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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Credit lower hardware costs for that.
At the bank I once worked for, in the 70's, we went from Selectrics to Qyx intelligent typewriters, to word processing on a DEC mini-computer to dedicated word processors like the IBM DisplayWriter.
Partway through my tenure, the IBM PC came in, displacing venerable Apple ][s which ran VisiCalc. The PCs ran Lotus 1,2,3, and I watched bank officers write memos as Lotus text cells because Lotus was what they knew how to use. But the PC was a multi-function device, so things like WordStar crept in and took over.
It happened because the PC hardware became cheap enough and powerful enough that a PC with Lotus 1,2,3 and WordStar was a significantly better investment than a dedicated word processor.
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hahaha...I remember doing exactly the same thing as far as word processing only in EDLIN...hahahaha...my first MS-DOS based computer was one of the Compaq "luggables" that seemed to have been designed to model a portable Singer Sewing machine!! 23lbs of pure portable joy...so long as I had a receptacle nearby. And I LOVED it...my fist spreadsheet was actually Visicalc as well which I used as a word processor as well. I forget what app I had as my very first true word processor though (I am pretty sure it was PC Write which I used for years until Windows 3 and AmiPro came about.) All I remember for sure was I while working toward my 2nd & 3rd degrees I could not help but wonder where word processing had been all my life. I could come home from school, transcribe my notes in outline form then print out hard copies as well, making margin notes which I would later add into the digital version. I was in academic heaven!! And the typing out of the notes pretty much committed them to memory, some even to this day. And of course the original Borland as every homebrew and CS student's idea of perfection. Reflex was pure magic...I mean a real relational db on a simple PC was just, well, WOW!!
Really thanks for th trip back down memory lane. My actual first computer where I learned that I lived to write code as an HP calculator in the mid-ish 70s. Funny how such a small device spurred on a career in CS even over mathematics though I have always considered the tools needed to understand each as the same.
And the DisplayWriter, wow, I had forgotten them, what a tool they were back then!! And who can forget the speed and "quality" of those daisy wheel printers and typewriters compared to the early dot matrix. My first printer was a blazing fast Star Micronics SG-10X and it cost something like $799 at the time and I bought it along with the Compaq from...Computerland because my credit union would give me a signature loan even as a student since I was working full time. first thing I ever bought on credit as well. And I was in my mid-20s by then.
I also remember running the computer lab at my college where we had over a dozen Apple II's and being completely befuddled by them coming over from an MSDOS background as well as some Unix experience. But since few students bothered to even use the lab I turned it into tutoring sessions for my private math students as I had a whole wall of whiteboard to use!! hehehehe....
I know that is OT but it's been a really sheety year for me personally and you brought back some wonderful memories of when life was new and exciting still.
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Readers are a niche market item.
At $50-$99, they are an impulse purchase. But we aren't going to see them at that price anytime soon. A teardown of the Kindle discussed elsewhere on MR had the eInk display unit accounting for $60 of the cost. A $99 reader is possible, but not with an eInk display.
My PDA is my reader, with software letting me read Plucker, Mobipocket, eReader, PDF, Word and text files. It fueled my desire for a standard format everyone would support, as having to maintain half dozen viewers and recall which book is in which format displayed by which viewer is a pain.
But aside from displaying ebooks, it has all of the standard PDA functions, plus does word processing, views/edits Word docs and Excel spreadsheets, plays MP3s and videos, displays photos, has half a dozen programming languages, can connect to the net...and oh, yes, it plays games. 
I'd like a device that does what my PDA does, but with a larger screen. I couldn't carry it in a pocket, but I don't do that now.
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Dennis
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First point I would make is those tear down costs provided by iSuppli are, as I recall, over a year old now and production costs as well as growing competition have likely driven down panel prices, maybe by as much as 50%, other components are dropping daily as well. In fact I suspect the only reason prices are not dropping faster is due to energy costs. Kinda funny the energy costs are more influential than any other aspect of production anymore.
Devie wise, my wants and "needs" are pretty much the same as yours. Only I no longer carry a cell phone since there is never a time anyone needs to get in touch with me no matter where I am nor I them...if that need arises I do have an old trow away phone I can buy minutes for or I can stop by the closest Stop-n-Rob and buy one for $25 with enough time to make do. I mean screw it, if I need emergency help but can't get myself out of the situation then I die, because of advanced RA (juvenile onset Dx'd at 9yrs old) I carry enough pain killers with me to down a small elephant most days...such is life, self reliance is a seriously missing element in today's population.
I do not mind a PDA along with a 5" reader to carry around because eink is much nicer outside. But I am happy to sway the 5" device for a larger slate PC when I want access to reference books which require color as well as full power computer functionality. But, I can say without qualification I won't consider paying over $400 for such a device. I feel I am not alone in this because nothing in these more PC-like devices is new and components are pennies, hell a CPU can be had in quantity for $10 or less even...same for a decent GPU and chipset. The panels, if using the Pixel Qi panels use existing designs which were combined in a new way, according to Jepsen anyway. She even indicates they cost is less than current LCD panels even with the new design.
That said, in the interview with Charbax Jepsen also indicated the first gen devices using the panel would not be using them to their fullest capability so I sense I might wait a generation or at least until the later part of 2010. In the mean time the EPD panels, especially Mirasol, should have gained a lot of ground. I sense the controllers are where we will see the most improvement and sooner than in the panels themselves. Look how fast the new PRS900 is based on that demo video the thing is blazing fast at screen updates...so it looks that there is capacity to spare even in the current generation panels and it's the controllers and firmware holding them back speed wise. Kinda nice to see really...if nothing else this will be a verrrrry interesting year device wise.
And Apple is dreaming if they do come out with a slate PC at an $800 price point...if so unless it comes with free lifetime MBB, it will be of interest pretty much only to the "credit card riche" set, that ApPlE has gotten to drink their Kool Aid, who will buy into them. That said I think the UI on the iPhone/ipOd toUcH is a super design but I am not sure how such a UI would play out on a larger format device...I just never have liked the Apple way of doing business and that goes back almost three decades where I got the bad taste from them which has never gone away.
BTW, I think it entirely possible that a company like Amazon, Apple or even Google will buy Sprint in the coming couple years...one of these content providers needs to have a distribution system they can bundle with their devices or subscription content without worry about use caps where none are actually necessary. Whoever solves that problem will win the device dominance game.