Online retail giant Amazon recently announced a new electronic handheld device called Kindle. Is it time to put down all the paperbacks and hardcovers for an e-Reader?
The e-book reader allows you to store up to 200 books and has a little more room for periodicals, magazines and even 300 blogs. All this you can get or download anywhere using a free high-speed cellular wireless network from Sprint (EVDO, Amazon Whispernet). Looking to be a better competitor to the Sony Reader Digital Book (PRS-505).
The catch? While access to the network is free, you’ll have to pay monthly subscriptions rates even for the freely available periodicals (New York Times, Washington Post, etc) and blogs (TechCrunch, Boingboing, etc). The screen is also in black & white though that actually helps for a longer battery life.
The unit ain’t that cheap too — $400 a pop. Feature-wise it’s packed but will people buy yet another dedicated device to tag along with them? Maybe for the book freaks gobbling 3 books a week.
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Subscription fees ??? They been better off putting wifi and a browser on this device, really can’t see people paying just to access blogs and some newspaper which they can get for free on the web…
Anyway, I think I’ll stick with ink and paper, this just looks a bit fragile for use outdoors plus unlike a magazine you can’t use the Kindle as toilet paper when in a bind…
For the skeptics out there I would like to quote Bill Gates.
” We chop down trees, transport them to plants, mash them into pulp, move the pulp to another factory to press into sheets, ship the sheets to a plant to put dirty marks on them, then cut the sheets and bind them and ship the thing around the world. Do you really believe that we’ll be doing that in 50 years? ”
As for James Patterson. He is also a believer that the Kindle will succeed: “The baby boomers have a love affair with paper” he says. But the next-gen people, in their 20s and below, do everything on a screen.”
And to quote Jeff Bezos. “The vision is that you should be able to get any book – not just any book in print, but any book that’s EVER been in print- on the Kindle, in less than a minute.”
What I need is for the iPod Touch to support java so can read e-Books from it, and stylus support ain’t bad either for Apple.
BrianB, did you use Jailbreak on your iPod Touch? I you have, I think you can use it as an eBook Reader.
Doesn’t it void Apple warranty?
A for e-Book bestsellers, yep, the Barnes and Nobles will be run out of business but for writers it will be a boon. Writers get paid 50 cents for each hardcover book sold. With e-Books they can demand higher royalties.
It will void the warranty if you brick your iPod Touch and send it to the store at that state. However, if you find something wrong with it, you can just do a restore and send it back in its factory state.
Which model and how much you got yours for?
OK just checked seems you CAN access the web with the Kindle so I’m a bit confused on the blog subscription model…
Sydney, don’t think it was Bill Gates who said that but some other guy from Microsoft. Anyway I think the question is not will ebooks become popular but rather will dedicated ebook readers succeed ? Or will we be reading on our phone/music player/video player instead ? I already read books on my windows mobile phone really don’t see the need to lug around another device…
“Which model and how much you got yours for?”
16GB hong kong price.
This is what happens to overachievers.
http://www.clipta.com/play?v=d6efaa4b1eaf55227bc9
Its too bulky. I think, I will just have to wait for the paper thin lcd to mature.
IMHO,too expensive and too ugly. Apple could smash this with their next gen iPods/phones. Who needs another device in their backpack anyway?
Twitter: jhayrocas
replied on Nov 21st, 2007 at 7:02 am (12)
Hmm, asides from the inability to afford one, I still prefer holding a good ‘ol paperback in my hands whenever I read. Call me old fashioned but that’s how I like my reading.
It will click to those book lovers who are always on the go. I checked Amazon.com and as of now, even with it’s high cost, current units were already sold out. Wow, great marketing by Jeff Bezos..
These days, you can buy a laptop for $400, and it will do everything that the Kindle will do, plus much more.
Not interested, hehe.
My second-hand Treo 650–a phone, organizer and media player which I bought for P9,500 (less than $200 –can read ebooks and store mobile versions of Inquirer, NYT, IHT, among other papers.
I could even create my own ebooks from text files and read these books on my Treo.
Wait… di ba reading is on the decline? Why would a device like this get more people to read? Unless they’re targetting people who are forced to read, such as students?
This might sound a bit naive, but is this even available here? I’m actually very interested. Believe me guys, seeing a quarter of your 500-strong library get slaughtered by termites is not a delightful experience. I’m just curious: would the Sprint EVDO technology allow you to download stuff even if you’re outside the U.S.? And where can you buy this here, if ever?