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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
640k RAM.
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Look up a teardown of an extant eInk based reader, and the estimated component costs. Then tell me when you think a $99 price point for an eInk reader might be reached, and what sort of margin it might have if it was.
Is a $99 price point
possible? Maybe. Will it happen any time soon? I
very much doubt it. Even if it's possible, why would a vendor do it? You use pricing like that to gain market share, betting on economies of scale and volume to make up what you lose on margin. That assumes you'll
have volume. That strategy makes sense for something like an MP3 player, because almost everyone listens to music. Readers are still a niche market that doesn't have the required volume, and I don't think a $99 price point will create it. Everyone listens to music. Everyone
doesn't necessarily
read. There are all to many folks out there for whom reading is a chore to be done because they have to, and not a source of pleasure. What incentive do they have to buy a reader?
I wouldn't at all mind being wrong in my beliefs, but I don't think I am.
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No, that just means they're suited to tablets, not ereaders per-se. People will have a tablet and an ereader, to replace hardbacks and paperbacks. Well before you'd expect it.
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And the whole world will abandon paper books, and shift to dedicated readers and tablets?
You might. But it's a capital mistake to assume you are representative, and the rest of that market will do what you do. The rest of the market probably
won't follow you.
For that matter,
I won't. I have some paper volumes in my collection that would require a tablet with a display size equivalent to my 19" monitor on my desktop, running in at least 1600x1200 resolution. I don't see anyone making a tablet like that.
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Dennis