the book over a USB cable, assuming you have it in mobipocket. It's a "technical" process in the same sense that using a USB key is a "technical" process - one that everyone is already familiar with.
Though I do remember that the packaging for my Zen Stone specifically indicated that it would only work with a Windows computer. That wasn't true; it showed up as a USB device and you could transfer files just fine regardless of your operating system. There wasn't even an alternative proprietary method to use on Windows. The manual carefully covered the meaning of the directory structure on the device. I'm not quite sure why they claimed to require Windows.
You'd be surprised. Many people genuinely aren't familiar with it these days because it's not necessary for other devices they're using day-to-day. E.g. most don't upload music to their phones in this manner like we used to 20 years ago - more often, it's all "in the cloud", so you just install the app and sign in.
Nowadays, they support epub and you have the email thing (though as a sibling mentioned, they are apparently not allowing automatic email deliveries for paid books anymore)
The ~90e I paid for it back in 2012 was for sure good value!
So I just didn't bother.
Also I was very confused by the assertion that ebooks are a niche market. By the authors math more than 20% of people in the UK use e-readers to read on a regular basis. That seems like a very healthy market to me!
I'm not from the UK, and I'll admit my current reading habits are a sad excuse for what they were in my childhood and teens, so there might be some selection bias here.
I can say that out of the people I saw reading during my last beach vacation, almost all were using an e-Ink reader. They used to keep a small library of "beach books" you could read; that's gone. Casual readers have moved on to something else; people who read a lot have moved to e-Ink for outdoors.
But when you stick it next to a 10" Android tablet with an 8 core CPU, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, full colour higher resolution screen, dual cameras and all that jazz, which is less than half the price of a black and white Kindle...suddenly it doesn't look so great.
Compare that to Android where you might be tempted to install Social Media Z app (I can't use X anymore :/) or your email/IM app. The distractions from that make it a sub-par reading device IMHO.
$60 for all that? I wonder how it runs in reality, and how well it'll run in just a year or two.
The thing about these dirt cheap tablets is... they're cheap for a reason, and it's not simply because that hardware is cheap these days. I've never once used, or had a family member bought, one of those super cheap tablets or laptops, and not have it be unusable in less than a year. They grind to a crawl, stop receiving updates, etc.
On the other hand, as many other comments here say... my Kindles are the absolute best value electronic device I've ever bought, no contest. I got one of the first generation Kindles, and only had to replace it a couple years ago after quite a few drops eventually broke the screen.
And yeah, it's probably a bit crap. And there's good odds that it'll be dead or broken or unsupported in a couple of years - although you could throw it away, buy a second one and still be cheaper than the Kindle was.
I certainly wouldn't buy one, and in the long run you may regret doing so. But it looks shinier than a Kindle, it has colour, it's far more responsive, and it has far more functionality. So when you stick the two side-by-side, the Kindle looks pretty overpriced by comparison. Just like how graphical calculators look horribly overpriced when you stick them next to a dirt cheap Android tablet that has 100x the functionality they do for less.
Also, usually they have extremely bad screens with terrible viewing angles. Using them as something you're going to stare at for hours is miserable. Sure, the spec list says it's a higher resolution than the paper-like e-reader, but in practice the paper like display is far more comfortable to stare at for long periods of time.
Spec lists don't tell the whole story.
IMO Kindles were best when they had hardware buttons so I have no interest in buying these new touchscreen ones.
I'm really surprised the cheapest one is $100 now, they used to have a little one for ~$50 that physical buttons on either side of the screen with the old non-paperwhite screen.
> As I understand it, Google requires Android devices to have colour screens and, so I've read, won't certify eInk eReaders for newer versions of Android.
Google has gone to great lengths to ensure that a phone without its proprietary libraries and SafetyNet attestation will not be palatable to mainstream consumers. An eReader is not a phone, and consumers do not have the same expectation that it will run every app in the Play store.
Some Boox brand eReaders use Android on monochrome displays, but those are far from the author's definition of cheap at $200+.
Not only are the fire tablets priced aggressively but they can be used to watch videos, surf the web, listen to music, play games, use remote desktop, all sorts of things. And if you lose one you are out $30 instead of $300 or so for an iPad.
