Hi Dave,
Nice teardown. But to classify it as crap, is IMHO a bit too steep? I mean, it does all the things the package says. And a sleeve is included - most (expensive) e-readers don't include that. No doubt there are better quality e-readers, but what is quality these days?
Take the iphone or ipad for example. Made of durable, quality material and components. Made to last at least 10 years. But who will use the ipad III in 2022? Not many people I guess. Most people use a phone or tablet for a couple of years and then buy a new one. And if they don't, they will find there's no support for their ten year old device. Like my Palm m515 PDA, which was released in march 2002. Early 2011, I bought a new pc running Windows 7 x64. And I could'nt hook up my m515 anymore - no x64 driver. So I had to either use the x86 version of windows or ditch my Palm. Didn't do either, lukily. A firm in New Zealand (Aceeca) made a x64 driver for Palm OS, so I can use my old m515 again.
But I digress. What I mean is, why should you use high quality materials for a commodity? If only used for a couple of years, one should use cheap materials that last a couple of years. Otherwise, you would be wasting valuable materials and resources....
Simon