|
I also suspect that "No connectivity!" would be a sales argument for relatively very few people, making it very much a niche product - while there are those of us here who shop around freely, are able to remove DRM and convert to any format, and don't think twice about sideloading, the entire "buy from [shop XX with big selection] and download automatically to read instantly on your e-reader" is a big draw for the majority of people who are perfectly happy to buy all their reading material from either Amazon, Kobo or Barnes & Noble.
As I said above, perhaps in a few years - I wouldn't be at all surprised if the components needed for a basic e-reader (mainly the screen, I assume) would eventually come down in price enough to make cheap, but still good, non-store-tied devices possible.
As it is now, when manufacturers with names unfamiliar to the general public struggle to keep the prices of their devices, which might be as good as the Kindles or Kobos but objectively no better (but may struggle with looking worse design-wise, being slower and having patchy or non-existent support), near the same level as those Kindles or Kobos and are often even more expensive, it does seem to indicate that offering cheap-but-decent basic devices without having a large bookshop to rely on for the actual income is currently not possible.
One option for a non-Kindle, non-Kobo, non-Nook frontlit reader with buttons that I can think of and have actually seen in person is the Pocketbook Touch Lux. It seemed to handle relatively okay, isn't tied to any bookshop and handles a multitude of formats, but it has a touchscreen (in addition to buttons) and Wi-Fi and costs around €180 here, and frankly I found my Kindle Paperwhite to look better and handle faster.
That's about the best you can currently expect though outside the big players and for an eInk reader that is both frontlit and has buttons. (I think there are others - I see an Onyx Boox i62 HD Angel Glow being sold online here, that also has buttons and is frontlit, but also has touchscreen and Wi-Fi and costs ~€200, and I assume there are also some more options - but they're all relatively niche products that may not be easy to find in local shops, and I don't know how well their support works, should it be needed. And also, they are more expensive.)
|