[chestnut-tree]

No real surprise. E-ink readers are still only available with black and white displays. Their screens are mostly shaped to fit a small paperback.

Physical books, in contrast, come in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes. Yes, tablets come in larger sizes and with high resolution colour screens, but they still aren't as comfortable to read as paper or even e-ink displays.

[toyg]

E-ink readers are a luxury, unfortunately. Where phone and tablets can be justified in most homes as being multipurpose, ereaders are fundamentally single-purpose. This is why their share of the market grows so slowly - it's limited to hardcore readers and the wealthy. We need eink to go beyond dedicated devices.

[douche]

I guess so, but when the basic Kindle costs about the same as a full tank of gas, or just a little more than a newly released AAA video game, it's hard to say that it is really restricted to the wealthy.

The biggest appeal of the Kindle is that you can read it outside in the glare of the sun, and the battery lasts for months. I would agree, that for most people, the smartphone they have in their pocket already is good enough for reading ebooks.

[veddox]

> it's hard to say that it is really restricted to the wealthy.

Good point - eReaders aren't really all that expensive (I got my first one for 60€). What might be more important when considering the distribution of eReaders is the correlation wealthy <-> educated <-> reads a lot.

> for most people, the smartphone they have in their pocket already is good enough for reading ebooks

I can't imagine reading a full book on the tiny screen of a smartphone. Do people really do that? (As in, for serious reading.) And if so, how much?

[douche]

I can't imagine reading anything technical or even most non-fiction on a phone, but for plain old entertainment-grade fiction it's doable. I read most of the Aubrey-Maturin series and The Expanse series on my phone last year.

[veddox]

What's wrong with single-purpose devices?

[toyg]

When discretionary spending is limited, multipurpose devices are easier to justify. This is why the number of readers on tablets and phones is growing at much faster pace, despite a poorer reading experience: people buy those devices for multiple purposes, including reading books.

Amazon should try giving away paperwhites for free.

[dazc]

"Amazon should try giving away paperwhites for free."

It would make sense in a lot of cases. Personally, I buy many times more books than I did before I got a Kindle but, I guess, they have calculated that this won't be the case for the majority?

The problem is that it's hard for them to compel people to keep buying content - unlike the way mobile operators give phones away in exchange for a binding, fixed term contract?