Has the JB lost its price advantage?

[Kralik]

It used to be that the JB was ~$100 less than the competition. When I bought mine for $170, Sony was about $280 and the Kindle $300. Now that prices are dropping, though... is it worth it?

Recently I've seen the Kindle 2 for $89 and I just bought a "certified" Nook for my brother for $79.99 (straight from B&N, comes with 1-yr. warranty). With Sony's trade-in program a new PRS-350 cost me $75 (and they gave me a $25 gift card to their ebook store complimentary with the purchase). Though Sony in general seems priced a bit higher than others.

The closest Black Friday price I saw for the JB was a local store selling the Libre for $88.88. With all of these choices in a close price range, why not get the e-ink device from a "major" brand name? The JB LCD is great, but e-ink screens seem as least as good.

Just as an aside, I have handled a Kindle 3 and it is sleek. My Sony even more so. JB seems positively plasticy and clunky in comparison. If you had to choose between the JB/JBL for $90 and a touch-screen Pocket Sony for $120 (recent sale price from Dell), would you really want the JB more?

[petechan]

I completely agree with you. I had earlier already commented about the high prices for the Libre and Jetbook hardware but other folks commented about how the ability to read multiple formats justified the price. Well not anymore. With other readers all having wifi and some with touch screens I think it is hard to push this hardware at this point. The only advantage to JBL has it the fact it uses batteries and both of them have no calendar so you can keep your library books indefinitely. If it were not for these I would not have bought another Libre. In fact, its hard to find the regular jetbook anymore since they still seem to want $130 for it.

[MmavisO]

It would depend greatly on where you plan to get your books. Kindles, Nooks, and Sonys are all proprietary to one degree or another, and limit the DRM formats you can read while JB/JBL will let you read any of the major DRM formats. If you don't plan to purchase DRM'd books, the JBL (I don't know about the JB) doesn't have an internal clock or calendar, so your library books don't expire until you reconnect it to ADE. If you only plan to read non-DRM books from, for example, our own Mobileread library or purchased from such sites as Bewrite, Dulan, Smashwords, Baen, etc etc, then format availability might still be a consideration, although you can use Calibre to convert from one non-DRM format to another.

[Catlady]

I bought my JBL (my first e-reader) recently for $100. Price was only one consideration. I do agree that it's probably harder for most first-time buyers to look beyond Kindle, Nook, and Sony when the price differential is no longer as much as it used to be. But percentage wise, it's still pretty significant.

I tried a Nook in B&N before buying the JBL, and a Kindle 3 in Staples afterward. I was not impressed with either one (I hated the Kindle!). I don't feel I compromised on any features I wanted by buying the JBL.

[MR. Pockets]

I think that for someone who is exclusively interested in reading on their device, that the JB/JBL/ALP readers are still a good option if they are on sale (<$100). I tried a Kindle 2 and compared to my Libre, the basic "ease of reading" was better on the Libre, I think mainly due to it's size and button placement. The only reader I have seen that equals the JB/JBL/ALP group is the Sony PRS350. I'm sure that some of the other "meduim" level brands (Pocketbok) are as good also, but have not seen any.

[Ken Maltby]

I think that a greater threat to the jetBooks will be the cheap 7" color media players
being sold as ebook readers. (Aluratek even has one they are selling.) Most of the
uninformed public will not be aware of the real impact there is between "8 hours of
book reading" with those compared to the ~25hrs for the "real" dedicated ereaders.

An example:
http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CD8Q8wIwBA#

Quite a lot of features to impress a buyer.

Luck;
Ken

[Kralik]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

I think that a greater threat to the jetBooks will be the cheap 7" color media players
being sold as ebook readers. (Aluratek even has one they are selling.) Most of the
uninformed public will not be aware of the real impact there is between "8 hours of
book reading" with those compared to the ~25hrs for the "real" dedicated ereaders.

It irritates me greatly when I see reviews on current eBook readers from the uninformed public with comments like:

"No color screen? FAIL! I'm not going to buy technology from 1996!" :roll:

[jorlando]

For what I paid for my JBL I could find a Nook or a Kindle for a similar price, but what I really needed was a good pdf reader and only the JBL had that.

