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Prices Slashed For Nook, Kindle E-Readers
b0bby sends in a report from ZDNet about the sudden outbreak of a price war in e-reader devices. "On Monday, Barnes & Noble cut the price of the 3G Nook to $199. It also launched a $149 Wi-Fi version. Just hours later, Amazon responded by cutting the price of the Kindle to $189. At $259, the price of the Kindle and Nook just 24 hours ago, an e-reader purchase competed with an Apple iPad, which started at $499 for a Wi-Fi version. Below $200, a dedicated e-reader purchase makes a lot more sense." Sony dropped prices for its readers three months ago, but the move didn't kick off a price war at that time. Some believe that dedicated e-readers are doomed in the long run to lose out to general-purpose devices such as the iPad — and its coming imitators, many of which will be based on Google Android.
iPad meh... I've been reading books like a fiend over the past year with my iPod touch. It's readable outside without a problem (with sunglasses), it's small so my puny nerd arms don't get tired, fits in a pocket, supports Kindle software, as well as numerous others (I recommend Stanza - vertical swipe -> brightness adjustment).
Battery life of maybe a day without charging, but I can live with that.
I actually own both a Kindle (DX) and an IPod Touch, and can testify that the Kindle is much more eye friendly. Having both is awesome, because my iPod is always in my pocket for quick reading, my Kindle is much more eye and battery friendly for serious reading, and the software keeps both in sync. Well, when I buy kindle books anyway, with other DRM free ebooks that make up most of my collection I have to keep in sync myself, but it's not that hard.
And yes, the iPod touch is barely readable outside in the bright sunlight, but the Kindle is gorgeous, and only gets better the more light falls on it.Even indoors, the kindle is much easier to read.
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Bottom line: Don't knock the benefits of e-ink until you've used an e-ink device for a few days.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I have an iPad, and though I like it pretty well, I have to say that I don't like it for reading books. Part of the reason is the display. It's strange because I'm completely comfortable using it to read long web page articles, but reading a novel on a lit screen rubs me the wrong way.
I have another complaint, though, which is arguable a stupid complaint but it's much harder to solve: I'm too easily distracted. If I'm trying to read a novel and I have a device in my hand that can browse the web, I might just go to one of my favorite websites for a minute or two to see what's going on. If my iPad beeps because I received an email, then I will immediately stop reading to see what email I just received. In short, when I tried reading a novel on my iPad, I couldn't get any reading done.
Now in both of these complaints, there's not really an inherent problem with the iPad. It just doesn't quite work for me. Still, I doubt I'm the only one who would have these complaints. Personally I've gone back to dead-tree distribution for my novels. I might consider a dedicated e-reader if it was cheap enough, and if I weren't concerned about the DRM.
A 6" 600x800 screen, as seen in most readers, is simply not high-res enough to read most PDFs in fit-page-to-screen mode - and you can't really go for anything else, as scrolling is very painful with such low screen refresh rates, and PDFs don't reflow. You need something bigger, like Kindle DX, or, better yed, iLiad. iPad also does better largely due to high-resolution (well, and the fact that it can actually scroll them reasonably well).
I won't do so aggressively until prices are reasonable (at $5, I'd go nuts, and their profits would skyrocket; everybody wins.
$5 isn't bad, but given the fact that their manufacturing and distribution costs are essentially $0, I would never buy many ebooks until the price hit $3 or less.....but that's just my opinion. With prices at $5 I'd rather just spend the extra couple bucks and have something physical that I own. As it is with the average price being over $8, it's cheaper to buy paperback books, and that's before you factor in the cost of the device.
I'd love to have an e-book reader, but I'm not buying one until the price (for both the books and the reader) are reasonable. $150 is reasonable for the reader, now they just need to fix the pricing on their books.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
When everyone says free, they are generally talking about the marginal cost.
The marginal cost of an ebook is practically $0.00. The marginal cost of a $8 paperback is at least $2 (materials and physical movement of the book.)
Taking a popular book as an example:
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
paperback $7.99
kindle $9.99
So the marginal cost per book goes down and the price goes up. It's easy to see where customers think they're getting gouged when they're paying more for a cheaper copy that is more restrictive (no resell possible).
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