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Amazon Announces Kindle 2, With Slew of New Features
Engadget is reporting that Amazon has announced the new Kindle 2 for release on February 24th at a price point of $359. Thinner than an iPhone and coming standard with "Read-to-me" text-to-speech capability, the new device also has seven times more storage, faster page turning, a 16-level e-ink display, longer battery life, and a new five-way joystick. Looks like life just got a lot more interesting for fans of the original device. Engadget also has live coverage from the Kindle 2 press conference.
Cripes, after reading the post, the only thing missing was the soundtrack from the Six-Million Dollar Man...
Better, stronger, faster than ever before...
Oh, c'mon, what do you mean you've never heard of The Six-Million dollar man? Steve Austin, you know the pilot who...shit, nevermind.
Damn, I'm getting old.
Convince me not to.
It is the ease of getting new material that appeals to me, I like to read but I am terrible at buying books.
The price is a bit steep. Eventually these have to come down in price? Anyone any ideas when there will be a decent sub $100 ebook reader?
One would hope that Amazon actually turned their review system to something useful for the company (instead of a massive drain of resources) by taking the 700 Kindle reviews into account.
Will it blend?
Also, what will happen to DRM on the device? Is it still going to be essentially rentals, since they don't like to let people own what they buy?
Come on Amazon. It still looks like a plastic toy. For god's sakes, team up with Sony or Apple (kidnap Jonathon Ives). Alternatively, license out your DRM tech so Sony can build a reader compatible with your service.
Frankly, I can't wait until someone figures out a way to make a digital version of the public library. Make it like O'Reilly's Safari: Monthly subscription, X amount of titles on your "shelf" at any given time (tiered subscription?), with the option to "buy it" for permanent downloads (or just buy it outright and skip the sub-shelf), etc. I'd gladly pay $15/month for something like this, much like I already do with Napster To Go.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
with the release of the original Kindle. Perhaps they still can.
The Kindle here is somewhat of a disappointment to me but its aesthetics are much better than than the first generation. Yet, the screen is only usable for fiction novels and the like, and the form factor is such that the keyboard takes up half the space. Either way, they should have eliminated the physical keyboard for an onscreen version (really, you can't exactly type a thesis with that thing as it is now) for that searching or annotation convenience. For serious annotation, the iRex iLiad and DR1000S have a wacom enabled screen with stylus. In this way, you can really go for a small reader that fits in a purse, or use that existing or slightly bigger form for 10x8 screen, allowing to display 11x8.5 pages sans margins.
I don't know how they sell the new york times on something like that. I can see it on the even smaller iPhone but only because of multitouch and reverse pinching (zoom in) to the exact story someone wants. But I would not pay for an ereader at current prices in the fiction novel page size; I would glady pay money for something that allows me to read reference guides and textbooks without scrolling horizontally, perhaps not vertically.
All the other readers I see on the market are toys. Like iRex, which sells there models as finished products but are woefully in the prototype stage even after years of development and being on the market because lack of serious money behind it, I suppose. One symptom there is that despite the promise of e-ink not using energy other than when the page is being changed, their CPU doesn't really go to sleep, requiring daily recharging of the device and thoroughly defeating half of the purpose of a good ereader in the first place. I tried the Sony, it wasn't bad but nothing great.
If the Kindle should get credit for anything, it was the Sprint EVDO connection in the first and now 3G in the second without stupid monthly fees - it just being there. That alone will make it the winner in time, everything else stay the same.
If Apple had been keen on building their media empire, they'd should have gotten into ebooks when the 1st gen kindle was released tbh. The market was ready for something with a decent interface and good hardware/software integration. They already sell music, movies, tv shows, and this will consolidate the last major piece of the list. Before someone says "color" screens, or Plastic Logic's flexible screens or the like, that's precisely what upgrades are for. Now, I'm afraid, the worse is better philosophy won out again.
Other than screen size, this model looks like a winner.
I was considering buying one of these once the new version came out. One of the media release photos, meant to show the slimness of the device, has the Kindle leaning up next to a copy of pop-sociologist Malcolm Gladwell's new book, "The Outliers."
