Quote:
Originally Posted by Barty
Ok I guess the e-ink screen and front light cost more than the cheap lcd, but really, don't the cheap phones show all the other components cost very little? And the fact that you have a larger form factor to work with makes design and assembly easier.
Eink readers are the smart phones of Soviet era Russian consumer electronics.
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Simple economics. Sure some people would like some or all of the functions you described. But how many more net Kindles would it sell? The price of a Kindle is based on what the market will bear, not the cost of producing it, so even if they could add all of the above for $1/unit, if they currently sell 1,000,000 units that's $1,000,000 in margin they have to make up. Sure they could increase the price by $1-2, but I'm willing to bet they have it dialed in and if they could raise it by that much and come out ahead they'd have already done so. You'd also have to add increased inventory of parts (camera, bluetooth etc) at the production plant, increased assembly complexity (sure they have more space, but it's going to be more to insert 8 things 4), increased customer service cost etc, etc on top of the $1 for parts. Yes they could add it all and for "minimal" cost, but the problem is there is likely little net economic benefit for them to do so.