Cheaper E-Book Readers ?

[Ken Stuart]

Hello,

Are there any indications that e-book readers will ever get below US$200 and thus actually reach the impulse purchase area for the average consumer ?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ken Stuart

Hello,

Are there any indications that e-book readers will ever get below US$200 and thus actually reach the impulse purchase area for the average consumer ?

If you purchase a Sony Reader NOW, you can get it for $299 + a free $50 cradle and a free $50 books credit at the Sony Connect store. So all in all, it's pretty cheap considering.

[NatCh]

Oh, I think they'll eventually get in the sub-$200 range, but it'll be a few more years, at least.

[RWood]

If you are willing to give up the beauty of reading on an e-ink device, the eBookwise is below $200 now. It is a low contrast LCD screen in half VGA mode. As NatCh said, given time and good sales even e-ink can get there in a few years. (The only "expensive" part is the e-ink display screen.)

[HarryT]

Many people very happily read eBooks on Pocket PC and Palm devices - I did so myself for many years before the new eInk devices appeared. PPCs/Palms are available at extremely reasonable prices; one doesn't need an especially "high spec" device for reading, although getting a machine with as high a resolution a screen as possible will make the reading experience better.

I have to say that the "uBook" reader on the Pocket PC is still far and away my favourite book-reading software, even though I do now use a Sony Reader myself.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Oh, I think they'll eventually get in the sub-$200 range, but it'll be a few more years, at least.

I doubt the readers would go sub200. I think it will hang around 200-250 tops, if it becomes more popular.
Older models will just be discontinued.

Take a look at PDAs. I paid big bucks for my PDA back then, but now the cheapest model is still around 250 dollar. Sure, you'll get my old PDA for like 5 bucks at ebay or something, but you won't get it in a store.

[NatCh]

Most of the cost of these things is the e-ink screen. Assuming that enough of the stuff gets made and sold that the cost of development is recovered, and economies of scale kick in, then, yeah, I see the prices of even the front-line devices dropping a lot closer to the $200 mark (perhaps lower if it gets really cheap to make). The ones below $200 will be the down-revved models (previous generation, I mean), but they'll be at least as good as what we have now.

In any case, we're talking several years.

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

Take a look at PDAs. I paid big bucks for my PDA back then, but now the cheapest model is still around 250 dollar. Sure, you'll get my old PDA for like 5 bucks at ebay or something, but you won't get it in a store.

I paid ~$430 for my Pilot 5000 back in March of '96, so I konw what you're saying.

However, I think you may be forgetting the Palm E2 (MSPR $199) and Z22 (MSRP $99). They're both a good deal more capable than my venerable Pilot 5000 was.

[HarryT]

If you look on eBay you'll find a huge range of Pocket PC and Palm machines for sub-$200.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you look on eBay you'll find a huge range of Pocket PC and Palm machines for sub-$200.

we're talking about new (non-secondhand) models you can buy with normal warranty.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Most of the cost of these things is the e-ink screen. Assuming that enough of the stuff gets made and sold that the cost of development is recovered, and economies of scale kick in, then, yeah, I see the prices of even the front-line devices dropping a lot closer to the $200 mark (perhaps lower if it gets really cheap to make). The ones below $200 will be the down-revved models (previous generation, I mean), but they'll be at least as good as what we have now.

In any case, we're talking several years.

Even if they e-ink technology drops it's prices, i doubt that an ebookreader with the quality of the Sony Reader will be lower than 200 dollar. There is a price to pay for development, marketing and packaging.

It is of course possible that there will be super lowbudget "readers" coming. With minimal features. Probably no more ultramobile size, brushed metal, builtin lithiumion-batteries, sounds, memorycardslot, etc.
Those could certainly be lower than 100 dollar, will you buy one of those? It's not something that's meant for us, the early adapters.

We require a certain degree of quality. Just like the MP3-players you can buy for 10 bucks, I've only bought one because I was on holiday and didn't want to bring my normal mp3-player with me. I gave that one away when I got home.

They're more for the common public.

Would you still buy a black and white TV nowadays?

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

Would you still buy a black and white TV nowadays?

