Because it has at least a slight bearing on our topic of discussion here, and because you can’t really escape the (largely self-generated) buzz on it, I wanted to pass along a couple of quick thoughts on the new Kindle e-reader reader that Amazon is pushing.
I love the e-ink. I think it’s a beautifully implemented technology.
I love the idea of an e-reader. It remains completely baffling to me why textbook publishers haven’t jumped on e-readers as a distribution mechanism. Seriously, what college student wouldn’t love to have one “book” that they could highlight and annotate digitally rather than half a dozen six pound textbooks to lug around?
On the other hand, I think the $399 price point is insanely high for a single function device. Obviously, since Amazon sold out their initial run on these devices, I’m in the minority on this.
Otherwise, most of my thoughts are best summed up by Kristen over at from the mind of me, who posted this take at Front Office Football Central:
Even if I were a train commuter, I don’t think I could choke down $400 for a one-trick pony. Not when I have an iPod (where I can listen to books from audible.com or podiobooks.com) and a PDA with a good screen (where I have eReader installed and can grab books via that).
It does some things that the Sony reader doesn’t, namely it has the ability to connect (or so it says) to Amazon’s EVDO network so you can grab books “whenever” at no charge for the connection and download, but that’s not appealing to me. Again, my eReader Pro (free for Pocket PC) has the ability to buy books and download them right from my PDA, either via a dialup through my phone or via wi-fi.
Apparently it supports the Kindle reader format (whatever that is) and .txt for user-input stuff, i.e. if I have a PDF I want to read, I’m SOL (again, not the case with my PDA).
I can understand why people don’t like to read on PDA’s and prefer the e-ink on the Kindle and the Sony reader (I think the Kindle is using the e-ink), but truthfully, I can’t see it being something I’d consider unless the price drops to $50 or less (which it likely never will). Between audiobooks on my iPod and books (and games and email and my schedule and my contacts and a lot more) on my PDA, $400 for a single-purpose book-reading device seems just silly.
Filed under: Miscellany
