E-book readers: Sony/Amazon Kindle

[Sunray]

I am still having difficulty in understanding why these things cost so much? The internals of something so low powered can be done in just about a single chip plus some memory which also costs next to nothing.

I can only conclude that e-ink charge stupid costs for each screen produced, shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Hmm, I watched their promo videos for this kindle last night
Is it me or is it a shit name
as well as being ugly
and overpriced

I can see it taking off if the price drops to say £100/$200
$400 is way too much for this considering there are costs for subscriptions and tfr of docs etc

at the current price I would have expected wifi too

it looks like they have got the eInk thing right tho'
I try and read ebooks on my pda (Palm TX) from Gutenberg and the like and have always found my eyes giving way after a while, and I am 20/20 with no problems in that area, it is just that type of screen (LCDwhatever it is)
it strains the eye after a while.

Many people speaking on my course at Uni are from the publishing world and they are really interested in how eInk displays will change the market. This thing isn't aimed at us who are familiar with and like the feel of a book.
It is aimed at the up and coming readers/kids/reviewers/schhols etc possibly too

 

[Throbbing Angel]

oh

and there was some publishing bod on R4 t'other day talking about their publishing houses's decision to not publish hardbacks anymore
this adds to that kind directional thinking on the publishing industries part

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Amazon Kindle sells out on debut

Looks like they're on to a winner...

Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has sold out despite scepticism about whether the device will prove popular.

A notice on the Kindle pages on the Amazon web store said "heavy customer demand" for the device meant it would be out of stock until 3 December.
Since its launch on 19 November the device has been widely examined but opinions about it are mixed.


It has won praise for being easy to use but many have criticised the way it forces people to pay for free content.

 

[scott_forester]

Looks like they're on to a winner...

You have to wonder if this'll just boast the sales of the better products and why doesn't any of this stuff get sold in the EU

 

[untethered]

Kindle will be a success. That doesn't mean it'll replace the mass market book for the time being, but it's a step in that direction and it'll be viable in its own right.

 

[untethered]

Thing is, I could see Microsoft being great in this area... They could use their billions to sell a reader for $50 in order to subsidise a new market...

Indeed. Because what we all really what is proprietary DRM books.

However, the model is probably a good one. Give away the razor, sell the blades.

 

[scott_forester]

Kindle will be a success. That doesn't mean it'll replace the mass market book for the time being, but it's a step in that direction and it'll be viable in its own right.

Actually the more I read the less I think it will be unless they drop some of the charges. That and support pdf.

 

[untethered]

Actually the more I read the less I think it will be unless they drop some of the charges. That and support pdf.

Primarily it's a book reader. People are buying it to read books. Anything else is a bonus.

How many years did people blather on about the iPod needing to play video (which it got eventually) and radio (which it still hasn't) while it continued to dominate the market?

 

[scott_forester]

Primarily it's a book reader. People are buying it to read books. Anything else is a bonus.

How many years did people blather on about the iPod needing to play video (which it got eventually) and radio (which it still hasn't) while it continued to dominate the market?

But they are locking the content to the device and charging things like file transfers, downloading content from newspapers and blogs. The model of delivery can't be free so I think it's got a major flaw.

 

[untethered]

But they are locking the content to the device and charging things like file transfers, downloading content from newspapers and blogs. The model of delivery can't be free so I think it's got a major flaw.

Subscribing to a newspaper on this device costs much less than buying the paper. You can browse the web over Wifi if you've got a connection for that.

But primarily it's a book reader. You pay for the book and you can download it free as many times as you like. You get access to an instant bookstore wherever you are. It's good for reading books.

It's a book reader.

Everything else is details. If it's good for reading books, book lovers will want one. If it isn't, they won't. It's not for anyone else.

No-one cares whether it runs Excel or plays games or whatever.

 

[scott_forester]

Subscribing to a newspaper on this device costs much less than buying the paper. You can browse the web over Wifi if you've got a connection for that.

