
Ask HN: Why are larger e-readers much more expensive than tablets? - bruceb
Looking at larger e-readers (8-10inch) I am surprised how few options there are and the prices $300+. Yes the regular 6&quot; Kindle is cheap but larger sizes are not.<p>I would rather read text books on an e-reader not a tablet.<p>The specs of most e-readers are low. Is the screen that costly? Is this the reason for them being that expensive? Or is it lack of demand?
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dalbasal
I’m guessing, but I have to imagine production volume has something to do with
it. Little e-reader screens for cheap devices like the 6” kindle are where the
volume is.

In any case, I’m kind of bummed that the e-ink/ereader market has sort of
settled on the current state of affairs.

What I’d really like to see is good e-ink laptops. First, because of battery
life. I also think they could be great “focus machines.” A laptop you can use
to write, code, read emails and maybe articles but without the full blown
“multimedia PC experience” we were sold back in the early 90s.

A little “kindle PC” designed for writers as the canonical user could be a
great contribution, and right up amazon’s alley. Way more interesting than the
kindle-fire stuff. I guess content for kindle fire looks like a juicier
market, but… no one is making e-ink laptops! We have plenty of app stores,
music services and online video stores.

On the reader front, I was really hoping amazon would do more to change the
business of publishing. When magazines or paperbacks became mass market,
publishing changed. The type of stuff that got published changed. e-readers, a
lot less.

Amazon seemed to be focused on making big publishers happy, and _they_ were
focused on keeping the industry’s structure intact. I wanted more of a shake-
up.

Publishing could be more democratic. The writer-reader relationship could be
more disintermediated. We could have more short stories by authors in their
prime, maybe as trailers for novels. We could have more short/concise
nonfiction, without the need to fill out a “whole book.” Some parts of
journalism could have been changed. I know of no better platform for “micro
payments” to writers than kindle's…. It feels like they left the job half
done.

So, I’m with you on big readers. I’ll raise you one laptop and a small-to-
medium publishing revolution.

~~~
donatj
I don’t think they’d sell well at all in laptops. I don’t think the tech is
far enough. The ~1 FPS performance and occasionally needing to flash the
entire screen to clear artifacts are really poor selling points for productive
work.

Things like for example scrolling a document or moving a mouse pointer would
be quite painful and streaky.

~~~
dalbasal
You’re probably right, but are these insurmountable hurdles, or just problems
that exist because no one has solved them yet? Someone has to start making
them, and they need to improve over a couple of generations. At first, the
software would need to navigate around any issues they can’t solve. Surely
there’re alternatives to scrolling and mouse pointers, at least as primary UI
elements. I mean, is a good email client or word processor really impossible
in e-ink?

~~~
bunderbunder
These characteristics are also annoying, but not "product-killingly annoying",
for e-readers. So if they're going to be fixed, I'd expect them to be fixed in
the e-reader space first, and then applied to laptops. Putting out an e-ink
laptop before the tech is ready would just be throwing money in a hole.

I just wouldn't expect what's going to be essentially a mid-'80s word
processor (Xerox Memorywriter, not WordPerfect) style user experience,
complete with the screen with the really low refresh rate, is something that
would sell.

~~~
dalbasal
Why would the software be bad? The display is the only thing thats different
in terms of hardware.

Besides that, circa 2000 hardware specs are embedded in £40 devices these
days, even ereaders. Word processing has been fine for a long time. No need
for bleeding edge performance, or even somewhat sharp.

~~~
bunderbunder
So the only analogue I know of for a device that was designed for that kind of
task, and used a display with those kinds of limitations, was word processing
appliances like the Xerox Memorywriter.

And I also know that nobody actually _liked_ working on those things; they
just put up with them because because, at the time, an actual computer set up
to do the same task could easily cost something upward of US$5,000 in today's
dollars.

~~~
dalbasal
Idk how fair that comparison is... The specs will be way better than anything
consumer grade in the 80s. These would also be general purpose PCs, in the
same sense that a phone is. They'd just be built with certain use cases in
mind, like phones.

I think your first point on ereaders being a sufficient platform for iteration
and working out kinks is accurate though. Scrolling and mousing we can work
around. Typing, no. If the refresh is not fast enough for a nice typing
experience... there is no workaround for that.

