Price of Larger E-readers

[HLS]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Thinner is bad. Lighter is bad. Thinner and lighter means smaller batter with less life between charges.

Thinner and lighter needs to stop. We need good batteries, not weak ones because the device is too thin for a good solid battery.

I want to see these devices with the larger screens have a good battery. They don't in order to go thinner and lighter.

I feel you can have thin and a good battery.

Take the oasis. The fat edge is about the thickness of a Voyage which is thinner than the paperwhite. Just make the battery larger/wider and do away with that edge and make the whole thing the same thickness. It will still be thinner than most devices and have more battery power or better yet make a 7 inch or 8 inch voyage and increase the battery size by that much. Thin is good but we do not need a paper thin one

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Thinner is bad. Lighter is bad. Thinner and lighter means smaller batter with less life between charges.

Thinner and lighter needs to stop. We need good batteries, not weak ones because the device is too thin for a good solid battery.

I want to see these devices with the larger screens have a good battery. They don't in order to go thinner and lighter.

I'm with you on LCD/LED tablets, where the thinness fetish has materially hurt the user experience by limiting battery lives to the point where it can be annoying.

But we're talking about e-ink readers here. They already last weeks on a single charge, and larger ones are going last longer simply because there's more battery area in them.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by sjfan

But we're talking about e-ink readers here. They already last weeks on a single charge, and larger ones are going last longer simply because there's more battery area in them.

You are apparently unfamiliar with the 7" Kindle Oasis.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

I feel you can have thin and a good battery.

Take the oasis. The fat edge is about the thickness of a Voyage which is thinner than the paperwhite. Just make the battery larger/wider and do away with that edge and make the whole thing the same thickness. It will still be thinner than most devices and have more battery power or better yet make a 7 inch or 8 inch voyage and increase the battery size by that much. Thin is good but we do not need a paper thin one

And I've been reading about battery issues with the new Oasis. Also, Amazon doesn't make batteries. They buy already made batteries. So I don't see Amazon trying to get some company to make custom batteries for one model Kindle. That would raise the price to beyond affordable Given that Reader makers have to use already existing batteries, stop going lighter/thinner at the expense of the battery. Yes, I read that others are saying but they last longer then phones/tablets. True, but take a Reader with an even better battery. It will last longer than this lighter/thinner Reader with a lassoer batter before the user will find the battery no longer acceptable.

There are batteries where we could get months instead of weeks. I'd rather that as the expense of lighter/thinner. Think of how much hardcover trade paperback books can weight. Most Readers don't weight that much.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And I've been reading about battery issues with the new Oasis. Also, Amazon doesn't make batteries. They buy already made batteries. So I don't see Amazon trying to get some company to make custom batteries for one model Kindle. That would raise the price to beyond affordable Given that Reader makers have to use already existing batteries, stop going lighter/thinner at the expense of the battery. Yes, I read that others are saying but they last longer then phones/tablets. True, but take a Reader with an even better battery. It will last longer than this lighter/thinner Reader with a lassoer batter before the user will find the battery no longer acceptable.

There are batteries where we could get months instead of weeks. I'd rather that as the expense of lighter/thinner. Think of how much hardcover trade paperback books can weight. Most Readers don't weight that much.

I can attest to that. Seiko had to have a special battery made for it's old Perpetual Calendar watches. The battery used to wholesale at more than $25.00. They have since changed the Perpetual Calendar watches to use a standard size battery. After changing the battery in the original Perpetual Calendar you had to depress four different contacts, inside the watch, to reset all functions. This could take up to 20 minutes to do. Seiko even had a four page full size laminated document for jewelers to use.The newer ones have buttons on the outside that allow you to set the functions in five minutes.
Apache

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Apache

I can attest to that. Seiko had to have a special battery made for it's old Perpetual Calendar watches. The battery used to wholesale at more than $25.00. They have since changed the Perpetual Calendar watches to use a standard size battery. After changing the battery in the original Perpetual Calendar you had to depress four different contacts, inside the watch, to reset all functions. This could take up to 20 minutes to do. Seiko even had a four page full size laminated document for jewelers to use.The newer ones have buttons on the outside that allow you to set the functions in five minutes.
Apache

This is a rather good example of why custom batteries are not a good idea. So thinner/lighter, nope. The KO2 is a good example of this. I've read of coplaints about the battery. There's no need the KO2 could not have been made to have at least the same battery life as the PW or Voyage depending which lasted longer.

Also, these thinner Readers make them more fragile.

[Katsunami]

It depends where you put your priorities.

First: If Kobo hadn't released the 7.8 inch Aura ONE, I'd still be reading on my Paperwhite 1 from 2012. (And if nothing had changed and the 6 inch, non-lit e-readers were still the best on offer, I'd be reading on the 2011 Touch.) This means that, for me, a very large leap has to be made in screen quality if I want to upgrade my reader. 7.8 to 8 inch is about the perfect screen size for me. The only thing I'd want would be Amazon's stability of the firmware, with Kobo's adjustments, so the only chance of me replacing the KA1 would be with a 7.8 or 8 inch Amazon e-reader, with at least the same customization capabilities of a Kobo.

