Quote:
Originally Posted by curtw
I'm more curious about the pricing. Even at a "kickstarter special" price at around US$500, I can't justify the cost. Are larger e-ink screens *still* so hard to make?
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Me neither. I don't think so.
As far as I know, both Onyx and Boyue just use off-the-shelf displays from E-ink, which their factories would already be tooled for, and would cost less than getting custom display arrangements fabricated, so the e-reader OEMs can just spend more money on things like design, other hardware, materials, and software, especially considering that Android lacks official support for e-paper.
For example, just an individual E-ink ES103TC1 panel (from their store where they sell to tech startups and other companies) costs $349, OEMs most likely get them in wholesale quantities so I'll estimate their unit price to be around $320, the Likebook Mimas costs $469 (at least for the newer black edition; I'm kinda bummed that they done away with the white option, which I guess I'm now lucky to have bought), and the BOOX Note Pro costs $600 (but seems to have less hardware features than the Mimas).