I still hope someone will make this. I really want one.

------
garyfirestorm
I believe mass manufacturing drives down the prices. Book owners like to read
something that is handheld ~6inches. Book readers won't buy large eink
devices.

I don't think the eink screens are that costly. It may have something to do
with the demand.

This is ridiculously expensive
[https://remarkable.com](https://remarkable.com) And the Sony Digital Paper is
expensive too.

I would love to see more phone cases with eink screens.

~~~
monksy
The remarkable tablet would be amazing if there was a print driver to send the
document directly to your device.

------
nextos
It's mostly the screen. Manufacturing costs scale non-linearly with area due
to defect rate.

I think they are really worth it, though. Now some 13 inch models even accept
video input, so you can potentially use it as a terminal / PDF screen.

~~~
StavrosK
I wish they would make defective units available at a lower price. I don't
mind some stuck pixels if it means I can get the reader half off.

~~~
rootlocus
I think you're being too optimistic about the discount to defect ratio.

~~~
jdavis703
What happens to a defective unit? Is it disassembled with the base components
put back in the assembly line? Or is it just sent to the landfill? I suppose
OP was assuming defective units are just trashed.

~~~
mnw21cam
That's not the way the economics works. If they sell you a half price unit
with a defect, they have potentially lost a sale at full price. So they don't.

------
bitlax
Is anyone else looking for an inexpensive, 13-inch, read-only e-ink tablet for
reading pdfs? If this exists can someone point me in the right direction? I
feel like I can't be the only one who's been looking for this.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Inexpensive? No. But you're basically describing Sony's DPT-RP1:

[https://www.sony.com/electronics/digital-paper-
notepads/dpt-...](https://www.sony.com/electronics/digital-paper-notepads/dpt-
rp1)

[https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/10/15242238/s...](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/4/10/15242238/sony-
dpt-rp1-giant-digital-paper-tablet-notebook)

It's $700. Also, it can take input from a stylus to annotate the documents on
it. But otherwise it's what you want. I, too, wish there were cheaper options
for this purpose - even if it was a thick, heavy monitor with a stand and
built-in 120V power supply rather than a tablet (though I suppose the power
characteristics of e-ink displays mean that the economics will typically
prefer the tablet form-factor). Reading is just a lot more pleasant on an
e-ink display.

~~~
_alias
Apparently the EULA oversteps. Gives sony the right to grab data from your pc
when connected.

------
JansjoFromIkea
I don't really see the room for demand beyond 8 inches ever growing, largely
because most bigger books are just far more complicated to transform to a
digital format (e.g. textbooks with multiple sections on each page and
tactically positioned images)

...but, Kobo in the last two years seem to have done pretty well with h2o and
aura one models. I'd be very interested in seeing how the h2o in particular
performs compared to their smaller models; 6.8 inches seems like a pretty
ideal compromise between size and portability for me that 6 inches does not.

~~~
mcv
The reason for bigger screens is not e-book formats, but PDF. I've got tons of
A4/letter-sized PDFs that I would love to read on A4-sized e-paper. But
e-readers that size are unbelievably expensive.

Colour would be nice too, but I guess that's impossible.

~~~
bananicorn
>>Colour would be nice too, but I guess that's impossible.

Well, not possible yet[0]. In a few years the technology might be refined
enough though. I also heard that the refresh rate is in the range of minutes
for now, but let's hope that'll change soon :)

[0][http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160524006209/en/Ink-...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160524006209/en/Ink-
Announces-Advanced-Color-ePaper-Breakthrough-Technology)

Edit: added quote I was responding to

------
JulianMorrison
Limited market. Can't sell them to folks who want to read novels. Can't sell
them to folks who want the full features of a tablet. Can't sell them to folks
who want colour, such as comic readers.

They are really only useful for reference books, and mostly of interest in
academia.

------
Tepix
There's only a single manufacturer of e-ink panels and they haven't managed to
get the prices down. High prices lead to low demand. The competitors in this
market seem to have given up.

------
danso
Not sure if there's something specific about e-paper technology that makes it
expensive despite being seemingly primitive compared to a typical tablet. But
it's worth pointing out that none of the most expensive e-readers are more
expensive than the cheapest iPads ($400 for the iPad Mini with 128-GB and a
7.9 inch screen), which most definitely have sophisticated screens (Retina,
multitouch).