So, I'm using an e-reader for a long time: 5 years or more, potentially.

The soon to be released Galaxy S9+ will have a price of €949 in the Netherlands.
The Kobo Aura ONE has a price of €230 in the Netherlands.

I don't *need* a phone costing almost €1000. I don't want to use it for reading, because when reading outside/in public transport (thus, often, in bright light), the e-reader screen is far superior.

Many people buy €949 phones. I'll buy a €230 e-reader, a €200 phone, and I will still have €519 left. Seen that way, a €230 e-reader isn't expensive.

Then I haven't even taken into account the *hundreds* of dollars and cubic meters of space I've saved buying e-books as compared to paper books.

[JSWolf]

I was using a Sony Reader PRS-T1. I was interested int he Kobo Aura HD but because it wasn't sold locally. I didn't get one. But when the Kobo Aura H2O came out, I decided to look into it. I liked the 6.8" screen, front light, more features, more fonts, Carta screen, higher resolution, more internal storage. and waterproof. All of these are feature the T1 does not have and now that I have the H2O, I've never replaced thew battery.

The one thing my T1 has that a stock T1 doesn't have is the ability to change the fonts used in the font menu.

[frahse]

All things being equal the desire to convince people to buy a new type device results in a lower entry point price-wise.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Thinner is bad. Lighter is bad. Thinner and lighter means smaller batter with less life between charges.

Thinner and lighter needs to stop. We need good batteries, not weak ones because the device is too thin for a good solid battery.

I want to see these devices with the larger screens have a good battery. They don't in order to go thinner and lighter.

As the owner of a Kobo Aura One, I feel a reasonable balance was struck. Would I prefer a longer battery life? As an absolutely voracious reader, yes!

But I would not wish my reader to be any heavier. It is carried everywhere, so weight IS a factor, and I would not wish it to increase. As for thickness, it feels good in my hand, neither too thin or too thick. And the screen size is marvelous!

I'm not in favor of plastic screens to make devices lighter either, as plastic scratches. I'll take a durable glass screen at the sacrifice of a little battery life. I don't need my reader to last weeks on a charge, several days is fine. Frankly, NO ereader I've EVER used lasted weeks with my kind of usage....

I adopted ereaders to get AWAY from thick and heavy books, in spite of the fact that the paper books never required a charge.

My advice, if you need extra reading time out of a device and don't mind carrying some weight? Battery pack.






Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I'm not in favor of plastic screens to make devices lighter either, as plastic scratches. I'll take a durable glass screen at the sacrifice of a little battery life. I don't need my reader to last weeks on a charge, several days is fine. Frankly, NO ereader I've EVER used lasted weeks with my kind of usage....

What was being referred to with the eInk Mobius display is not the front of the screen but rather the substrate the eInk display is built on. This would reduce the number of broken substrates which is one of the major causes of early death for ereaders and allow for a lighter ereader for the same display size.

To quote from the eInk blurb for the Mobius displays:

For applications such as cell phones or hand-held devices, the use of a plastic TFT can be augmented by a layer of unbreakable glass on the front of the display to give stiffness to a device which requires significant touch interaction, but still provides an increased ruggedness. In these types of devices the TFT itself is often the component that fails when dropped, rather than the top plane glass. A plastic TFT can significantly reduce display failure due to those drops.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by DNSB

What was being referred to with the eInk Mobius display is not the front of the screen but rather the substrate the eInk display is built on. This would reduce the number of broken substrates which is one of the major causes of early death for ereaders and allow for a lighter ereader for the same display size.



To quote from the eInk blurb for the Mobius displays:



For applications such as cell phones or hand-held devices, the use of a plastic TFT can be augmented by a layer of unbreakable glass on the front of the display to give stiffness to a device which requires significant touch interaction, but still provides an increased ruggedness. In these types of devices the TFT itself is often the component that fails when dropped, rather than the top plane glass. A plastic TFT can significantly reduce display failure due to those drops.

I'm good if the substrate goes to plastic, but I don't suppose it's a huge enough weight savings to fit *much* more battery in. My impression, and feel free to correct it if I'm wrong, is that the glass substrate is pretty thin and delicate. Hence all the worries about twisting, torquing and dropping these devices. Not that I've ever broken one, but clearly, less fragile would indeed be good!

I think with all devices, there is always some kind of compromise. Less battery life is the trade-off for a larger screen that's light enough to hold comfortably for hours.

Fragile glass substrates is something we've more or less accepted by adopting e-ink readers in the first place. I have no regrets, and likewise none that my current reader must be charged more often. The pleasure of reading on it outweighs the displeasure of charging every 3-4 days.

The crazy thing about all this is, my very first e-ink reader had similar or worse battery life (Nook Wifi) and I HATED that and moved to a Sony which did much better, though I certainly didn't get weeks plural. What I wasn't willing to put up with in a 6" clunky and heavy Nook device, I'm fine with in a slim, lightweight, frontlit, large screen reader. Times do change....