That, and I have an Android tablet that was ~$250 when new that has various aspects about it that are somewhere between awful and underwhelming, and I can’t imagine a $30 Fire tablet to be any better in that regard, subsidized or not. That said my tolerance for electronics being bad in any capacity I feel on a day to day basis is low.
The only (relatively) high end Android device I had was a Google Pixel, everything else has been a medium Samsung, BN Nook, I even had a $99 Windows tablet that was "good enough".
A lot of people who would want a Kindle would be pretty happy with a Fire, it is not so easy to read in peak daylight and the battery life is worse, but the value is good enough that AMZN has driven quality affordable Android tablets out with very little fanfare.
[1] I can't believe anyone gets an iPad Pro, but if I did I'd get an expensive case for it and treat it like a laptop. What I like about tablets is that I can take them places where they might get smashed.
On tablets being disposable, it depends on the user. The only electronic device of mine that’s regularly in harm’s way is my phone, and it’s insured so if it gets smashed I have a new one in a day or two. Been carrying iPads as auxiliary devices while traveling for years and never had a problem.
This SafetyNet nonsense is now why I begrudgingly have an iPhone. After playing cat and mouse with Google for a long while, I'd had enough. The main reason I was on Android was because of the freedom I had (or, used to have). If I have to be walled in, Apple has a better garden than does Google.
I only have one or two apps I actually want to use that required a SafetyNet bypass. I don't think it's people like us Google is targeting with that though; the main goal as it seems to me is to ensure an OEM won't be successful marketing a phone that funnels less money to Google.
In general such an attested environment provides guarantees a lot of software makers want. Starting from just anti-malware and anti-cheat ending with just DRM.
I used to have a Kindle. Eventually it broke. Kobos seem even less reliable, my wife has been through 4-5 of them so far.
After my Kindle broke I switched "temporarily" to using the Kobo app on my iPhone to read. Although the form factor isn't ideal for reading, it's just so convenient that I never bothered buying another eReader. It also has all the advantages of a modern smartphone: touches to turn the page are instantaneous; controlling brightness is familiar and easy; I can copy and paste text into Safari to search anything I'm interested in. About the only environment where an eReader wins is bright sun, and well, I live in Northern Europe.
So yeah, I think I would say, although they're a nice idea - eReaders just aren't strong enough in their own niche to beat out smartphones for a lot of people, which means that niche stays pretty small and prices stay quite high?
1. The screen is easier on my eyes. Especially at bedtime, when I do the majority of my reading.
2. The form factor - larger than a phone, smaller and lighter than a regular tablet. I find it much easier to use lying down (vs my iPad).
3. Cost - WAY less expensive than a good tablet. I can take the Kindle on a backpacking trip and not worry about breaking it. A hammock and an e-reader are my "luxury" items on these trips.
Airplane mode can be disabled as quickly as it was enabled. As can Raycast's 'focus mode', which is why I'm typing this (on my laptop) and not reading my book, and why a thread about cheap e-readers immediately caught my attention.
And with koreader I can set it up exactly the way I like (invert Colors at sunset, customize gestures and taps, copy paste text on my phone via a qr code…) it’s very easy to install it on a kobo.
It’s actually just an Android phone with an eInk screen, so you can run any android app on it. It’s just that eInk is terrible at everything but displaying static content so it’s not good for much besides being an eReader. Though you can also pull up a PDF reader or read emails if you really want to.
The fact is people actually just like their phones, and the main problem with them getting zombiefied staring at them comes from specific attention sucking brainrot apps. Aspects of hardware design can be a nudge factor but it’s not the main driver. The problem is TikTok, Instagram, et al and nobody wants to have a shitty phone experience when they could just block those apps. Compromising functionality runs into the problem where you get too much bycatch as most of the addicting functionality overlaps with stuff people want. I may not want apps or a screen but I want maps, and once you have maps and navigation you probably need a screen. Maybe I want to avoid video because I want to avoid TikTok but then I am searching for a How To guide and that ends up linking you to YouTube. I don’t want WhatsApp but I want to receive text messages, but once I’m in a group chat how different is that from WhatsApp?
