Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
The two markets are different, competition-wise.
Tablets are a deflating bubble whereas the ereader bubble popped back in 2010. And tablets face competition from all sides at the high end from all sorts of players who think that just because Apple can charge $500 for a media consumption tablet, they can, too. (Hint: nope. Not that many buyers for that anymore.)
The Voyage, on the other hand, is alone out there. And still better than even the PW3. It doesn't actually need refreshing, just a firmware update.
The only clue we have is that the firmware update is running late, which suggests either a low priority (in which case it'll go the way of the DX) or that they're adding more new features beyond KFX support.
It may be there isn't a big enough market for premium ereaders to do yearly models or even to sustain one model (like with the DX). It may be they'll upgrade the software and leave it as is for another year or until they run out of stock.
Whatever they do, though, will be based on Voyage sales alone.
(Not looking terribly good right now...)
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I will state categorically that the Voyage is not at all alone in the premium market.
The Kobo H2O split off part of its thunder at release.
Amazon calculated that desire for a weather resistant reader wasn't that high.
Time proved them wrong.
Sure, some people bought one of each. Others could only budget one. And since the Onyx Boox I86ml came out this year as well our purchases were one reader (the H2O) for reading at the lake or in the tub and one big reader (the i86ml) for reading manga.
The Voyage is a sweet machine. I like the profile and the gorilla glass. Those things didn't beat water resistant for my wife. I probably would have made the same choice between the two had we not gotten the Onyx this year.