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[haertig]

As things get "better", there is not a one-to-one price increase per feature. The improvements come in smaller and smaller increments as you approach the higher end, and the price per increment shoots sky high. This skyrocketing of price is not typically due to technical issues. I highly doubt it costs that much more for a 7" screen vs. a 6" screen, all other things being equal. However, that fairly minor difference in screen size is highly prized by some, and inconsequential to others. The ones who prize it will pay serious money to get it. So the manufacturers charge serious money. Because they can. They're not stupid. They know how to make profits. After most everybody who needs a 7" screen has already bought one, the manufactures will come up with some new enticement to charge premium prices, and you'll be able to buy a 7" screened device for a song.

Look at TV's. The current rage is 4k, even though the human eye can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080 - unless your couch is two feet in front of your 70" TV. 1080 sets used to be expensive. Now they're a dime a dozen. Even 4k is beginning to settle down, and 8k is starting to be pushed. That will be good for when your nose touches the TV screen while sitting on your couch. Hello 16k! For when the human nose has flattened itself to an even smaller dimension due to being pressed against the TV screen. Human eyes are only SO good. Increasing screen resolution to ridiculous amounts does not make your eyes any better.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by haertig

Look at TV's. The current rage is 4k, even though the human eye can't tell the difference between 4k and 1080 - unless your couch is two feet in front of your 70" TV. 1080 sets used to be expensive. Now they're a dime a dozen. Even 4k is beginning to settle down, and 8k is starting to be pushed. That will be good for when your nose touches the TV screen while sitting on your couch. Hello 16k! For when the human nose has flattened itself to an even smaller dimension due to being pressed against the TV screen. Human eyes are only SO good. Increasing screen resolution to ridiculous amounts does not make your eyes any better.

Quick check using the numbers tossed around a few years back when arguing about Apple's Retina displays was popular says a 70" 4K screen is "retina" at a distance of 55.32 inches (140.5cm). I don't know about you but the chances of my nose touching the screen at that distance is pretty low. No puppets in my ancestry.

A quick measurement says the distance from my favourite love seat to the TV screen is ~210cm so a 1920 x 1080 70" screen is not "retina" at that distance -- I'd need to move back another ~70cm. Now an 88" 8K OLED display... 33 megapixels just about matching high end DSLR sensors.

[ProDigit]

I tend to believe that there's indeed a large profit margin asked for e-readers that are decent, while the basic ones are priced well!

It's the same with cellphones,
If you want an android phone, you'll need at least 4GB of RAM, and at least 32GB of internal memory.
You can find plenty of phones with 32GB of memory, and 2 or 3GB of ram, from $30-$200, but the 4GB RAM versions almost all come with 64GB of ROM; with a price of $500 or up.
And you know that the 3GB of RAM will be limiting you someway or another (and isn't future proof).
Not even sure why they make them? (as some of the 2GB phones would work well, if they had just 4GB of RAM instead! which would be like $50+an additional $10 for the memory = $60).
Probably they're licensing agreements between companies that don't want to undermine the high end market, by budget phones that could perfectly do the job if their bottleneck was taken care of.

Not even sure why they make devices with built in, non replaceable batteries?
Does it cost them that much to install a water sealed hatch in the back?

Same with motorcycles. The sweet spot for USA is 400-500cc.
Until a few years ago, there were 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300cc motorcycles.
In other words, not enough for the interstate.
Then it would jump to 700cc (the 600cc sports bike from Suzuki, was hugely popular).
Then Honda came out with their 500cc bikes, unfortunately they made them too heavy.
Still to this day, there's no small, light weight, hi-rev 400cc motorcycle on the market (save for the KTM Duke 390, which has reliability issues)...

Anyway, I guess it's what you pay for luxury.
I wished they would do the same as with PCs.
They probably some day will get there.
PCs have sufficient power. You pay for the surplus on power that you don't really need.
Like,
A 2,9Ghz Corei5 laptop of $500 with 4-8GB of RAM, will work well for most things I want to do. But if I want a 12 core Xeon, it'll become $+1500, or a 300% increase.

The luxury of power in the PCs is purchased in money.
Most of the time you won't need the extra power of a server processor, and actually benefit from the longer battery life of the lower end model. So in PC terms, we would most of the time benefit with the lower model which lasts longer in battery, costs less, and still is good enough to be future proof for the next 4+ years!

Cars, if all you're looking for, is a vehicle that gets you from point a to b, in a reasonable comfortable fashion, most econocars are great deals, costing half the price of the ones that do the same, but with fun riding.
I do think that factories could bump up the fun factor, and make luxury and performance/exotic cars more expensive; but lower the street price of current sporty
(200-350HP) cars.
I do find they surplus charge too much to the mid class, while the upperclass is no longer buying them (they're more into Ferraris and Lamborghinis etc...)...

Cellphones are almost there.
The mid class needs to be upgraded significantly, and the upper class needs to aim for gamers.

The ebook class is still a few years, to a decade behind in this.
We should get Oasis' performance, at a Kindle PPW pricepoint.
Our readers should all have 7 to 9 inch screens, even if they had a lower resolution (800x600 pixels might be good enough), and leave the top models being 7-9" screens with 1080p or UHD screens...