I recently had this issue with notifications. I turn off notifications on everything except phone calls and messages. But I was trying to marketplace some items and it turned out I just couldn’t communicate with people without live messaging them on LetGo or the BuyNothing app or Facebook marketplace. But once I turned on notifications to get those messages suddenly they’re constantly spamming me with push notifications and emails trying to bait my engagement. The hardware is not the problem.
I think her latest one has lasted a lot longer though, so maybe they've steadily become more sturdy...
E-Readers are absolutely better for reading than phones, that's why there's a big market for them.
Sure, but we can all choose our habits. If I'm stuck waiting at a doctor's office, I will read on my phone like everybody else. But in all other situations, when you actively want to read, an e-reader is better.
The core of the article is this complete misunderstanding of Moore's law. From there, all the rest of the confusion follows, unsurprisingly leading to the author's claim that ~$100 for a long-lasting device is unreasonably expensive.
At a certain point them being “cheap” makes them disposable not accessible. If you can afford a few new books a year you can afford a new kindle. If you can’t, they are readily available for about 90 minutes of minimum wage work on eBay.
I sent feedback to Amazon about it: "Why TF don't you support the interrobang‽"
The other e-readers use normal, free fonts and thus, support nearly the entire unicode spec. Yet Amazon—with all it's enormous resources—can't seem to pull off supporting basics like the interrobang.
But instead, we read an enthusiast‘s blog post lamenting the innovation‘s niche-of-a-niche status, which it cant leave neither through super cheapness nor through feature improvement, since that would be too expensive.
Keep this in mind when the next technology (crypto, ai, …) is sold to you as this fatalistic all eclipsing event (on which you have got to spend money on now or else).
2012 things had already matured.
2009-2010 eReaders were a lot more expensive.
The "Kindle 2" in 2009 launched at $360.
So basically by 2012 prices had tanked, and there's a limit on how much cheaper they could actually make them in the years since.
Was (and still is) a great epub reader - I still do most of my ebook reading on it. Same that Libby won't work on this version of android as I'd love to read current magazines on it.
I'd say that's pretty cheap.
I suspect the reason why there are not more new devices for the budget pricepoint is that the market is saturated. Unlike phones, there isn't really a compelling reason to upgrade regularly. My mother has used her kindle for years at this point, and probably will use it for years to come.
I think e-ink patents are holding the ecosystem back in terms of possible designs (and trade-offs). I'm sure we'd see more and cheaper e-readers if the tech was freer.
The software still seems like the biggest let-down in terms of progress though. I've used like five different readers over the past decade, all from different manufacturers and they all have something that really annoys me. Things like one missing notch on the brightness slider, no custom software option or just poor UI button placement.
It was exceedingly incapable. Could only open a very limited number of formats if I recall, laid them out very poorly. I'd wanted to try to convert my collection of CBZ comics into some format it's color screen could display, but there was no way without intensive manual editing to make them readable on its roughly 4 inch screen.
Insanely slow and most of all unpleasant to use. I used it a handful of times before it went in a cabinet. Years later I threw it out, I almost always try to resell things or give them away, but I genuinely didn't think it was worth anyone's time.
My ideal device for reading disappears in my hand, and that is something that my kindles achieve. I have never seen a cheap eReader that can achieve this. I've heard good things about the Kobo devices but I've never used one.
Update: I found the order and it was a Kobo ER430 and I got it for $19.99 on Woot. Well I hope Kobo has improved! They'd almost have to.
The reasonable usage means A4/B4 size, to read most common pdfs, to be loaded locally via USB or LAN not by some third party proprietary service, driverlessly, no app needed. A FLOSS base to let's say synchronize with Zotero or some personal note tool, that part developed by a community thanks to the FLOSS base.
Another reasonable usage is 6-7" maximum for those who want paper like notes, again locally sync-able with a desktop/mobile not needing any third party or special software in the middle.
A third reasonable usage is as a desktop secondary monitor to be used to read without burning our eyes, or with raster graphic apps no special software needed as well, just a standard displayport/HDMI.