A few days ago, I was invited to the Union League in Philadelphia to see Mr. Gladwell speak to a group of roughly 550 local leaders, CEOs, etc. We were all provided with a "free" (in quotes because there was an entrance fee on all tickets, so the book was paid for by that cost) copy of his latest book and breakfast, and then afterward Mr. Gladwell did a Q&A session followed by a book signing.
It was the collaboration at the event, with people scribbling notes in the margins of the book, discussing certain paragraphs, and having the author sign each copy, that made me relish having the hardback with me. (Even if I do find his work a bit trite at times.)
In the end, I've opted not to buy this gadget, because ultimately, it's just not as satisfying or lasting as having a book. I have books given to me by my grandparents that they had as teenagers, what do you think the odds are that a Kindle or the formats it supports will last even two decades? I'm going to stick to my dead trees, thank you.
Looks like fans of the original device paid a steep bleeding-edge tax for seven times less storage and 25% less battery life for the same price.
Is it just me that thinks naming a device after a bunch of waste wood suitable only for burning, is possibly a huge marketing mistake ?
I bought the Sony 505 over the kindle because of the it supported PDF and it had the ability just drag and drop books and not rely on their software.
I just wish one of these readers would support CHM (compiled HTML help file).
"Information Received. The Device Software will provide Amazon with data about your Device and its interaction with the Service (such as available memory, up-time, log files and signal strength) and information related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device). Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in your Device are backed up through the Service. Information we receive is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice."
Is there some reason you can't just use "price"?
Having an e-ink screen and text-to-speech on the same device is an odd match. If you want to read, read. If you want to listen, get an audio book for your mp3 player. Spare yourself the synthetic voice. Unless you enjoy imagining Stephen Hawking is in your car reading to you.
Amazon's Kindle 2 is the same as a Sony PRS-700 (out for a while now) without a reading light, without a touch screen, and with Amazon DRM lock-in. The only good thing going for the Kindle 2 is Amazon's marketing and their exclusive Kindle store.
If only it was about the size of regular sheet of paper and could show pdf files, I'd buy one today just to read journal articles without having to stare at the computer screen all day or print them all out (or walk to the library).
"Read-to-me" is not exactly a killer ap.
Will I pay $359 for a dedicated e-book reader? Not likely.
Would I pay $20 for an app on the iPhone or G-phone that would allow me access to the Amazon e-book store. Sure I would.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
It doesn't look like that thing is going to fit into my pocket. It looks like they could have made it a bit smaller by cutting out some of the "frame" around the sides.
Most consumers will not pay a barely discounted or not at all discounted price on a heavily DRMed good that's limited to a single device (be it iPod or Kindle) that could have the plug pulled at any time. Many DVDs now come with "Digital copies" with iPod and Windows compatibility, and they're selling like hotcakes. It's easier and it makes sense.
Want to spur consumers to use eBooks?
-Consider DRM-free books with the name embedded. The geeks will get it out, but for the majority of people, they'll buy their own books and not share.
-If you are going to use DRM, make it worth the hassle by making the book much cheaper. In essence, when I buy a DRMed eBook, I'm buying a license that can be revoked at any time to read the text. Why should I pay $18 for an eBook when it's from a $20 hardcover? Especially without distribution or even physical costs.
-If Amazon sold Kindle "codes" in the books to apply the book to your Kindle, you get the pride of owning a book (that can't ever be turned off) and the convenience of a Kindle copy too. And newspapers, if they don't want to go the way of the dodo, should include Kindle access for print subscribers. I get the WSJ and they want me to pay TWICE to get it on a Kindle. Even if I got a Kindle I wouldn't pay twice.
At $360, with a nonremovable battery (thinness is good, but I'd prefer being able to pop in a spare) and expensive (for the format) content, I can't bite. I've wanted to get an eBook reader for years, but this isn't ready yet.
DRM!
You can't share anything folks. NOTHING. The books are not yours!
...relative to the screen size. We've all been spoiled by the near-zero-bezel devices in the phone/music player market, this one just looks very 90s with the wide bezel around the whole screen. The keyboard doesn't even encroach into that space. Seems like the form factor could be reduced significantly, though they may have used a lot of that space for battery.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I agree that between the cost and the DRM, I'd be loathe to buy a book for the Kindle...