But primarily it's a book reader. You pay for the book and you can download it free as many times as you like. You get access to an instant bookstore wherever you are. It's good for reading books.

It's a book reader.

Everything else is details. If it's good for reading books, book lovers will want one. If it isn't, they won't. It's not for anyone else.

No-one cares whether it runs Excel or plays games or whatever.

I've never mentioned Excel, but PDF is one of the the most wildly used electronic document systems around and it seems very odd that they don't support it. I've got 100s of PDF documents I cart around on my laptop that I'd happily transfer them to a ereader device.

The Amazon device doesn't have wifi - which is a bit bizarre because almost everything else has, I can even surf on my DS (but it's rubbish). If I was going to spend the best part of £200 for a device with a screen and keyboard I sure as hell aren't going to get one that doesn't let me surf wirelessly.

People care about the pricing and licensing model. They are effectively charging you to deliver free content like blogs and newspapers over a mobile phone network. Not to mention the DRM system means that unlike a paper book you can't transfer it between owners. Delivering over a mobile network increases the price point.

I'm not saying it's a bad product but there only usp is the content which I can't imagine will be unique for look. The device itself is pig ugly and at the moment apparently feature poor.

 

[untethered]

I've never mentioned Excel, but PDF is one of the the most wildly used electronic document systems around and it seems very odd that they don't support it. I've got 100s of PDF documents I cart around on my laptop that I'd happily transfer them to a ereader device.

That's great. It sounds like the Kindle isn't for you. Primarily, it's for people that want to read ebooks that they're going to purchase wirelessly from an online store, not the PDFs they've got stored on their laptop.

The Amazon device doesn't have wifi - which is a bit bizarre because almost everything else has, I can even surf on my DS (but it's rubbish). If I was going to spend the best part of £200 for a device with a screen and keyboard I sure as hell aren't going to get one that doesn't let me surf wirelessly.

Sorry, the Kindle allows you to browse the web using the EVDO network, not wifi.

People care about the pricing and licensing model. They are effectively charging you to deliver free content like blogs and newspapers over a mobile phone network. Not to mention the DRM system means that unlike a paper book you can't transfer it between owners. Delivering over a mobile network increases the price point.

A lot of people don't care half as much as you'd like them to. Plus, the kind of person that is happy to pay for one of these is also likely to own a smartphone or laptop where they can get this content free if they don't want to pay for it on the Kindle. But to the typical user of this device, £7 a month to get your daily newpaper on it is going to be small change. They certainly won't be bothered about whether they can transfer their books between owners.

I'm not saying it's a bad product but there only usp is the content which I can't imagine will be unique for look. The device itself is pig ugly and at the moment apparently feature poor.

The USP is the fact that the device is entirely indepdendent of a computer. Buying, downloading and storing books is all done on the device itself, not via a PC.

Do you think books are "feature poor"? Because you know what? An awful lot of them are sold. Kindle will take a slice of that market for the people that value convenience and portability over the traditional format for some of the books that they read.

And people like you? You'll spend your money elsewhere.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I want one that:

Costs less then £70
Can skip through pages fast
Has enough batteries to last for a week
Takes SD cards or some other easily expandable format
Reads a wide variety of different formats and no DRM
Is very light

So guess I’ll be waiting a while

 

[untethered]

I want one that:

Costs less then £70
Can skip through pages fast
Has enough batteries to last for a week
Takes SD cards or some other easily expandable format
Reads a wide variety of different formats and no DRM
Is very light

So guess I’ll be waiting a while

The Kindle is pretty good on battery life and does take SD cards. I'd say it's sufficiently light. The device is mainly for linear reading (eg. novels) so skipping through pages very quickly isn't really a requirement, for me at least.

I'd buy one at £200 if popular books were £5. I'm not sure I'd go much over that. I'll probably get one when it comes out in the UK and buy around 30-40 books a year for it as long as $399 doesn't translate into £399.

