Earlier quoted context omitted.
These promotional videos show their deliberate positioning as an anti-"mobile device". (warning- jump scare!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcdxW2XF0v8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUZ9QEbJ5sc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEw6N9Xd6uE
Right. But as someone with a similar Boox device I find I get most of the benefits while still getting a lot more functionality. When I had an iPad I found it was a lot easier to just go hop on YouTube or Reddit or whatever than to read that paper or think about my problem. With the Boox device YouTube and Reddit are still miserable to use because low refresh rate B&W eInk but I still have the ability to read my Kind…
But I think a product category has grown up around them and eaten some of the lunch that they decided not to eat. Even if they continue to differentiate themselves from other e-ink tablets, they are still in the same market category. So, competetively, if they differentiate on fewer features, they should probably do so at reduced cost.
Which puts them in a bind, because the hardware isn't simpler so the raw materials don't come cheaper. And even more irony, their software is custom, so it's not even cheaper to build or maintain than the Android based ones.