Quote:
Originally Posted by hidari
So any educated guess as to why Jinke was forced to stop distributing their eReaders?
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Well lots of possibilities;
- Pretty hard to sell an ereader nowdays for $179US that is just an ereader when looking at the competition, Amazon, B&N, Kobo are all cheaper have an ebookstore integration and ease of buying (and the Nook and Kobo the option to use ADE is one so chooses).
- Perhaps contractual issues are arising through the resellers and terms of geographic sales ie: BeBook and Astak ship worldwide yet readers like the LBook and Eco Reader appear to be more localised.
- Chinese market may be bigger or more profitable for Jinke than the western market so they have redirected their efforts.
- Ceased production of the V3/V3+/V5 for the new line of readers on their website (according to LBook are released in January, coincide I guess with CES 2011).
- With increased demand for e-ink screens perhaps right now they can't buy the number they want at a reasonable price.
But this is one manufacturer and a good company would recognise a downfall in goods coming from that manufacturer and look elsewhere for a similar product to fill the demand, and as theducks pointed out, no mention of the Mentor range anywhere anymore.
Interestingly though here in Australia a new ereader started selling a week or so ago (
http://dicksmith.com.au/product/A345...i-eink-ereader). I went and had a look at one (none were open) but the photo here shows a different logo to what was on the box (and subsequent pics on the box) which looks (other than the colours) identical to the EZReader logo on theezreader.com (same as on the top of the PP). If I happen to stumble by one that is open I'll take a few snaps and post them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
Thanks for the link.
I still stand on my 'easy' wording. Jinke is Not Astak, whose label is on the device. The link was not obvious, if it was on the EZReader site or the Astak site.
(And I did find the tools to set the startup and shutdown image. )
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Yeah no worries. The link is from Jinke, Astak had their own locally hosted copy WHEN they had the ereader link on Astak.com. I believe the Astak copy was more up-to-date.