But just like the iPod line, the existence of DRM does not necessitate the use of it. I was under the impression you could take any PDF (or perhaps other text formats) and bake it into something the Kindle could read. That combined with Oriely's Safari with the downloadable PDF's may work well for technical material, and over time perhaps more publishers could be convinced to sell PDF's of books - until then there is project Gutenburg and the like.
I like the form factor for reading and the device seems nice, although the overall cost is still a bit high for me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For a long while I was set on getting an ereader. I just had to have one. I tried reading books on my crackberry but the screen was just too damn small and scrolling was a pain. The only thing that kept be from buying a Sony ereader or a Kindle was the price. For the money you can instead buy an Xbox 360 (I have two and the last was only $160 thanks to a coupon at CircuitCity), or an Iphone ($199 for an 8 gig) or hell, get both. So that's what I ended up doing. I bought both.
Is my ereader experience as great as that on a Kindle? I dunno. What I do know is that it's "good enough" for my uses. I just want to read some fiction. I want to kick back and read some Robin Cook or Dean Koontz in the can or at a theater while waiting for the show or whatever. I use Stanza on my iPhone and I downloaded a few collections via torrents and I'm all set for quite a while. Plus I have a phone and an mp3 player and God knows what else I've added to my phone. And like I said earlier, I also have a second Xbox 360 which obviously lets me play games but I wanted a second for streaming movies and tv shows into my bedroom.
Maybe if I had a train ride to work everyday a Kindle would make sense, but even then it's too big to be dropped in my pocket and I'd still have to have my phone with me. Who wants yet another gadget to lug around?
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
The only ebook reader program that I ever liked was "readthemall" for PalmOS. I saw a TV commercial for an iPhone ebook application with animated page turning as you slide your finger across the screen and I though it was the stupidest idea imaginable. Brains backwardly locked on an inappropriate old way of doing things.
The program "readthemall" would display one line new line at a time progressing down the screen and when it got to the bottom it would start overwriting old lines at the top. As long as the pace was reasonable your it would never change the part of the screen your eye was looking at and when your eye reached the bottom of the screen there would already be new lines at the top waiting for you.
The controls were up and down buttons. The down button incremented the lines/minute rate. The up button paused the display at the first press and decreased the lines/minute rate on subsequent presses. These two buttons allowed you to fine tune the rate. Once you got the right rate you could read for long periods of time without touching a button simply by scanning your eye from top to bottom of the screen over and over.
Any ebook reader where you have to take some action to "turn the page" is enormously inferior in my opinion. Turning the page is an outdated idea dictated by paper media.
Well, can I?
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Comparing pictures of the two, they are totally different - in form factor, and external buttons. You mention the Kindle does not have a touch screen while the PRS-700 does.
So while possibly they may share the same OS (though even there I suspect large differences) they are not the same at all. And it seems to me that by "better" you very likely mean "has more features on a checklist".
I don't own either reader so I have no stake in which one is in fact better. But I have talked to a number of unlikely people (as in, not really gadget people) that owned and really liked the original Kindle so I think that Amazon may have something to the device they have built beyond the feature list that does make it more pleasing for people to use.
I myself am still wary of these readers but I like the concept, I just want something with perfect PDF/graphics support so I can use one to read technical books with diagrams.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If not, still not interested. I don't want to pay amazon to convert something I've already paid for. Postscript is a standard, and they should make it compatible if they want to increase their market share. Period. I have my entire o'reilly and cisco library in PDF on my laptop. The only reason I'd get a kindle is to have them in a more convenient form for study and reference when I'm unable to access my laptop. Oh yeah, so far as I know kindle books can't be read outside of the kindle appliance.
Bitches! They made a java text to speech engine that doesn't suck? (freetts does).
I'm curious about the free Wikipedia access part. :)
Lock my daughter out of wi-fi and give her one of these when she's supposed to be doing research, to prevent her from getting distracted by AIM all the time
I'd get one of these the second it became usable for textbooks/research papers. You need 3 things for that to happen:
1) Native PDF support (which I don't believe this has).
2) Color.
3) A pen for the ability to annotate.