People do.

I might do so, for some specific, specialized purpose, but the way you meant the question, no. No I wouldn't.

You may well be right on what you're saying about the feature set on such a low-priced device, but if you look at the $99 Z22 as an example, and compare its feature set to the original Palm 5000 (which was better than four times the price at the time), I think you'll agree that the Z22 pretty much flattens the original P-5000.

Features tend to get cheaper the longer they're available. Power locks used to add thousands of dollars to a car's price, now they're a few hundred, I could list supporting examples for this for a long, long time before I ran out of them.

So, that being said, yeah, I do see something with the feature set of the current Sony Reader, with a nice chassis (if not, perhaps, quite as fine as the one that the Reader has) eventually being offered for under $200. In fact, there will probably eventually be devices with the iLiad's feature set, probably even better, for that low a price.

It's a market pressure thing, if things behave the way they pretty much always behave, there will be really high-dollar, high-end versions, and versions that are lower end for lower prices, and the feature sets of the entire range of devices will continue to improve. That is, of course, until something upsets the entire dynamic, of course.

The prices of the bottom end of the range will be determined by how cheaply the hardware con be gotten and assembled, Aside from the e-ink, the rest of it has an estimated cost (by folks who ought to know what such parts can be had for) below $50. If the e-ink panel were to drop to a point that it only accounted for, say, $50 (it's somewhere around $150~$200 for a 6" one, near as we can puzzle out), then you've got a base hardware cost of only $100 (one-half to one-third the present one), then it's only a matter of how cheaply it could be put together, and shipped out, and they're always dialing those processes in as tightly as they can.

Bear in mind that I'm talking about years worth of time -- the first Zire came out for $99 about 8 years after the P-5000, for instance, so I think that in 10 years or so, we might well see such a low price for this level of device.


Disclaimer: all of this is my own opinion (not an attempt to make authoritative predictions about future events) and, while based on observed past events, is still a product of complex chemical reactions that may exist only in my brain.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by athlonkmf

we're talking about new (non-secondhand) models you can buy with normal warranty.

Don't forget that those of us - and there are many - who buy eInk readers outside their official country of distribution are, in effect, buying them without a warranty. Eg Sony UK won't touch my Reader if it goes wrong because it's not a product which is either sold or supported in the UK.

Of course I appreciate that the thread is primarily talking about new machines, but I was just pointing out that entry into the eBook reading world need not necessarily cost a fortune; cheap "obsolete" 2nd-hand hand-held devices can make excellent and very low-cost book readers.

[athlonkmf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Don't forget that those of us - and there are many - who buy eInk readers outside their official country of distribution are, in effect, buying them without a warranty. Eg Sony UK won't touch my Reader if it goes wrong because it's not a product which is either sold or supported in the UK.

Of course I appreciate that the thread is primarily talking about new machines, but I was just pointing out that entry into the eBook reading world need not necessarily cost a fortune; cheap "obsolete" 2nd-hand hand-held devices can make excellent and very low-cost book readers.

The problem is, when you take 2nd hand stuff into account, then it's impossible to set a correct price tag. Because an "Ebook reader" could then range from -100 to 1000 dollars...

[mogui]

Because the Eink screen is a low-power device it is suitable for advertising, where other display types are not. If the demand for this type of advertising display becomes great enough, the cost of EPD screens will drop below that of LCD and other types of screens that draw more power.

There are microcontrollers available that are very inexpensive and contain the various controllers (USB, display, bluetooth, etc.) so that the manufacturing cost of a reader need not be very high. The non-recurring development expenses of a reader will get lower each year as more open-source efforts are bent toward making reader functionality available on free operating systems.

You can buy a pocket calculator for about five bucks at discount stores. You can get pocket organizers very cheaply too. I can see the day when bookstores will sell blister pack readers alongside a browsable display of ebooks. Buy 12 books and get a reader free!

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by mogui

I can see the day when bookstores will sell blister pack readers alongside a browsable display of ebooks. Buy 12 books and get a reader free!

I agree it's possible, but I think those readers definitely won't have the high-quality chassis of the Sony Readers!