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E-ink is already pretty expensive as a display technology, no way anyone can make a decent e-reader that you can "throw in a pocket and not worry about damaging
by Ghoelian 1y ago
E-ink is already pretty expensive as a display technology, no way anyone can make a decent e-reader that you can "throw in a pocket and not worry about damaging" for £8. Maybe if it has like 8 "pixels" total.
- pooper 1y ago> E-ink is already pretty expensive as a display technology but why? is it because of patents? Shouldn't this technology get cheaper with time?
- TeMPOraL 1y agoApparently so. I recall this explanation back from 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 Supposedly, a core patent for the technology expired a year ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1e3icaz/any_company_developing_eink_since_the_patent/ https://old.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1e3icaz/any_company_d... It's probably too soon to easily tell whether that's enough to make e-ink screens cheaper and more available.
- lozenge 1y agoIf only there were some article on the topic of why there are no cheap ereaders... I hope somebody posts one to HN soon.
- fortran77 1y agoThere are patents on nearly every active component in the cheapest of electronic devices. I don't think it's patents. There are many tens of millions of e-Ink store shelf-edge price labels around, for example, and they're a cheap commodity item.