That would be a killer device. This...is not.
that this thing looks ugly as sin? I have the first version of the kindle, and this one just looks uglier. The screen is the same size from what I gathered, but it looks smaller. That's because the rest of the thing is larger, except that it is thinner. But the larger width and height gives it the illusion of a smaller screen. That just doesn't sit well with me. I'm not crazy about the new keyboard either.
At least it has all the features of the previous one, including wireless internet. As far as cost of books, you don't have to buy them, you can "pirate" books if you want.
Disclaimer: I am in no shape or form advocating copyright infringement. Nor the use of the word "piracy" or any derivatives there of, as it pertains to copyright infringement.
I've opted not to buy this gadget, because ultimately, it's just not as satisfying or lasting as having a book. I have books given to me by my grandparents that they had as teenagers...
And you also have (or most people have) cheap paperbacks you'll read once and discard. (A major hassle for me, since I'm totally unable to simply throw books out; I've got a full box sitting in the back of my car right now, waiting for me to think of a place to donate them.) And you have bulky dictionaries and other reference books that would be a lot easier to refer to if you had them in electronic form.
I'm really tired of hearing this lame "ebooks will never replace real books" argument. No one's saying they will. But that argument is like saying that regular books will never replace stone tablets. There will often be things that old technologies do better.
There are still places where a horse is a more practical form of transportation than a car. But of the dozens of carriages house in the old neighborhood where I live, not one is used for its original purpose.
Cost is still an issue. (As it was for the first cars and books.) I'm certainly not going to pay $300 for something like this. But if it were cheaper, or the convenience factor of ebooks were worth more to me, I'd buy one in a flash.
In point of fact, I already read ebooks on my table PC, a device I spent way too much money on. (Maybe 3 times the cost of a comparable laptop.) Possibly if I didn't already have the tablet, an ebook reader would be a lot more tempting.
Yeah, I could read a book on my iPhone, if I wanted its already too-short lifetime to be reduced even more.
It's the same reason I don't use an iPhone as a media player. Takes too much battery from the reason I bought the phone in the first place - that is, to make calls.
How exactly does this "read-to-me" technology handle heteronyms anyway? And if you wanted it read to you, wouldn't you be much better off with an audiobook? And of course, remember that most books and periodicals are free at your local library, so the $369 you spend for the Kindle will never really pay for itself in dead-tree reading material savings. This might be useful to school students that want to avoid carrying 20 pounds of books around, but I just don't see the appeal to the general population.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
800x600? Pah, anything less than 1280x800 just isn't worth it for reading.
I read a couple of books on a Palm. I don't need a screen this big, so the device is no longer portable.
I am instead considering an ipod touch with stanza. That screen is much better than my old palm and should be plenty good for reading on the go.
The touch is smaller and more versatile to me.
Is there much of a counter argument for people who don't have eyesight issues?
Why aren't the Chinese making cheaper, non-DRM, battery serviceable knockoffs of this? It'd sell like crazy.
Even if the Kindle were free, I'd still not want to use it because the e-books are DRM'd and expensive.
What do you get for your $350? Really all you get is the ability to buy e-books. It is kind of lke if they charged a fee to go into a physical book store.
I would expect, after buying a reader the books would sell for about $2 each. That's about what the auithor gets the rest of the price is for printing and distribution.
Although I tend to disagree with the not a lot. Size is one of the big things here, and 16 vs 4 grey shades is a big improvement. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10159612-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
Well the problem with digital is that the idea of "used" flies out the window. What does it mean to have a "used" digital book?
"If they can keep people from selling their books/music or loaning them to other people, then they get to sell that a few more copies."
Good thing they closed that analog hole then. Here's the new phrase: "Want to borrow my reader?" instead of the old phrase: "Want to borrow my book?".
The Kindle 2 screen is the exact same size and resolution as the Sony Reader (PRS 500/505/700). Adding a few more shades of gray does not a good product rip-off make.
This is not an innovation, it's the continuing exhausting E-ink's initial c. 2000 inventory of 6 inch 170dpi 600x800 screens. http://www.eink.com/press/releases/pr26.html
See here, on this page: http://e-ink.com/products/matrix/High_Res.html Where it shows 8" and 9.7" displays? Yeah, those be known as "better". Guess what the diagonal is on a typical paperback? Oh wait wait! Pick me! I know.. EIGHT INCHES. NOT SIX.