I'm a longtime iPad user but I have one of the cheaper Amazon Fire tablets
(whatever was the 7-inch model that sold for $30 for last year's Black
Friday). I mean, it's a tablet, but it's not very fun to use compared to my
iPad/iPhone because of how clunky the multitouch is (among other things). And
the screen isn't high res -- under 200 ppi IIRC. Even the new Kindle Fire HD
10-inch model maxes out at just 224 ppi.

The ebook reader I currently own is the Kindle Voyage, which apparently has
300 ppi on a 6 inch screen at a cost of $199. The Kindle that I would
_recommend_ is the Paperwhite, which is just $90, while also having the same
screen quality as the Voyage.

(I owned the Paperwhite before getting the Voyage. I don't have any complaints
about the Voyage but I honestly could not tell you why it's any better than I
remember the Paperwhite being).

So if PPI is a large factor in cost of screen, it turns out that the Kindle
e-readers aren't that much out of whack compared to the Amazon Fire HD
tablets. Yes, it's just black and white, but for most books, that's all you
need. And it is very legible black-and-white. I have an iPad Pro but I do
almost all of my e-reading on the Kindle.

If you're a student, one thing I might worry about is whether the Kindles and
their small screen can handle all of the textbooks that you might use. For
books where layout is important, the small Kindle can be kind of a pain. And
some books (purchased on Amazon) will refuse to open on the Kindle, so I have
to view them on my iPad. I imagine the 10-inch version of the Kindle Fire
would handle full=size books, but that is me just guessing.

\---

You probably have seen these links, but just in case:

[https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/amazon-kindle-is-the-
best-...](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/amazon-kindle-is-the-best-ebook-
reader/)

[https://goodereader.com/blog/category/reviews](https://goodereader.com/blog/category/reviews)

~~~
dennyabraham
Small ereaders are much more affordable than the larger size the parent is
looking for. A few examples at this size class are remarkable[1], sony dpt-
rp1[2] and good ereader[3] and all cost at least 700 USD

[1] [https://remarkable.com/store/reMarkable-and-
marker](https://remarkable.com/store/reMarkable-and-marker)

[2] [https://www.sony.com/electronics/digital-paper-
notepads/dpt-...](https://www.sony.com/electronics/digital-paper-notepads/dpt-
rp1/buy?retailers=QW1hem9u,QiZIIFBob3RvIFZpZGVv)

[3] [https://goodereader.com/blog/product/good-e-
reader-13-3-e-re...](https://goodereader.com/blog/product/good-e-
reader-13-3-e-reader)

~~~
danso
Worth pointing out that all of those products feature writing functionality.
And the non-Sony ones come from small startups that likely don't benefit from
economies of scale.

------
mobilio
I remember KindleDX since you can get A4 (or US Letter) w/o zooming in/out.

But... DX is phased out and has no replacement. Also most eReaders are slow -
due display. There is no needs for something super-fast but there is needs to
be energy efficient. And mine Kindle Touch (ver. 5 i think) battery lasts few
weeks (between 2-3).

~~~
donatj
Bought a DX for reading PDFs, I would have loved my DX too, but they hadn’t
and said they likely wouldn’t update the software to support the kindle
document cloud, so I had to manually email all my PDFs to it, or move them via
USB.

Ended up returning it.

------
bpyne
Speaking of larger e-readers, does anyone have experience with the Remarkable
product?

At some point, I'm going to have to replace my 1st gen Nook and would love to
have a device that I can write on as well. So, the Remarkable product looks
great despite the price tag. But, I'd want at least a 10-year life.

------
fencepost
I'm sure economies of scale factor in - not just for components but for other
costs as well, e.g. will engineering and tooling be split across 10k, 100k, 1m
or more units?

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treznich
Mostly lack of demand. But I would really want to get a big 10 inch ebook with
smooth interface.

~~~
r3bl
There's reMarkable (10.1"), which does a bit more than a traditional ebook
reader and you can get it now, but it's bloody expensive (630 euros):
[https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)

~~~
tbihl
You sort of have to love their advertising: "How is reMarkable different?

No tablet has less functionality than the reMarkable. "

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rb808
Also why are all the android ereaders running Android 4?