If you compare the cost for example to a gaming console, is it justified? Probably depends how much you play video games. There are heavy players and people that play video games only occasionally. Same for readers.
Yes the price is slightly increasing but still justified for people that used them frequently. With a good cover they become pretty resistant and the battery stays for weeks.
P.S. Interesting insights in the article about the price factors and patents.
That being said, given that high quality eInk readers can last for many years, it has come out cheaper for me to get this rather expensive device when factoring in the price of ebooks vs physical books. Also, I read a lot of literature in the public domain, which is of course entirely free to download.
If you read frequently, get a reader.
Being locked in is near unavoidable if you don’t want to accept a more limited library.
I read a lot of ebooks, but it's almost all on my laptop with calibre. I tuned the color scheme to be easier on the eyes at night and it's honestly fine. I used to have a kindle, but I lost it in a move long ago, and haven't really missed it.
Specialized devices have to be either really, really special or really, really cheap to make it in the marketplace. Otherwise, they get absorbed into a more widely usable device.
The smart phone is a good example. It can replace multiple specialized devices --- a phone, a watch, a camera, a flashlight, a GPS navigator, a TV --- and yes, even an ereader.
It may not be as good as a specialized device for any of these tasks but the real selling point is that it can do all of them reasonably well in a pinch. It packs a lot of functionality into one easily portable device.
https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/choose-import-setting...
Also, while eink might be more expensive when assembled into an ebook reader, why not use a color android tablet with brightness set on low? Why are the hardware specs so restrictive? I understand the preference for long battery life, but it’s not like power outlets are in short supply. It seems like tablets are much more open as a device than an ebook reader
Moore's law only observes that the density of transistors within an integrated circuit doubles roughly every two years.
It does not comment on the cost of the individual transistors, or other electronic components.
Often, increasing transistor density can lead to significantly increased costs in the short term as production issues are ironed out and massive investments in new technologies are recouped.
There are transistors in an electronic paper display, but they are an irrelevant portion of the cost of the panel.
You can buy "cheap" EInk devices [1] with an ESP32 and flash your own software on it, an ESP32 costs less than 5$, so the rest of the price is all down to the price of the EInk panel and controller.
[1] https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5papers3-esp32s3-developm...
That's not why. Volume.
The linked article says "[Device implementations] SHOULD support displays capable of 24-bit color graphics.", contrasted with "MUST" in other bullet points. So I'd say Android shouldn't be a blocker. That doesn't necessarily mean Google will happily license Google services including Play Store (possibly for a fee), but there are manufacturers that build their own app store, or just let users sideload apps. Worst case, just put AOSP on the device. The experience isn't going to be perfect, but it's usable.
I suspect it's mostly that e-readers tend to use pretty old chipsets, & that no one has bothered updating support in a long long time. Maybe perhaps possibly there is some technical gotcha but I expect its more an issue of neglect.
Whatever the case, incredibly discouraging. I've looked at Boox Palma's and others but heck no I'm not buying such a clearly unsupported unloved system.
Sure, 110 Euros isn't 10 or 30 Euros, but it is obviously very affordable to anyone living in the west.
I do not know what the point of these cheap readers would be? To create throwaway trash? If you read somewhat regularly a 110 Euro eReader is a very good investment.
Yeah, the experience is not the same, but ereaders are fragile as fuck (i broke 2 of the damn Kindles), and very limited. Even if the the experience of reading is worse in an active iluminated screen, even a shit android tablet can be used for multiple tasks, like watching youtue, listening to music or checking e-mail. ALso they have colored screens.
I used a terrible samsgung android for 1 stuff only: reading old comic books, something that I could not do in my kindle.
The only market I can really think of for these would be airports, or maybe libraries, for something you'd borrow and give back shortly thereafter. But then I don't know how they'd be enough of an advantage over paper books to be worth it.
This makes me think of Star Trek's PADD - i.e. an iPad imagined some 20 years before the first one was built. Unlike real iPads, PADDs were used more like pieces of paper or individual books - people would exchange them, they'd submit reports to their commanders by leaving a PADD on their desk; one could easily have half a dozen of those PADDs spread around when researching something, etc.
