Quote:
Originally Posted by m-reader
You are on the money with most of what you said here. I'd only disagree on your assertion that a $399 large format e-reader wouldn't sell. I know a bunch of people (including myself  ) who would pay $500 easy for a decent 9" device in a flash. |
I'm another myself; I'm waiting on the Pocketbook 901. (But that one is aimed at $349, not $399.)
But I said *tough* sell; doesn't mean *nobody* will buy it. (Somebody is buying the BROTHER ereaders, after all.)
But I don't think large-format eink will be much of a *business* at that price point. The days of being a player in eink readers with annual sales of 25,000 units are just about over. Pretty soon you're either racking in tens of millions in $$$ sales or you're out of it.
And large-format eink readers are an endangered species before they really speciated.
Part of it is form factor (a lot of the vaue of eink readers is their small size/light weight); part of it is the target market. The bulk of the large format market is obsessed with PDF, which isn't really an ebook format and really needs a full computer and *color* display behind it for proper use. And probably a touchscreen. Add it up and it looks more like a TabletPC and less like a Nook or Kindle or PB360.
With the iPad, Android Tablet/webpads, the coming slate netbooks, and the Core-based Win7 Tablets coming in the next year, the pricing differential is going to have to be significant for pure reader devices to survive. Like, from $149 to $499. That's better than a 300% spread.
A $399 reader only has a 25% price advantage over the iPad, zero over the slate netbooks, and is actually more expensive than the android webpads.
You tell me a Mirasol-driven 10in reader will hit $399 this fall and I might see a market for it; small but survivable. But black and white with no video or animation? Nope. Sorry, I don't see it. Not at that price. The competitors are simply a better value.
It would be a niche within a niche at most.