Noobs. Ever heard of a touch screen? Oh yeah, like Sony has on the PRS 700 and it uses the same exact screen?! Gee, what else uses a touch screen instead of a hardware keyboard? Oh right, the iPhone.
And still tiny screen, no full PDF and relies on a wireless provider who might go out of business soon. I guess I'll have to wait for V3 SP2, like with Microsoft to get anything that's worth paying for.
We've seen other digital media do this with varying success - cell minutes, AOL dialup, cable TV, Disneyland rides, etc. I'd pay like $50 a month or so for unlimited reading of new books and magazines.
I rarely read a book a second time. But I coudl still re-read a book in this pricing.
Expensive, clunky, and really not all that useful. A fellow at work seems to love this device though. I just don't understand.
Under-30s have departed from print to visual and aural media. This is the death of newspapers. I surprise books havent died yet.
"Recently, the cost of an ebook for the Kindle has been comparable to the cover price for a hardback copy. Even after the paperback has long been on the market. We should be looking at a lower cost, due to manufacturing and supply savings, but, instead, we have to pay a fortune."
Why do people ignore the fact that "manufacturing and distribution" aren't the only costs that go into a book? Try creating and publishing your own book and don't forget to zero out the labor field.
This is a no-brainer for a truly portable device, Get rid of the scrolling, enlarge the font size, and suddenly a QVGA (320x240) screen is more than ample for reading. Also I read at ~430 WPM using a RSVP reader.
RSVP, look it up.
p.s. for a barebones, open-source implementation of a rsvp reader targeted at an embedded device, check out rsvp4gp2x.
I use a Palm Tungsten as my ebook reader. It was expensive as hell when it came out but you can get it or something comparable for under $30 today. It has an open architecture, more flexibility, so why does the Kindle cost an arm and a leg? Is the e-ink display tech driving the price or do they just charge what they can because they can?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Or, on Ebay you can get youself a Palm Tungsten TX with Wifi for under a hundred bucks.
And you can play Bejewelled on it.
In the U.S., with Whispernet, it might be tempting. Elsewhere, there's no point in choosing a Kindle over similarly priced competitors, all of which cost a bundle for fairly immature features.
I did want an e-ink device, though, so I got a French one called Cybook, and it works for me: slim and nice-looking, quick page-turning, and does Mobipocket (with or without DRM), HTML and PDFs -- no need to email your every document anywhere for conversion.
Sure, I had to do some serious expectation management to end up reasonably satisfied with it: no wifi, no note-scribbling, no accompanying software for the Mac... no nothing, except reading the stuff you put in yourself over a USB. But I'm fine with a 100% dedicated reading device.
And I'm pleasantly surprised how well it does PDFs, and how many PDFs turn out to be readable if you just lop off the margins and squint a bit.
(Less pleased at how it only seems to handle hyperlinks if they're in Mobipocket files. Is it fair to advertise that your device reads HTML if it skips the 'HT' part?)
There's the iRex with a stylus bigger screen, but it wouldn't fit either my wallet or my coat pocket, and in the final analysis, what you want for reading an A4 PDF is an A4 reading device. So Plastic Logic would be the next people with a serious shot at parting this fool from more of his money. The Kindle's not on my radar screen.
No, it's still missing a touchscreen and user voice/scribble annotation on books.
But it looks SO much better than the first.
Oops - I'm wrong about that. The Kindle hardware was developed independently by a team led by Greg Zehr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Zehr
As I age, I begin to see the attraction of a "book" where I can adjust the font size. The other old farts out there know what I'm talking about. Aging sucks.
I'd have to hold one of these and play with it, though. The book, that is.
My wife has a Kindle 1.0, and loves it. She has loaded a large number of her favorite reference volumes (finance, mostly) on it, and cleared out several bookshelves in her office. For her, the dollars spent are well worth the space saved. The math is easy... compute the cost per square foot of owning a house in Silicon Valley, and consider if you really want to use those square feet as storage for books that have no emotional value. The Kindle is a bargain when analyzed like that. DRM and short life of the media is not an issue... all the books she put on it will be of little relevence in a few years. Oh... being able to make any book a "large print volume" is an outstanding benefit for those of us of bifocal age.
