Comment by jm4 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jm4 | Hacker News Reader

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I'm so tired of this netbook argument. They're apples and oranges. One is a dedicated ebook reader and the other is a multifunction ultra-portable computer. Just because one is capable of doing something the other is capable of does not necessarily make them comparable. I've used netbooks and e-ink ebook readers. The ebook experience on a netbook does not compare. This is like saying cell phones are a rip off because you could use a $40 pair of walkie talkies without a monthly fee instead.

Not to mention, we have no idea what the cost is on a Kindle. Netbooks use commodity components that are widely available from numerous manufacturers. The same is not true of e-ink displays. This is at least partly a factor in the perceived high cost of an ebook reader.

We also don't know what kind of arrangement Amazon has with Sprint. Amazon gives a few cents to Sprint when you purchase something using Whispernet. Maybe Sprint also gets a flat fee every time a Kindle is sold. We simply don't know.

There's also the issue of limited competition in the ebook market right now. There are only a few manufacturers of quality e-ink readers and on top of it all the Kindle is the only game in town if you want to buy ebooks from Amazon. This is relatively new technology and the price will go down. We've seen it before with the components that go into a $250 netbook. This is economics 101.

I do not agree because:

- Netbooks are usually based on Atom processors that are cheap when compared to Core2 and other more traditional PC processors but are much more expensive than the cellphone-class ARM processor used in the Kindle

- Netbooks use higher-capacity batteries because Atom processors use more juice than the ARM in the Kindle.

- The Kindle uses far more commoditized components than a netbook does - it uses cellphone-class components while netbooks use PC-class ones.

- Netbooks also have more RAM - the Kindle certainly has less than a gigabyte of RAM - I would risk the Kindle has no more than 128 megs, soldered on the motherboard - which is also cheaper than mounting RAM into a socket.

- The e-ink displays are not new technology - a couple years ago my carrier (in Brazil) offered me a Motorola phone with e-ink display. It was an entry-level "dumbphone" and I did not need one. The only "new" thing in the Kindle DX display is its size and design considerations that follow from it.

Kindle has a thickness of a cellphone. This is an important factor that many of the "NETBOOK" people seem to want to ignore.

It's largely irrelevant. Netbooks are not designed to use flat batteries - most of them use cylindric cells - and have higher profile motherboards because memory and SSDs/hard disks live on sockets on top of the motherboard - because PC users are used to expand them. Netbooks also heat up a lot more than the cellphone-sized brain Kindles use and netbooks must accommodate heat management hardware (fans, heat exchangers) Kindles don't

Uh, so?

A user that wants a thin device doesn't care why the device is thin. Netbooks aren't as thin as a Kindle, period.

They can't be as thin as a Kindle - they are different devices designed to be used in different ways - a netbook is usually used the same way as a notebook (I use mine mostly on a desk, hooked up to a big monitor, a decent keyboard and mouse) while the Kindle is designed to be used as a book.

I would happily trade a couple millimeters thickness for longer battery life, wi-fi, a hard-drive and network-printer emulation software so I could print my stuff to "paper stacks" on the device. Unfortunately, the absence of such device indicates strongly that those needs are mine only.

I look forward to hacking the Tech Crunch thingie to suit those needs.

Dude, you do not want to compare the e-ink technology from your "Motorola phone with e-ink display". That was cheaper, of course, but the resolution was awful (2x6). Not to mention refresh speed and screen size.

Pocket calculators have LCD displays for decades, too. That does not mean that your 22" inch LCD screen has no "new technology" and should be cheap.

The e-ink part is exactly the same. It's the logic behind the screen that is different.

And Kindles are not that different from any other e-paper display device bundled with e-readers from many other sources.

The Kindle should be cheap to build

You know this isn't Reddit, right? Just saying something 100 times doesn't make it true.

The same way as saying any number of times something is false doesn't make it so.

This discussion lacks a price list for all parts. Until then, it's my common sense against yours.

Or better: my biases against your biases.

Source: http://www.isuppli.com/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=20138

Thanks.

US$ 60 for the display doesn't look that expensive. At US$ 190 total cost of manufacture for the 2, I would risk the wireless free forever subsidy seems to be a substantial part of the unit cost. Would it be a safe bet to estimate the display of the DX to be around US$ 120?

So, again, I would be happy with a DX that used wi-fi or my own GSM/3G instead of the US-only cellular network. And the bright side is that it could probably be sold for less than the current versions.

Actually, the ink itself was high-resolution. It was the driving mechanism behind it that was so-so. There is a lot being done in the driver side of the e-ink displays to improve refresh times. OTOH, I don't see that much being done to improve resolution.

Unlike the cheap phone you were offered, the Kindle e-ink display uses a newer form of e-ink that allows for more than 2 colors, with a resolution several hundred times the resolution of the phone's e-ink display, significantly faster refreshing, AND which can update portions of the screen instead of the entire screen every time (which was not available on any e-ink product until the iRex illiad which came out in 2007). It's sort of like the difference between the mouse and the elephant.

The processor is not the expensive part, nor is the ram. The fucking display is the expensive part.

"The processor is not the expensive part, nor is the ram. The fucking display is the expensive part."

Still, the display has to be very expensive, since every other piece should be really cheap and there are not that many of them anyway. The Kindle has the brains of a cheap smartphone.

Yes, the display is very expensive. You've got it exactly right.

Look at all the other vendors of eInk devices. Those devices are also expensive. If they could massively undercut Amazon, they probably would.

They would only undercut Amazon if they could secure supplies for a proportionately larger number of units. If parts supplies are short, the best strategy is not to undercut your competitor and gain market share, but enjoy higher profit margins while the part shortage lasts.

And, of course, as long as market share is not a huge concern.

It is also unwise to enter a price war with a competitor with deeper pockets than you.

Would you please stop using all caps in comments?

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The e-ink on that motorola phone is very different. It could only display fixed images, much like an old-style seven-segment display (like on a microwave). The e-ink on the Kindle is like a computer monitor; it can display smooth text and arbitrary images.

The Kindle DX has nearly 1-million 16 color pixels. That motorola phone has literally a handful of one-color pixels. Hence the price difference.

Indeed, I have used and continue to use my netbook to read e-books, and the experience is not satisfactory. My eyes hurt. If Kindle DX can reduce my eyestrain, I am going to buy it.

> I've used netbooks and e-ink ebook readers. The ebook experience on a netbook does not compare.

Pixel Qi's screen will narrow that gap eventually, at the price of being less available and more expensive in the short and medium-term.

http://www.pixelqi.com/blog1/

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