“Most important thing we’ve ever done,” says Amazon’s Jeff Bezos of Kindle |
Update 11/19/07 11:23am: You can now check out / buy the Kindle at Amazon (affiliate). There are 96 reviews and so far the Kindle is netting 2.5 out of 5 starts. Not stellar.
Here comes another attempt to challenge print books. This one from the internet’s (world’s?) largest bookseller.
Newsweek has an article spanning seven pages on Amazon’s new e-Book reader gadget called Kindle. Unless it’s Tuesday 11/20/07 Monday 11/19/2007, don’t expect to find it anywhere on the Amazon website yet, but the article goes into some depth about what Kindle will do. It also manages to stay away from providing some additional, important details.
Rafat Ali of Paid Content seems miffed over honoring a Kindle embargo that Newsweek seemed to have broken (with permission?) and outlines key features.
- price: $399
- weighs 10.3 ounces, about the size of a book with a 6″ screen and doesn’t get hot, according to Bezos
- e-books will cost $2-$10 with 88,000 at launch and the Kindle can hold 200 books
- comes with EVDO-style always-on network functionality (a service called Whispernet) and can function independent of the PC. You can shop directly from the device for new books. Pricing is not mentioned for Whispernet. Is it free?
- provides 30 hours of reading time and two hours to fully charge
- can also subscribe to some newspapers, magazines and “select” blogs at $0.99 - $1.99 a month
- can follow links on blogs, perform Wikipedia and Google searches which suggests there will be some type of handicapped (?) browser built-in (Opera?)
Gizmodo has a picture of Kindle which looks like a white, thin version of See and Spell or a wafer-thin fax machine. Some are already calling it ugly, without benefit of holding it in hand, which caused the writer of Newsweek piece, Steven Levy to write that it’s not “beastly.”
Scoble has a post that starts with “I’m held by NDA until tomorrow” and then he goes onto talk about how Bill Gates wanted to do something like this badly with the Tablet PC and then adds:
All I’ll say until tomorrow is you gotta try this device. It’s not perfect, but for long-form reading it is a wonderful device. I am going to buy one of my own.
Rob Bushway wonders if anybody is going to try out the Kindle. I’m somewhat interested in the device, although I don’t like the price point or the fact that it’s yet another eBook DRM scheme. Haven’t they learned from the DRM in music that people don’t like DRM?
I asked the person in our family who reads the most, my wife, what she thought of Kindle? She said she wouldn’t use it. Why not? She likes books that she can hold. Perhaps she’d change her mind once she actually saw one?
Too many unanswered questions.
Did this post make you go hmm?
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I think what they are not realizing is that the type of person that is willing to spend $300 to read books is the type of person that wants the tactile experience that owning an actual book gives.
You can argue that iPods and Mp3s have become popular, but it really isn’t that same thing.
Comment by Wayne — November 18, 2007 @ 7:19 pm PST
Well said, Wayne, there is something about holding a print book that digital devices haven’t been able to emulate to date. I looked at the Sony Reader in the Border’s the other day and the screen is fairly readable. The heat with the tablet pc battery was uncomfortable.
I agree with the crowd that believes someday we’ll be reading books digitally, but I don’t see it happening en masse in a proprietary format from Amazon. I’ve tried reading books digitally before and it just doesn’t feel right. I understand what my wife is saying. Won’t prevent me from trying again though.
Comment by TDavid — November 18, 2007 @ 7:29 pm PST
It will eventually become popular. When the price comes down of course.
Comment by Jayson — November 20, 2007 @ 8:09 pm PST
The price has actually come down to $359 now. It’s still pretty pricey but I bought one anyway and I think it’s great. I read some reviews about it first to see what others had to say about their experiences. I found some reviews over at [see signature]
Comment by Greg — September 25, 2008 @ 7:27 am PST