I suspect an additional reason: their customers are not very price-sensitive. They obviously can't compete with paper on price, so they don't even try.
I'd be a customer if the price was lower..
Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
81–90 of 276 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this really necessary? Retard is not used to refer to people with mental disabilities. It is not a slur. Its a new social justice campaign to get mad about something when they ran out of things to complain about. Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. Why aren't they campaigning to ban those words too?
> Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. No, they were not. And despite what the "you get offended so quickly" mob says, "retarded" main meaning when used in a negative fashion against someone always, always appeals to the "that person/entity has the mental abilities of someone with Down syndrome or any other similar intellectual disability". And you, me and everybody…
>No, they were not
Not arguing any real point other than yes those words did. Have a couple of definitions I found in a rather harshly titled old book, Backward and feeble-minded children
> Idiots. — Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that of a normal child of about two years.
> Morons. — Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years.
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#83I own a reMarkable 2. There is certainly enough to justify the cost, if you are a prolific note-taker. Conversely, I find it hard to justify the cost of an iPad, becuase I already have a phone and several laptops. I can't see a situation where a tablet would be more useful to me, so I've never bought one. Turns out different people have different needs, and the e-ink note-taking market caters to that. Most people wou…
Could you expound a bit on why you think it's more useful?
I am thinking about getting one (or one of a couple other similar options), because I think it would be MUCH more comfortable for reading and annotating papers, which is my main practical use case for an iPad. And if it's at all a decent replacement for a paper notebook, that would reduce the number of things in my bag.
But I'm also a bit worried that the organizational features might be lacking. Specifically, it sounds like there's no fulltext search feature, and syncing has to be done through their cloud service, which sounds troublesome because I've already got a system and encompasses file types and tools that ReMarkable doesn't handle.
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think they still be niche if they were competitive with LCDs in other aspects, most importantly color gamut and ability to show video (I think longevity and power usage already are competitive, if not more than so). So, why? Are they inherently more difficult or expensive to manufacture, do they use materials that are too rare?
The way e-ink works is quite different from an LCD. They didn't even get color until recently. Personally, I think the benefits of reflective reading surfaces (ie e-ink) over backlit reading surfaces (everything else) is massively overblown. I have an e-ink tablet now that they are >300ppi and it's nice to read on, but it's a novelty. Some people love 'em, but that hasn't stopped the iPad Pro from outselling all of t…
If I could bind a 8/10" eInk tablet that was around $200 (or $300) on which I could read and reply to my emails, read RSS feeds, check my calendar and take handwritten notes on it (that I could export/sync) I'd constantly use it.
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#85Beyond patent issues, TBH I would not have a problem paying for a reMarkable this very day, if I could be 10000% sure that there wasn't some shitty SaaS service involved in using it at any stage. These days, whenever a new gadget comes up, my first reaction has become "I wonder how they try to screw you into a SaaS later".
I'm sure one of the people who own one will chime in, but i think the whole device is hackable, you can get into a linux shell as root and do whatever you want.
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#86I own a reMarkable 2. There is certainly enough to justify the cost, if you are a prolific note-taker. Conversely, I find it hard to justify the cost of an iPad, becuase I already have a phone and several laptops. I can't see a situation where a tablet would be more useful to me, so I've never bought one. Turns out different people have different needs, and the e-ink note-taking market caters to that. Most people wou…
Got mine a week ago. I always take notes and draw mind maps while working on a project, so this fits perfectly.
I like the pen and paper sensation, the fact that my handwriting is exactly the same as on paper, the ability to erase, rewrite, cut and paste.
I don't like the flaky sync but love seeing my drawings as PDFs. The LiveView function almost doesn't work but a third party app allows me to display the tablet on the desktop for Zoom meetings.
Arxiv PDFs are easy to read only if you crop or zoom, which is a bit unfortunate. I would have loved integration with Pocket, Dropbox, Arxiv and other sources. There's no TTS option, which is also unfortunate, because I find TTS doubles my focus when reading technical text.
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#87Beyond patent issues, TBH I would not have a problem paying for a reMarkable this very day, if I could be 10000% sure that there wasn't some shitty SaaS service involved in using it at any stage. These days, whenever a new gadget comes up, my first reaction has become "I wonder how they try to screw you into a SaaS later".
I'm sure one of the people who own one will chime in, but i think the whole device is hackable, you can get into a linux shell as root and do whatever you want.
Out of the box, the SaaS thingy is not really needed, you can just signup and use the device without ever logging in or downloading their mobile app. They're just kind enough to keep all your notes for you and thus, by default, need a bunch of battery power for the sync process.
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#88Throaway to not get sued. E-ink, the company, holds the patents of the pigment core tech that makes "paper-like" displays possible and strongarms the display manufacturers and the users of their displays to absolute silence. Any research project or startup that comes up with a better alternative technology gets bought out or buried by their lawyers ASAP. E-ink don't make the display themselves, they make the e-ink fi…
>the current consumption was astronomical, sometimes triggering the protection of the power supply on certain images
That's surprising, since I was always under the impression that E-Ink displays were pretty low-power. Is it the drawing of the new image that requires so much energy in a small instant?
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#89Beyond patent issues, TBH I would not have a problem paying for a reMarkable this very day, if I could be 10000% sure that there wasn't some shitty SaaS service involved in using it at any stage. These days, whenever a new gadget comes up, my first reaction has become "I wonder how they try to screw you into a SaaS later".
I'm sure one of the people who own one will chime in, but i think the whole device is hackable, you can get into a linux shell as root and do whatever you want.
I have one, thus far their cloud service is free and hopefully will continue to be so. Every ReMarkable comes with an 8gb cloud account, which is the same amount of storage on the device.
Hopefully this doesn't change, because it's really a pain to put things on the tablet without using their app.
Re: Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this really necessary? Retard is not used to refer to people with mental disabilities. It is not a slur. Its a new social justice campaign to get mad about something when they ran out of things to complain about. Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. Why aren't they campaigning to ban those words too?
It's called the euphemism treadmill[1]. It's nothing new, and it's a normal part of language. Attributing it to some sort of contemporary 'social justice campaign' seems very reactionary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
crying about a word is reactionary... especially when you are getting offended for other people who haven't asked for your help.