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Originally Posted by chef
Thank you for making my point for me so elgantly.  You are right. It must be all about the electronics. So if they are making a simpler, lower-res display (not e-book quality), then they can probably get away with using less fancier electronics, thus the electronics being cheaper. |
Reread what I said. Other things being equal, display resolution is about what the
controller can do, not what the monitor can display. I have a 19" LCD display running in 1600x1200 resolution with 32 bit color. My older graphics card would do 1600x1200, but only supported 16 bit color at that resolution -- it didn't have enough onboard RAM.
The Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle have different display capabilities. They use the same eInk screen. They don't use the same controller.
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Of course, the 2nd half of your statement is simple economics and has nothing to do with electronics or semiconductors. Once the production volume goes up, the price will go down.
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No, it simply means the price
can come down, because it costs less to make. Whether it
will come down depends upon the device and the usage. The producer wants to charge the highest price the market will pay.
For mass market devices where the goal is to sell as many as possible and price
will be an object, you want to ramp up to achieve economies of scale, lower the casts, and be able to charge less than your competition while still making money.
For a more niche market oriented product, where price is not a deciding factor, the manufacturer wants to reduce costs simply to have a higher margin. They will have no reason to cut the price.
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One day, I won't think about my monitor being an E Ink display. It will be.
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Not till eInk supports color and a much faster refresh rate. Even if you could do it now, you wouldn't want to.
And even if you could do it now, why would you? The big advantage to eInk is low power consumption, allowing far longer use before you must change/recharge your batteries. For a desktop, you don't care: you're plugged into a wall wart. For a laptop, there are other factors that affect battery life besides the screen, and going eInk may not be a big enough win to justify it.
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Dennis