Challenger Brands Have Eyes on E-Ink
The Reader’s Edge | Charlie Samways | May 31, 2026 |
E-ink technology is starting to push boundaries, and I'm all for it.
Where Kindle and Kobo once dominated the market with standard e-readers, there is now a growing number of challenger brands. These range from companies that want to turn your phone into an e-ink device (Boox and Bigme), to those obsessed with making your e-reader smaller (Xteink).
I've just spent the last three weeks testing the Boox Palma 2 Pro. It's not replacing my Kindle or my iPhone anytime soon. And despite this, it's got me even more excited about the future of e-ink technology. When brands start pushing boundaries, many ideas will fail. But one or two will stick and make a real impact.
History tells us this pattern plays out in one of two ways.
The first is the challenger that wins outright. Netflix began by removing the thing customers hated most about Blockbuster: late fees. And they built a subscription model around convenience rather than a store network. In 2000, Netflix approached Blockbuster with an offer to sell for $50 million. Blockbuster laughed them out of the room. Ten years later, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. It seems strange to think of Netflix as a challenger brand now, but that's precisely the point.
The second pattern is the challenger that gets absorbed, but still changes everything. Instagram began pulling younger audiences away from Facebook by offering something simpler and more visual. Facebook acquired it for $1 billion in 2012, widely mocked at the time as overpaying. Instagram went on to become arguably more culturally significant than Facebook itself. The challenger didn't win outright, but it fundamentally changed the trajectory of the company that bought it.
As a fan of e-ink technology, I hope at least one challenger brand has the potential to bring true innovation to the space. As the pull of apps and browsers grows stronger, intentional tech that helps us stay focused may just depend on a challenger coming out on top.
Lighthouse Identity
There's an important reason to celebrate the growing number of challenger brands.
Adam Morgan, in his book Eating the Big Fish, argues that challengers win not by doing what the market leader does better, but by doing something the market leader cannot do at all. This is usually because doing so would contradict their own positioning or cannibalise their own business.
The key trait he identifies is what he calls Lighthouse Identity. A challenger must know so precisely what it stands for that it attracts exactly the right people and actively repels the wrong ones. A lighthouse doesn't chase ships. It stands firm and lets ships navigate by it.
Netflix knew it stood for frictionless access. Instagram knew it stood for visual simplicity. The e-ink challengers worth watching will be the ones that know just as clearly what they're for. And what they're not.
This Week’s Question
What's a challenger brand, in any area of your life, that changed how you thought about the category it was in? What made it different from the thing it was challenging?
Reply to me at hello@charliesamways.com. I read every one.
From The Channel This Week
This week’s video is a hands-on look at one of these challenger brands, as I cover the time I spent with the Boox Palma 2 Pro.
This “Phone” Wants to Replace Your Kindle. It’s Not That Simple.
Plus, don’t miss out on my Free Kindle Guide, available to download here
Wishing you all the best this week, and considering the challenger brands in your life that changed the game.
Catch up next week,
Charlie Samways