As for me, I wish I could put my entire O'Reilly bookshelf on it so that "lex & yacc" or "Practical C++ Programming" were always in my laptop bag where ever I went. But the Kindle technology sucks at displaying technical content. See Tim O'Reilly's blog post of a year or more ago on the topic. That's why you don't see nutshell books on Kindle. And that's why I don't own a Kindle. Wake me when Amazon gets a big, fat clue about formatting technical content. When it's good enough for Tim, it's good enough for me.
No wifi...no support outside the USA....onerous DRM.
What a waste of time from Amazon. They could have pwned the ebook market just by fixing the above three things.
Very disappointing for a company of Amazon's stature.
Oh well....nothing to read here. (all puns intended)
Chaeron Corporation
All I know is when this arrives in the mail, I'm going to have to come up with a better excuse than "Oh that? I accidentally ordered it" :(
OR you plug it into your computer with a USB and initiate the transfer (free)
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
No, really. Since I've got my iPod touch and installed Stanza on it, I've read about 50 books on it.
The touch is cheaper, smaller, lighter and has a much better functionality (surfing, email, calendar and thousands of apps). The battery runs down after four or five hours, yes, but then you'll probably attach it to your computer via USB to sync music and videos and your calendar to it daily anyway.
And yes, the screen is small, but it works fine and the thing is much easier to hold than the Kindle or a real book, especially when you're reading while commuting or standing somewhere waiting for a bus. Think about it.
Can I offload files from Kindle and store them locally, thereby freeing up storage for new Kindle books?
I know Amazon keeps a copy of everything you buy, but....
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It felt almost like a whole excuse-making process; "I'm not lucky enough to be successful" is a valid point according to the book.
I'm probably not expressing it right, but this book bothered me immensely and I won't be purchasing another Gladwell title.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
OK you can't get color, but you can annotate (notes tied to whatever line of text you're on) and perform "Clippings" - taking a block of text and saving it. I believe you can note the clipping as well, but I don't really have a use for the functionality, myself.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I also have free books from various sources.
Not all is happy and free, I have a number of DRMed books purchased from other sources that I can't read on the Kindle (primarily eReader format), and of course books purchased through Amazon are only readable on the Kindle today (although reports are that this won't be the case much longer), but it's not the case that you're locked to Amazon's format or Amazon as a supplier if you're using a Kindle.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
So in this way it's no worse than the Sony devices, and with wireless delivery and lower book prices Amazon wins pretty big in both convenience and long-term cost.
I do like the PRS-700's touchscreen interface quite a bit, except for their page-turning buttons which don't seem well placed, and the build quality and form factor are terrific. Unfortunately the added layer of the touchscreen increases glare noticeably and Sony should just shoot all of the people working on their sync software and start from scratch, they are idiots who need removal from the gene pool lest they go off and do more damage to the software industry. That quality level wasn't even good in a 1.0 software product and they're on generation three!
You mention not being able to purchase an eBook on Amazon without a Kindle but I am not seeing why you'd want to. The Amazon-purchased books are locked to the device -- no device, nothing to lock to, right? What's the point of selling them to you then? If you do have a device it's certainly easy enough to get it to local storage either via downloading it directly from amazon.com or by having it sent to the Kindle and then dragging it off via USB. I have complete local back-ups of everything I bought from Amazon.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
that most of the people who ACTUALLY OWN one seem to love them.
and most of the critics & whiners don't seem to have even used one.
Typical hardcover prices these days, bought at discount, are $15-20. Cover prices are $22-28 but I couldn't tell you when I last paid full retail.
The same books on the Kindle are usually $10. To me that is a savings of 30-50% over what I would pay for discount hardcover -- not "comparable" at all.
Moreover, most books aren't anywhere near that expensive. If it's not a best-seller or recent release it is probably priced at $4-7, which is cheaper than a new paperback ($8-10 these days). And there are numerous places to get books entirely for free, something that is not so easy with paper.
