So, Ive recently gotten back into writing and been thinking about how much more fun it would be to write Outside. Problem is, the sun hates screens. I have an Alphawrite Neo, of course, but I’ve always been insecure about lugging a weird educational device around with me in public. So I started looking into Eink tablets that could be used with a keyboard and
Jesus H. Christ, that price tag!
I just want something to type on something. Apparently thats strange, so maybe there will be something cheaper as just a word processor. It seems that the only reasonable offering here is the Freewrite Traveler, though, so I look it up and
WHY‽ It’s the same price!
Okay, maybe I could just get a Raspberry Pi 400 and attach an eInk monitor to it. Apparently, this is not the usual use-case for E-ink, but there are in fact e-ink monitors out there! Most were around a thousand dollars for some reason, but here is the cheapest one I could find:
That’s around the price point of a Boox Go, for reference, which has a really slow screen refresh rate.
Why is there no affordable e-paper products that arent a pain to use? I am aware of cheaper ones, but the ones ive seen reviews if aren’t able to keep up with typing in a way that seems responsive. And I’m aware that you can find eink displays (as in the component) for as low as $30, so they should be able to be cheaper than this!
I doubt anyone here is looking to spend that much money to make a fashion statement.
Sure, we would know it by now if ‘fashion’ was working at all to drive sales. And if it was, by now we would be surrounded by ads absolutely everywhere, and our landscapes would be filled with mountain-like piles of trashed useless craps that we would feel the need to regularly throw away in order to make room to buy the newest and latest whatever trendy crap. That’s obviously not the case. Aren’t we lucky.
Let me ask you this: for what reason do you think most people buy the latest $1000+ smartphone?
Is it because they need the hardware, be it the titanium or whatever metal body because they regularly heat their phone so much that titanium is the only reasonable option? Or is because it looks somehow cooler? Or maybe it’s because they need more pixels in order to share a sharper video of, say, the latest revolutionary brain surgery procedure they devised? Or is it in order to share some video of their cat, or their latest shopping spree, or film themselves in front of whatever touristic destination they fancy visiting? Please, do note that I wrote ‘most people’ and not all of them, as I certainly don’t doubt a few targeted consumers do indeed need whatever new features are made available.
So, as a matter of fact, I do think a lot of people are more than willing to spend whatever amount of money they consider reasonable, be it a couple hundred bucks on e-ink device, or 1 million dollars on a diamond incrusted fountain pen, or even 50 billions to buy their own Twitter (which is also a writing device, mind you). Or do you think a 1 million dollars fountain pen write that much better? Hint: it doesn’t.
Do I think the OP is one of those person? I have no idea and how would I know? But, contrary to you, I don’t care at all because I don’t think it matters.
I simply offered a cheap (answering the OP exact concern) alternative to e-ink, an alternative I know is very often overlooked because, well, it’s so low tech (which is not great in a society that has a constant
hardoninterest for high-tech).