I haven't seen any innovation for almost a decade now. They still have anemic storage space, and slow-as-fuck computational components. The screens themselves still have monstrously low refresh rates, and we haven't even seen a consumer-oriented ereader with color e-ink despite it being demo'd for almost 5 years now.
It's like the major players producing ereaders just collectively gave up on them.
I daresay in another of decade of "innovation" in this market I'll have the option of buying a kindle paperwhite 4 that's really just a paperweight 3 with waterproofing.
When will we see prices come down and innovation happen?
what the fuck do these things even do that your phone cant i have never understood that
Aaron Baker
Let you read something for more than 6 hours on a charge.
Jackson Sanders
The screen is a better medium for lengthy reading times, screens a bigger as well and can accommodate text in a much better form factor. I may be wrong but I believe the battery life is significantly improved over IPS and OLED panels used in phones.
Hudson Rivera
it's about the e-ink displays. It's a delight for reading. Phones/tablets are like aiming a flashlight at your eyes.
Nolan Thomas
my girlfriend reads on that thing for hours a day and charges it once a month.
if you read a lot on a device, it's so much easier on the eyes than any kind of lcd.
Isaiah Campbell
I can use my kindle every day for about two weeks before needing to charge it. If you don't regularly use it, the thing can last for a month on a charge.
I wish they had bigger batteries, actually. These things are amazing for camping.
Tyler King
The problem is they are so expensive that nobody wants to get one. A monitor costs about 7 times as much as a regular monitor and you need special software in order to control it as all current display standards are based on the "update display x times per second" paradigm. I have one and the screen is really great, I wish I could get one in A4 size with software on it that resembles modern pdf readers and maybe some owncloud integration. If I could get that, I might pay the $1000 usd they charge for these devices, but so far all of them seem to be focused on making a ton of extra stuff I don't need and then killing the dev teams that maintain that. If they just put a regular linux distro on it, so it could be updated by professionals, they only need a file manager and a pdf reader.
Christopher Hall
These things ought to cost $30 - $50 by now. They are not anywhere near phone-tier complicated, and I think this high cost is the biggest thing setting the tech back from being used in everything.
Imagine if it were as cheap or cheaper than LCD screens - you'd have this stuff on so many appliances and devices it'd be ridiculous.
Gavin Gomez
My dream of having a 24" 2K pixel eink B&W monitor will never come true. I just use the terminal, vim, cli apps and read static html documents. Why live?
James Williams
>These things ought to cost $30 - $50 by now. The screen itself cost $450 shopkits.eink.com/ I might make my own some day if I ever get to a place where I have that sort of time.
Noah Wilson
so its a placebo for autists, got it
Camden Howard
It is not placebo. It is like reading a piece of paper. It is slow as hell, but it is amazing to read on.
I have a Nook. No backlight. It's fucking amazing. I just wish that there was a better OS for it. It's OS is so old no one write apps that work with it anymore.
PLEASE PLEASE SOMEONE PORT POSTMARKET OS TO THE NOOK PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE IM NOT SMART ENOUGH TO DO IT MYSELF
James Cox
Honestly we could do with an open-source operating system for all the ereaders.
The shipped software is so fucking bad on all of them.
Jackson Gonzalez
There hasn't been any helpful innovations in phones for decade either, and they aren't going anywhere.
Mason Smith
It's not out fault that you were born with a micropenis
there's no innovation because there's nothing left to innovate
the $100 kindle has a 300ppi display, lengthy battery, wifi, and backlight. what else do you need from an e-reader?
try using one before outing yourself as a retard next time
Christian Reyes
There are numerous whole products that are in the $120-200 price range with varying levels of botnet. Used ones should only be priced around $50-100 at that rate. What makes the e-ink products so special as to command the $400 price tag for a panel?
Gavin Williams
The screen technology is different. When you set a pixel, it stays that way, so you have no minimum refresh rate which is really nice. It uses power when it changes state, so it doesn't require much power. It does take longer time to refresh and have very limited color range, so it is only used for books atm.
But reading on it is like reading a piece of paper. If you have ever read on one, you would know it cannot be compared to reading on a regular screen.