I have not seen any case where the Kindle book was priced higher than the paper version, or even at the same price. That was a big change from before the Kindle shipped: What you say was certainly the case with Peanut Press, ereader.com, and fictionwise.com -- and is still the case for many books in the Sony bookstore -- due to publisher demands. Amazon had the power to break that practice, and they did.
My average purchase price of books on the Kindle is around $6. This compares to my average paper book purchase through Amazon at $10, and my average retail book purchase of close to $15 (I buy more hardcovers at retail stores).
Over the last 14 months that has resulted in very substantial savings -- enough to pay for both the original Kindle 1.0 in less than 7 months (I expected 10) and the new 2.0 I just ordered too (the old one goes to my daughter).
I think the Kindle is still priced much too high for mass-market appeal, but it's easy to see that this will not be the case for more than a few more years. Book prices, though, are not what's going to hold it back.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
The Secure eReader books I bought did not come over, which was a fair number (forty? fifty?). Maybe they'll be supported sometime in the future, one way or another, but I could strip the DRM if I wanted. That's the great thing about electronic formats: They are so malleable.
The one that most people complain about that's missing on the Kindle is PDF. You can even read some of those by feeding it through a converter, although I have had poor luck with such conversions. To be frank, though, I'd be just as happy to see PDF die -- it really sucks everywhere except printed output, and I print very little these days. Give me a format that is designed to be re-flowed to fit the output device....
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
The price savings on new books alone were enough to pay for both 1.0 and 2.0 versions of Kindles, and in cases where I loved the book enough to want one on my bookshelf (only a few!) I bought it again. If the book is that good they deserve more money anyway.
The one thing that I am somewhat depressed about is that this model is going to kill retail bookstores. I like them a lot, but there will be little chance of them surviving as most publishing goes electronic (and it will, the economics are just too good).
One thing the "can't lend my book" people ignore is that there are some benefits: If we have two Kindles, my wife and I can read the same book simultaneously with only one purchase, no waiting. We don't yet have Kindles for everyone in the family but I can see it coming ... and one of my co-workers already does this on a regular basis.
One thing that Amazon hasn't done anything about is "gifted" books. My wife can't buy me an e-book in advance for my birthday; it'll show up on my account and I'll know it right away. But hey, that's just software, it will get figured out eventually.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Does it still have that annoying double-redraw that turned me against buying either the Sony reader or the Kindle 1.0? I complained about it, and was told "that's just a characteristic of ePaper". To me it's a showstopper, it's so incredibly irritating.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Approximately $200 of the cost of every Kindle is the display. Nobody expects it to remain that expensive for long, but for now that really sets a minimum for the price of the readers. Sony's $269 reader is pushing the margin really hard.
I was a little surprised that the price didn't drop to about $300 with this new unit (the Oprah $50 discount made the price $309 for a couple of weeks), but with a backlog a mile long and more desire for features than lower prices there's no reason for them to do it yet. I would expect it to fall to that point before next Christmas season, though, and continue to fall with every passing year ... just like the iPod did.
We will see bare-bones e-book readers in the very near future, possibly this year but certainly next, the newspapers are looking seriously at giving away readers with subscriptions.
The first successful e-book reader shipped only 14 months ago. It is not usually until the 3 year point that the electronics for a new gadget get cheap enough to go mass market. Come back in another year and a half to two years and see how much has changed.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
They should come down over time, but for now that's a big limiting factor in dropping the price.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
I don't really put much weight on the "no removable battery" since I have had no trouble replacing the "not removable" batteries on various PDAs and iPods. It might take a little effort but it's not the kind of thing you're doing every day.
No SD card slot is moot. From their claims it has 2G built-in, and that's a crapload of books, and it won't accidentally eject when you drop it.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
The thing with the kindle is that it includes "free" online access to locate and deliver books. so you can be anywhere and look for and purchase a new book. the book is then delivered to your kindle.
You can get cell phones, Internet tablets, and media players with 640x360, 800x480 or higher resolutions; those make excellent eBook readers, with a whole range of connectivity options. For reading and downloading on the go, go to Google or Mobipocket (Mobipocket is owned by Amazon, you if you're worried about Jeff Bezos starving if you don't buy his Kindle, don't).
It'd be nice if Amazon followed up this announcement with news that the Kindle would also be available in Canada and Europe. . .