 

[jæd]

That's great. It sounds like the Kindle isn't for you. Primarily, it's for people that want to read ebooks that they're going to purchase wirelessly from an online store, not the PDFs they've got stored on their laptop.

Yep...! Though having a portable e-reader is very handy. The technology is still a bit off, but in 5 years I expect everyone who has an iPod now to have an eReader that can read pdfs and other formats...

Not saying that the Kindle and Sony Reader are great devices, but they are limited to only reading books well...

 

[scott_forester]

Not saying that the Kindle and Sony Reader are great devices, but they are limited to only reading books well...

I loved the Sony gadget but when you look at the cost £200 for the device and then the books are pretty expensive when you think they don't have the print them. If they brought the cost of the books down drastically I think they'd all be onto a winner. I've just totted up my book spend on Amazon this year and it's just over £250 if they could half that by delivering them digitally I'd get one in a heartbeat.

 

[jæd]

I loved the Sony gadget but when you look at the cost £200 for the device and then the books are pretty expensive when you think they don't have the print them.

Hopefully e-books will reduce in price like (in theory) music has... One huge benefit is instant delivery though, and (I think) that cost has reduced.

 

[editor]

Not saying that the Kindle and Sony Reader are great devices, but they are limited to only reading books well...

and newspapers, blogs, magazines... and MP3 files....

 

[editor]

I want one that:

Costs less then £70
Can skip through pages fast
Has enough batteries to last for a week
Takes SD cards or some other easily expandable format
Reads a wide variety of different formats and no DRM
Is very light

You're not going to get new best seller books legally released for eReaders without DRM, full stop.

 

[jæd]

and newspapers, blogs, magazines... and MP3 files....

Yes, but they are not marketed as general purpose e-readers... (And yes, in theory you can read the above on them but they need reformatting / conversion away from their original formats -- apart from those supplied (or converted) by Amazon. There are plenty of magazines that distributed as pdfs...)

 

[jæd]

This one looks interesting: http://bookeen.com/shop/productdetails.aspx?ProductID=417

Interesting review here : http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16368s=14d74e18c000bb1a387bb48a3e77e3bb&

 

[UnderOpenSky]

You're not going to get new best seller books legally released for eReaders without DRM, full stop.

Yes, but is there a format that hasn't been cracked yet? It will probably end up the same as DVD players, the cheap generic ones oftern play a wider range of files then the expensive sony ones.

That said with no printing costs, it should cost a lot less. If it was only a couple of quid a book then I would buy lots more then I do at the moment.

 

[editor]

Very positive review of the Kindle reader here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/t...html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

[Crispy]

Not that I doubt that it's a neat device, but the NYT is a launch partner

 

[Kid_Eternity]

The TWiT podcast slated it this week, John C Dvorak had a right old go at Facebook too.

 

[editor]

Not that I doubt that it's a neat device, but the NYT is a launch partner

Did you read the review? It's hardly fawning stuff.

I didn't know it had a basic free web browser and I can see its Foleo-like functionality appealing to business doods wanting to travel light:

But if you’re short of cash, you can also fill the Kindle with your own documents and photos — by e-mail. You, or your authorized minions, can e-mail Word, PDF, JPEG and text files directly to your Kindle’s special address — including any of the 20,000 free, out-of-copyright e-books at Gutenberg.org.

Amazon charges 10 cents for each e-mailed document; if even that’s too rich for your blood, you can also transfer them free from a Mac or PC, over a U.S.B. cable.

This feature means that you can look over documents, contracts and user guides while you’re on the road — without a laptop.

 

[Crispy]

Yep, it's a promising looking bit of kit. I'll be interested in versino 2 or 3.

 

[jæd]

Not that I doubt that it's a neat device, but the NYT is a launch partner

Yep... They completely slated the much better looking Sony Reader... Although independent reviews have said its very useful. I wonder how long until they release it here...?

 

[editor]

Yep... They completely slated the much better looking Sony Reader...

The Sony looks way better but it doesn't have the innovative features of the Kindle.