Amazon Kindle

[joesxm3]

I imagine most of you will say why pay $400 for a book reading device and why buy e-books for $10 when you can get them free at the library.

However, does anyone have thoughts on the new Amazon Kindle that was released today?

I saw Jeff Bezos on last night's Charlie Rose Show and he was whipping up a lot of enthusiasm. He also mentioned that Amazon is working to develop a sub-orbital rocket ride product as well.

$400 seems too high, but saving $10 or so on new release books would tend to work itself off. I have been buying quite a few books from amazon lately.

I would get them from the library, but I do not think I could read them fast enough to give back on time - that and I am generally disorganized and apathetic.

The Kindle reminds me of watching Jean Luc Picard walking around the enterprise reviewing the daily reports on his little flat screen. Kirk had the communicator - now we have the Razor. Picard had the little book - now we can have the Kindle.

Live long and prosper ...

 

[Gotadimple]

It's a new toy, I'm very intrigued, especially about the ability to download using a hotspot without a monthly fee. And! Carry 20 books around in a device that weighs as much as a paperback.

Is it worth $400? No, but in about 6 months it will be worth $250 -- same as the Sony offering.

--

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

He also mentioned that Amazon is working to develop a sub-orbital rocket ride product as well.

They can use that to dispose of all the $400 e-readers they dont sell

 

[Nords]

They can use that to dispose of all the $400 e-readers they dont sell

I really want to believe that Amazon has done a better job with Kindle than Sony did with their e-reader, but I've been burned too many times before.

I'm gonna let you guys do all the beta-testing for me and post your results here.

I'm most concerned about ending up with a product that weighs 10 pounds, has a battery life of microminutes, and scorches my lap. And I'm not too sure how much we're paying for GSM connectivity with Amazon.com, either. At least, thanks to DoCoMo, parts of Oahu finally have a GSM network!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Two later thoughts.

#1: I'm once again going to revisit the benefits of companies paying out a dividend instead of "investing" the cash back into the business. Low orbit devices? Expensive book readers?

#2: Jeez, is it too late to short amazon? A company known well for their e-biz capabilities and inventory management does not make for a company that can build high tech/high touch consumer electronics and rocket ships. :

 

[chinaco]

The e-book type of devices will eventually be very common. Why? It will reduce cost. It (or some variant) will eventually replace the paper counterpart.

But $400 seems a bit high for the basic device... no cost reduction there. Batteries are also a bit of a pain (and costly) too. Not to mention storing all of your books (my library).

I think it is likely to be a while before they catch-on broadly.

I am wondering how I will read my book at the beach on vacation? LCD screens do not seem to perform well in bright sun-light.

I'll stick with paper for now.

 

[saluki9]

Well, I can tell you this.

Whoever was in charge of cosmetic design should be dragged out into the street and shot.

It looks like it was built by Tandy in 1985

 

[Danny]

I'll stick with free Audio ebooks downloaded from the library to my $100 MP3 player...

 

[TromboneAl]

Check out the reviews on the Amazon page. Most of the bad reviews cite price as the reason they don't like it.

I predicted that by now electronic readers would be common -- it'll happen some day.

I'm reading Stephen King's It right not, 1152 pages. I'd rather be reading it on a 10 ounce Kindle. But until I can take out library books for free on a reader, I'll stick with the 1430's technology.

 

[Nords]

But until I can take out library books for free on a reader, I'll stick with the 1430's technology.

Almost there. Our library has a number of e-book downloads, and hopefully everyone (including Kindle) has their formats straight.

 

[TromboneAl]

Random thoughts about the intellectual property rights stuff...

I can take a book out of the library for free. The library can buy a book and then lend it out. But let's say libraries convert to ebooks. Can I get a library bestseller on my Kindle? There's no qualitative difference between doing that and borrowing a real book from the library. The only difference is in convenience.

And if you take it further, you realize that you only need one library for the entire world, with all the books available for borrowing on your ereader.

The problem is that at that point it's so convenient to get any book from the library, that there's no point in paying for books, and the system collapses. Libraries only work now because most people don't use them.

 

[Coach]

I've got one on order. I'm really intrigued, with some of the features like wireless without a wireless fee. There is a ton of free content on Project Gutenberg that I'd like an easy, portable way to read.

I'll let you know what I think after I've tried it out.

Coach

 

[ERD50]

And if you take it further, you realize that you only need one library for the entire world, with all the books available for borrowing on your ereader.

and the system collapses.

Some of these library e-books are set up similar to physical books. If you 'check' one out, it is locked for access by anyone else, until you 'check it back in'. The library has to buy X licenses to allow X to be checked out at one time.

This does not apply to ALL ebooks, but it is an option if they want to use it.

-ERD50

 

[TromboneAl]

Interesting that I hadn't even heard of Kindle until today, when I read Joe's post.

Since then I've read the Newsweek cover story and others (e.g. this is a good one) that have convinced me that this is a great product. I'll be sure to get one as soon as the price comes down.

