I think this is the real head-scratcher.

Wondering if either they just fundamentally aren't capable of scaling up their business, so they are getting as much as they can out of what little they can make.

Or maybe there's some confusing IP situation and they just want to create a minimal number of devices to keep some sort of... copyrights or patents alive or something (as far as I know they don't work that way in the US, but maybe other countries?)

Or maybe this is, like, just the CEO's hobby project and and they don't realize that people want these things?

Or maybe, actually, only a couple nerds like us want these E-ink screens. Assuming tech nerds are generally pretty well off overall, but a fairly small-ish group, maybe E-ink screens just end up being fairly price insensitive as a result?

I dunno. Seems weird though.

> Or maybe this is, like, just the CEO's hobby project and and they don't realize that people want these things?

There was definitely a time when I really wanted a color e-ink screen. But now, with iPads having 10 hour battery life, I can get all day performance and better colors and refresh rates from that device, so my desire for color e-ink has greatly declined.

I do love my b&w e-reader though and use it every day.

I mean, is 10 hours really that long? My SuperNote notebook lasts for days, my Kobo for weeks. I certainly have had flights longer than 10 hours. At least nowadays you sometimes have a USB-A charging port if you needed, or a 120V if you're lucky.

Idk about you, but I really really bad want to code outdoors, surrounded by nature.

I currently do that with an x260 but it's not cobfortable at all, no matter how much brightness and battery life you have.

I think it's the last one, the two proven applications are book readers and price labels (and a few niche applications like readable displays for long-life battery-operated devices, Remarkable). There's not many potential users clamouring for a dumb terminal "laptop" (the battery life advantage would disappear real quick if you tried to compile large code projects) with E-Ink screen. Not that many people would buy a laptop that can't play YouTube videos or go on Facebook. Even I wouldn't want to write code on a laptop with the display latency of e-ink...

Forget about latency. Boox and Dasung displays for desktop show that it's entirely possible. They only lack color and to be in a laptop to be 95% solved problem.

Do they even manufacture the screens themselves? I though they mostly just did r&d and licensed things, in which case scale shouldn't really be an issue, at least on manufacturing the things.

It's possible they don't see much elasticity in the market, e.g. that a 50% decrease in cost would net them >= 50% increase in sales.

In the very short term they're probably right, but I think they'd be wrong in the long term: once the price drops it might take time but I think people would come up with a variety of novel products and use cases. Amazon for example has made a big bet on digital comics w/comixology. I'm sure they'd love to offer an affordable color comic reader. Or cheap 8.5x11 tablets could become the default note taking devices for a lot of students, especially for many STEM classes.