Price is an important factor but is not the definitive, in my case.

I could and probably will buy some "e-reader" like the one that Ken linked but for use as a very portable browser to use at work.

I just can't read a book on an illuminated screen. I can browse, read news, but longer texts (like a book :-D). I just can't bear reading on a computer/palm/GPS or whatever screen

[jennieve01]

I got my most recent libre for 69.99 at ultimate electronics and saw a sony there for the same price.

[Number_6]

Originally Posted by Kralik

It used to be that the JB was ~$100 less than the competition. When I bought mine for $170, Sony was about $280 and the Kindle $300. Now that prices are dropping, though... is it worth it?

My short answer would be no, the Ectaco readers are no longer worth what they once were. My wife just picked up two Nook Wi-Fi readers for $99 each at Wal-Mart (price match for Best Buy doorbuster). In many ways the Nook blows my JBL out of the water. For a company that is known for dictionaries, the Ectaco readers have HORRIBLE lookup functions. The Nook has an excellent word lookup function. The choice of fonts and screen size is also much better with the Nook. In fact, my wife couldn't read for extended periods with my JBL without eye strain, but found the Nook to be very comfortable to read. The JBL is twice as thick as the Nook and it feels much more flimsy in comparison.

The greatest advantage I've so far discovered with the Nook over my JBL is with an epub study Bible. It's a huge epub (8600+ pages) and failed to load on my JBL. I put it on the Nook and it comes right up complete with embedded links that the JBL can not do on ANY ebook. It's also nice to be able to have audiobooks and podcasts on an ereader that costs the same or in many cases LESS than the JBL.

Now I'm not going to throw out my JBL as it is nice to be able to have an ereader to put in your pocket and go with a spare set of batteries from time to time, but given the choice between a $99 Nook and a $99 JBL which one do you think most people would choose?

[greenapple]

It's hard to compete with the big boys. I may be completely mistaken, but I believe these guys are selling their ebook readers near or even below cost. All of these big players have online ebook stores, and the readers are a means to attract repeated ebook sales. The business model is probably similar to companies that sell really cheap printers, but they more than make up for it by selling you consumables (ink, drum etc) afterwards.

[DJHARKAVY]

I love my JBL and recently bought two more.

But I have to say that for the majority of people, with the price difference lowered or non-existant, the Nook (wifi) or a refurb Kindle2 would be a better choice. Most people don't care where they get their books from and are happy with being able to just go to the web site and download. Without price as a factor, they don't want to go exploring to get their books, download to their computer and then sideload to their device.

[GA Russell]

Considering newegg's recent price of $99 for a JBL with a free leather cover and free shipping, I think that the JBL still has a good price advantage over the Kindle 3 and the Sony 350 and 650. Prices quoted here for the Kindle and the Sony's never include the price of the cover (and the sales tax).

However...

1) The competition when on sale is now within many people's price range. A year ago there were folks who could not afford the competition (but could afford the JBL on sale).

2) A year ago nearly all of us here who had seen both the eInk vizplex and the reflective TFT screens felt that the reflective TFT screen was superior. But now Sony and Amazon offer the eInk pearl screen, and opinion is divided over whether the reflective TFT is superior to the eInk pearl.

[Ken Maltby]

The good thing for us JetBook Lite owners, is that the JBL remains a versatile and
efficient (25+hr per charge) reader in a small package that can still meet our needs
even if it is no longer the cheapest reader out there. I still don't need WiFi or 3G
for my ebook reader, the thousands of ebooks on an SD card are plenty of a TBR
list to have on hand. I don't need any more to facilitate my impulse buying.

I still like using rechargable AA batteries, over having to wait while a device is
charging an internal battery.

While there is less of a price obstacle to those ereading devices with more features,
what I have now lets me read the stories I like as well as I can expect from any of
them.

Wake me when a 10" Mirasol display with some low power networking/internet and
replaceable batteries, shows up.

Luck;
Ken

[GhostHawk]

I don't think they have the leverage they used to have. But I suspect that we'll be seeing cheaper Jetbooks and JBL's in the near future.

Personally I wouldn't trade a jetbook for a nook, or anything with a color screen.