... the ebook purchase "The Catcher in the Rye" is right out then, eh?
> Engadget also has live coverage from the Kindle 2 press conference.
Surely Engadget has just "coverage" and not "live coverage"? Unless they're streaming 24hrs a day from a perpetual press conference.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." -Pravin Lal
I'd get one of these the second it became usable for textbooks/research papers. You need 3 things for that to happen:
1) Native PDF support (which I don't believe this has).
2) Color.
3) A pen for the ability to annotate.
That would be a killer device. This...is not.
A killer device is when you provide something paper books just cannot do. Annotation is good, but why not beat paper?
- List all annotations into an index and tag them with keywords to find specific annotations later.
- Collaborative annotation
My friends often read the same books. But keeping track of each interesting paragraph I want to discuss with them is a pain. If I could browse my friends annotations at leisure and make comments to them.
(Basically limitless. Study groups, reading groups, book blogs with annotation feeds.)
- Inline dictionary.
English is not my native language. I want to flick a button to enable "dictionary-mode". Tap a word with the finger, get automated lookup in the dictionary of your choice.
Those two would be killers. Impossible to do on paper.
I lost my sig.
That's the real deal breaker for me and the other 5.5 billion people in the rest of the world.
The Kindle is locked to the United States. You need a Credit Card drawn on a US bank to even purchase it.
I can't find a reason for this, except to further the notion that DRM is less about copyright and more about legislating anti-consumer business practices and furthering price fixing and monopolies through technology.
I expect to see this released 'internationally' with the same books costing two or three dollars more.
-Gel214th
But if you really just wanted a phone to make calls, why did you buy an iPhone? Sure it's phone features are great and I dig the visual voice mail although some sort of way to view text of the voice mail so I don't have to listen to the audio at all would be even better. Not using it as a media player or using any of the other cool features just seems silly though. I totally agree with you that doing anything at anytime with an iPhone will suck the battery right out of it. I've never had a device that could drain a batter like an iPhone. Even so, I bought mine to do lots of stuff and I charge it regularly. I've also seen cases for it that have a battery inside and I'm going to look into getting one of those I think.
Also, I've noticed that Stanza doesn't use much battery. Obviously if you have the screen really bright it will use more than if it's dim, but I have mine on the default setting and I didn't notice it using much battery at all, at least not compared to everything else I do on the phone. Will it last anywhere near as long as a Kindle? Of course not. But it will last plenty long for you to read a book now and again throughout the day without adversely affecting your talk time too much.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Free usage of Sprint's 3G network. Not only for browsing the book store, but you can also check some blogs/news sites (including Slashdot), and you can access Wikipedia. No monthly fee, your $360 covers that "forever". Or until they change it, whatever comes first
I wouldn't count on the Kindle having wireless access past a year or two. Sprint is virtually on death's doorstep, and the first thing they'll do in bankruptcy court is get out of the contract with Amazon.
That's great for Amazon- when Sprint goes belly-up, people will have to buy new Kindles. Not to mention, Sprint was probably desperate for the business so the price and terms were right.
Please help metamoderate.
Looks like life just got a lot more EXPENSIVE for fans of the original device.
Fixed It For Ya.
I don't want a Swiss Army knife eReader: I want a dedicated eReader of the right size, which (very important) disappears when I read --just like a book disappears. I wouldn't read a paper book if it were the size of a phone.
When I'm reading and I'm involved, the most I want to do is a quick look up in a dictionary or encyclopedia (both of which Kindle provides). I don't want to do much else: Not check my email, not get a phone call, not watch a video, not play games, not SMS, not a thing.
The one time cost of $359 is nothing. Just like a phone, the HW cost is nothing compared to the recurring service costs. I feel fine paying authors for good writing. The DRM issue will work itself out over time. Plus there are free eBooks available too.
I love the idea of saving my precious shelf space for books that need to be on paper.
Alternatively, license out your DRM tech so Sony can build a reader compatible with your service.
I think you may be completely missing the point of their business model. One of the benefits of DRM is that everyone has to repurchase things.
I have MP3s that are nearly a decade old. Are there any DRM systems still extant from that long ago?
DRM media expires. That's the point. Removing the single point of failure contradicts the whole model.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca