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Coupled with that 10-inch e-ink panel that they mention will be available when it launches, this could make for a great machine for working (reading, writing, c
by Funes- 6y ago
Coupled with that 10-inch e-ink panel that they mention will be available when it launches, this could make for a great machine for working (reading, writing, coding...). I hope the price is not very steep.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoI worry more about the price of a 10 inch e-ink panel.
- Funes- 6y agoI was referring to the sum of both--to the price of that particular machine (SBC + e-ink panel) I just described.
- megous 6y agoYeah, those can easily be in the $200 range.
- FlyingSnake 6y agoCost of Pine64 SBC: $64 Cost of e-Ink panel: $50 Money paid to patent owner: $300
- captainmuon 6y agoDon't worry about the price - when the e-ink patent overlords learn that they are not being used for blessed purposes (digital signage or ebook readers) but as general purpose display sold to end users (gasp!) they'll probably become mysteriously unavailable. (Source: our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult...)
- CameronNemo 6y agoKobo's Clara HD is 99$, runs post market OS, has a small 1GHz core and 512 MB of RAM. Great low end option IMO.
- voltagex_ 6y agoPity, they're $200+ in Australia.
- mikenew 6y agoDo you mean that they come stock running postmarketOS, or just that you can install it?
- CameronNemo 6y agoYou can run pmOS. Not stock.
- may_i_ask 6y agoI am confused. Seems like this unit does not boot yet according to the postmarketos Web site.
- CameronNemo 6y agoI must have confused the wiki page for "is able to run on the device". Nevertheless there are kernels and X.org patches available that supposedly work.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoWhat's the motivation for the vendors to vet use cases/limit sales?
- novok 6y agoProbably linked to failure rates due to significantly higher page updates than an ebook or sign.
- captainmuon 6y agoMy crazy conspiracy theory is that there is some ownership overlap with traditional display manufacturers. If it gets used widely as a general-purpose display this can cannibalize sales of LCDs as the technology gets better and cheaper. [1] That's one reason you can get good and cheap e-ink if you are building an ebook reader [2], or if you are building these little price displays for the shelves in supermarkets. But if you want a monitor, you have to either pay a lot of money or buy something for tinkerers, there is no inbetween. ---- [1] The rational reason would be that they have only limited production or support capacity, and sell to the easiest, most lucrative customers first. [2] Of course, for e-book readers you also have the benefit of scale if you are Amazon or Sony. But there are also smaller vendors, and in the case of the digital price tags the companies that make them are mostly smallish businesses.
- robinsoh 6y ago> when the e-ink patent overlords Any evidence of this? Everytime someone mentions this, I ask, and I get no evidence. If this kind of allegation was true, I'd expect tonnes of publications to jump on this. > our company tried to buy e-ink displays to integrate into a product. All I can say is, it is difficult I perceive this as equivalent to my company trying to buy 100 displays straight from Samsung and then alleging that it is hard to do. It is all about volume. Even a 1000 and they won't talk to you. It has to be in the 100k volumes before the actual device vendors talk to you. Otherwise you go through distributors just like everyone else.
- captainmuon 6y agoWell we regularly buy LCD panels in large and small quantities from big manufacturers, and distributors, in order to integrate them into our industrial PCs. While we are not a household name, we're big in our niche and I'd say we have industry experience. I was not on the project and I'm not in purchasing, so I don't know the details, but from what I heard it was quite odd. The vendor (not e-ink, but a downstream integrator) was first willing to sell thousands of units, we got a devkit from them and started developing. But suddenly they were like "What is your business plan sir?" and "I'm afraid we cannot sell at the moment". The quantity was not the problem, they sounded like they were not happy with the use case. The reason you never see hard evidence is that there is no evidence to be found - it's just that the vendors behave "odd" and are picky with whom they sell to.
- robinsoh 6y ago> I was not on the project and I'm not in purchasing, so I don't know the details, but from what I heard it was quite odd. Ok. > The vendor (not e-ink, but a downstream integrator) was first willing to sell thousands of units, we got a devkit from them and started developing. But suddenly they were like "What is your business plan sir?" and "I'm afraid we cannot sell at the moment". The quantity was not the problem, they sounded like they were not happy with the use case. If my purchasing team gave an explanation like that, I'd be suspicious of the purchasing team. I've seen scenarios where the "distributor" didn't actually have the quantity in the timeframe they promised as they weren't a top tier distributor. So the purchasing guy who had some kind of relationship with that distributor was coming up with lots of crazy reasons to keep delaying until we finally found out. As always, the simplest explanation is not "vendors behaving odd and being picky about who they sell to", I've never seen a vendor being unwilling to sell as long as you are offering market price for that quantity.
- monadic3 6y agoWhat's the concern?