There's a lot of merit to that idea - 15 years since iPad came out, it's becoming clear that a single expensive screen for everything is not a way to go, at least not for productive work. But I feel that, beyond dirt-cheap hardware, it requires a closed organizational ecosystem.
On the show, it's plausible. A starship is like an office building (except people don't live it for months at a time); PADDs can circulate freely around it, going from person to person, changing purposes along the way. Some get lost or broken and need replacement, but it's a neat, closed system of same-ish hardware in constant flow. But try to do that as a regular consumer product/service in the real world, and it stops making as much sense. It's a problem similar to various tool sharing initiatives - they technically exist, but they aren't really "a thing". People prefer to own stuff to ensure it's available and in working condition.
The Yoto itself does need networking because the card is just an NFC tag that points to a file in a database somewhere that the player has to download. But something similar to a video game cartridge instead could probably work. IIRC a Nintendo Switch game cartridge costs about $10 per unit and in this use case you wouldn’t even need them to be that small so you could maybe get them cheaper.
Works perfectly, despite being like 8 or 9 years old now. I've read dozens upon dozens of books on it, it still works like new, still syncs well, has multi-month-long battery life, is lightweight enough to keep in a bag at all times. Works perfectly with OverDrive for eLibrary stuff as well.
My only complaint is that it uses the old micro USB cables to charge (it's the only thing I use regularly that doesn't work with USB-C).
The new Kobo's look nice (and now support color, and bluetooth audio, and such). But I wouldn't actually use any of that, my old one still works just like new, and it feels silly to buy a whole new e-reader just for a minor USB-C charging convenience.
I personally really value the "sideload" mode on the Kobo where I have no internet connection and can drop my files onto it via USB without any work-arounds. That's enough for me to keep using the Kobo.
That said, the Kindle Paperwhite's display is incredible and the store is pretty good (you risk losing your book "license" on all platforms), plus the extra small bit of screen size on the Paperwhite is just the perfect size IMO.
But the Kobo is the one I use most. I connect it to the internet like twice a year to get an update and then turn it back off. It's absolutely perfect at showing me text of files, which is all I need.
(PS: this is a great thread, an example of "good HN" that reminds me of Usenet)
i have never paid more than $10 for an e-ink device until boox palma. that one sits in a drawer and i went back to the thrifted kindle.
But yes, even the first gen iPad Minis were really nice screens and form-factors.
Meanwhile my Kobo Clara is just trucking along with no obvious change in battery life or responsiveness (despite the standard e-reader application processor with its power-sipping weediness).
It becomes very important when you are on a trip and can't easily charge your devices.
(Of course personal circumstances differ.)
...and, I still read 90% of my books on my phone. It is good enough. It is fast and responsive. It is always with me.
And it has been at least five years since I read a book on the phone, or iPad, though a couple years ago I read part of a PDF book on the iPad.
I think this stuff is really down to personal preference. And the kind of reading you do and where you do it.
My iPad never leaves home, and as such, it’s always going ahead to head against the e-reader, and losing except in the case of PDFs.
I do occasionally find myself with too much time and in a place with just my phone and not my laptop case (which almost always has e-reader in it, along with my laptop), and in those cases, I generally read hacker news.
Paper books get read when I cannot find an electronic version - which is fine, better than any other form except the e-reader.
But that’s me and my devices and my usage patterns and hangups. It’s not my wife, It’s not my kid, and it’s probably not most of you.
A while back I looked for a phone-sized eReader and was surprised there were none about at a decent price.
I have a paper white from years back. I've thought about getting some eInk displays for projects.. it's really dumb how much new [device that has an eink dislpay and displays a file/PDF] cost.
But it's also infuriating that people pay for emojis and sound boards on Discord and the like. The world we live in.
Personally I already think ewaste is out of control, imo this sounds like a recipe for disaster.
E-readers don't need to become cheaper, ebooks do, and at the moment there's still a huge gap between "pirated" or "borrowed from the library" and "bought". That, plus DRM and lock-in makes people think twice about buying ebooks.