 

[Buckeye]

Early adopters are necessary to keep this new stuff coming out even if the initial models aren't the ultimate solution. I'm definitely considering a purchase.

 

[Nords]

... and others (e.g. this is a good one) that have convinced me that this is a great product.

Unlike the iPhone, you can do that without ever being billed for wireless access. The free, unlimited wireless is just there. And it's not Wi-Fi, but mobile broadband; it connects anywhere a Sprint cell phone can connect (taxi cabs, the beach -- you name it).

Whoa. This is an interesting business model.

Can't read it in the dark (yet). I bet someone's already working on a book-light clip powered through the headphone jack...

All right, I really really wanna believe, but color me cautiously optimistic.

 

[Rustic23]

Black and white only, no back light, looks bulky, $400! Yikes. I googled free ebooks. Looked at the top 100 at Main Page - Gutenberg. It was hard to resist The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) by J. Arthur Thomson (1122) or Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools by Francis M. Walters (388) , but I did.

For now I'll pass.

 

[Meadbh]

This is one toy I would like to have. I see that Amazon has it on back order. I'll wait at least till the price comes down and perhaps till more features are added.

 

[Moemg]

I am never usually interested in gadgets but this is one I'll buy once the price drops .

 

[mountaintosea]

You guys keep me up to date. I did not know a gadget like this came out!

 

[Coach]

I've had a Kindle for a few days now. Here are my impressions so far:

It's a very nice ebook reader. The black and white "electronic ink" display is very easy on the eyes and works fine in any light conditions I'd be comfortable reading a real book in. You can adjust text size up and down. It's lightweight and feels solid to me. It takes a while to figure out out to pick it up without hitting some button. It's easy to look up a word from your reading in the supplied dictionary, Wikipedia, or on the web. It's really easy to buy books from Amazon -- pick the book, and it's on your Kindle within a couple of minutes. I've paid between 9.99 for Steve Martin's new autobiography and 1.19 for Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. Availability varies -- for example, there's nothing by John Steinbeck or John Grisham, lots by Agatha Christie, lots of bestsellers. You can have hundreds of books on it at a time -- thousands, if you add a memory card. Everything you buy is saved on the Amazon site, so you can delete it from your Kindle and redownload it later if you want.

It's easy to load other stuff onto the Kindle -- connect it via its USB port to your PC and it looks like a flash drive. You can just copy stuff down in several supported formats. You can also email books or other documents to it for a dime each.

It's not a very good web browser. I was looking forward to this function, but doubt if I'll use it much. For straightfoward text-heavy sites it does OK. For interactive sites it's between miserable and unuseable. I gave up trying to do email on it. Web browsing is an experimental feature and currently free, but Amazon can decide to start charging for it at any time.

You can subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs, which are then automatically downloaded. I haven't tried this feature yet.

The most interesting thing about it so far to me is that anyone can sell their own work on Amazon for downloading to kindles. Wrote a book that never got published? It looks like you can have it available on Amazon in short order. And make money, too. http://amanzon.com/dtp

The Kindle does a great job as a book reader. The farther from that function you go, the less well it does.

Coach

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Thanks, Coach - I was hoping someone would share their real-world experience with that. It sounds like iTunes for books. It it becomes a good browser, that could make it much more interesting.

How large is the drive when you connect via USB to your computer?

 

[TromboneAl]

I did not know a gadget like this came out!

Me neither, and I've always been interested in eBooks. Did they do a bad job of marketing, or did they not try? Compared with the iPhone, this product was a dark secret.

 

[Nords]

Coach, if you don't mind I have a bunch of specific questions:

The black and white "electronic ink" display is very easy on the eyes and works fine in any light conditions I'd be comfortable reading a real book in. You can adjust text size up and down.

Are you presbyopic or at least in your late 40s? When I turned 42, suddenly I needed a lot of light/dark contrast to be able to pick out text-- especially pocket paperbacks & prescription medications. Is the electronic ink's contrast enough for you, or do you need to make the text bigger?

It's easy to load other stuff onto the Kindle -- connect it via its USB port to your PC and it looks like a flash drive. You can just copy stuff down in several supported formats. You can also email books or other documents to it for a dime each.

So, David Weber's 10th "Honor Harrington" book came with a free CD of all 10 books, which I copied to my hard drive. It sounds like I'd be able to download it to the Kindle and try it out, right?

You can subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs, which are then automatically downloaded. I haven't tried this feature yet.

Can you tell if this is an RSS feed (blogs) or a big PDF file (newspapers, magazines)?

How do you make "margin notes" or other annotations? Drawing on the surface like a PDA, or using a virtual keyboard?

I just about had my heart broken by the hype around Sony's eReader, but maybe I'm ready to try again. Sounds like it's gonna be a verry Merry Christmas around Hale Nords...

 

[Gotadimple]

Here's the latest review of Kindle from the Seattle Times:

Search Results | Seattle Times Newspaper

-- Rita