I had to find a source, but [0] shows that physical books out-sell ebooks by a huge margin still. I think this chart would only change if ebooks are as readily available for cheap as streaming music.
Come to think of it, I remember now; during that time, tablets also quickly became popular and were the direct competitor to e-readers. The low-cost e-readers were often regular tablets with LCD screens, since both then and now, e-paper is expensive. But you can buy a tablet for cheap.
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/24709/e-book-and-printed-book...
In contrast, i know people who have went through many kindles in this time and spent a small fortune on them.
Are you comparing it to the Kindle ereaders or their tablets? Standard (non-tablet) Kindles such as the Paperwhite series are like you describe (though they cost more than $100 and come with all of the lockin issues).
Consider the iPod Classic: the shiny back scratched incredibly easily, and after a few years it looked better than it did new (like an old leather wallet, or well worn jeans).
> I like the concept of wearing in rather than wearing out. You’d like to create something where the emotional relationship is more satisfying over time. You may not worry about it or think about it very much, and people don’t have to have a strong love relationship with their things, but they should grow a little more fond of them over time.
That was an idea he applied to the Grid Compass, which was an early laptop with a black-painted magnesium chassis, which you can imagine would patina quite nicely.
That said, I too miss long time daily use Things. I haven't worn a physical wallet in years, it's some cards in my (tatty) phone case. The phone case doesn't age gracefully either, it's pleather, fabric, cardboard and some magnets. I suspect the only thing I really own (but rarely use) that would age like that is a leather shoulder bag.
Re: thumb - I have found some gesture to pull the screen down halfway so you can reach the 'top' part without moving your hand. It's close to OK, and it's almost second nature now, but still annoying.
This. Oh, so much this. I have hated every phone after my OG iPhone SE so much because of this lunacy in design. It's ridiculous that we can't use our phones one-handed.
I know-- people don't want small phones. >sigh< I wonder if we're getting to the point that most phone users have never actually used a phone with a screen they can reach across with one hand.
Both our Kindle third-gen devices are still chugging along happily. We only use them for reading outside - indoors, we both use tablets. But in sunlight, you need that e-Ink.
So there never was an £8 reader, it was more likely a £30+ reader that's cost was hidden in the mobile contract or the hopes of you using their book store as it sounds from the wiki that it was a proprietary format
> The internal format seems to be basically uncompressed Bitmaps of 3 or 4 bits per pixel. Font size can be specified in the source book but not changed after the transfer.
If you could make an e-reader for £8 presumably including profit in that price so it doesn't have to be subsidized by vendor lock in book stores or mobile contracts you wouldn't want to use it. The screen would be underwhelming, the plastic creaky, file transfer slow and possibly wired only and the processor slow. It would be ewaste before it's even off the production line.
There is nothing wrong with spending money on nice quality versions of things aligned with your tech ideology, and if you do there will be more things like that in the world. Cheapo disposable tech is actually bad because it all ends up having to be subsidized by exploitative practices like data selling or ads to actually profit from it.
Getting an old but useable ereader for £20 or less is very doable right now - plus you can get the Nook simple touch to run (very old) Android.
I sure did adore the old black n white Nooks, which I could load as I pleased with any file of my choice, often converting text and PDFs to ebook with Calibre.
but why? is it because of patents? Shouldn't this technology get cheaper with time?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
Supposedly, a core patent for the technology expired a year ago:
https://old.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1e3icaz/any_company_d...
It's probably too soon to easily tell whether that's enough to make e-ink screens cheaper and more available.
There are many tens of millions of e-Ink store shelf-edge price labels around, for example, and they're a cheap commodity item.
What’s the specific harm that you are worried about?
(or more likely find one lying in the streets somewhere)
In vapes it’s almost certain, as other battery types just don’t work very well for this application. Also, many of these come rechargeable now (but not refillable).
In “emergency chargers”, you could in theory use something different but usually it’s lithium too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lflk6iY56w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N65DpT2nqEI
Though the UK did just recently ban some of the worst offenders https://www.gov.uk/government/news/single-use-vapes-banned-f...