Amazon’s Kindle to change world of ebooks
Consumers have long been able to download audio and partial-text versions of books. But now, with a simple button click, a new electronic reading device is poised to do for books what Apple and the iPod did for music. It’s called the Amazon Kindle, and for three years Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has worked diligently to produce the completely wireless device, which launches in stores today. “When people see it in person for the first time they do a double take,” Bezos said. The 10-ounce gadget can hold up to 200 books at a time. And while the mechanism has no monthly fees or wireless bills for purchasers to worry about, Bezos said the added value means consumers should not expect to see a drop in the Kindle’s $399 price tag.
The Kindle not only allows users to download books, but also newspapers and magazines, and they can subscribe to blogs in less than a minute. Bezos said it will revolutionize the way people read, and it’s simple to use. “When you’re ready to buy this book, you just scroll up to the buy button and you click on your scroll reel,” he said. “The book will be wirelessly downloaded to your device.” Part of the Kindle’s charm is that it aims to read like a real book with a paperlike display. But unlike old-school periodicals, users control the settings on the eBook. I’m not really sure if such a device can succeed in today’s market, but one thing is clear: reading ebooks on your computer isn’t definitely flawless and the ol’ good paper still matters.
Source: ABC
Comments(37)
I doubt this will sell. Not a lot of people are fans of reading on a screen…
If i could put it down on my lap i would get this… wonder how long the battery last?…
I would love to read from a screen, but still waiting for the Sony E-Book to fall into Northern Europe!
this thing will be dead sooner than Osama. I mean for $400, they did not even have a color display?
You can get low end laptops for cheaper and if its too heavy for you, wait for the super light Apple laptop to show up and later you can get those clones for 400. Color diplsay, and flash rom + wifi.
the price kills it for me, no thx.
The battery is supposed to last for around 2 days, which is quite a long time. A lot of battery is saved due to the fact that it dosen’t have a colour display. This product is aimed at readers and a colour display is quite pointless then.
Also the point of this product is that you can download books ANYWHERE you go. An apple laptop with wifi couldnt do that since you can’t connect to a wifi connection anywhere you go. This works more like a mobile phone.
You can also access wikipedia for free ^^
“Bezos said the added value means consumers should not expect to see a drop in the Kindle’s $399 price tag.”
Well thanks to that “added value” I wont be buying one.
When will companies get it, they are killing the market with these prices? Dipshts who want the newest expensive gadget, are not neccessarily the “readers” of the world.
Oh well, I’ll just pick one up off the side of the road like a RocketBook or an RCA eBook.
With a price like that, it looks stupid, is suprisingly low on functionality (besides wifi), and doesn’t come close to touching the Sony eBook (except in price).
Gfy corporations. I’ll go play with my murdered trees.
The only way this would work is if the device was simple and cheap.
Who is going to spend $400 on a device that only reads books. It looks nice but the price is a major drawback, when for less money you could probably pick up one of those new budget laptops.
It’ll be popular with those that buy such things, other e-book readers go for about as much, if not much more. Some are cheaper, some are more expensive. The screens are designed to be more easily read than a computer, easier on your eyes.
These products have been around for a long time. If anything, Amazon is trying to make it more mainstream, which isn’t too likely, but I wouldn’t mind having one.
look at the size of it!!!
you can buy a laptop for that much, or I use a sony PSP if i’m on the move, there’s a great txt/pdf reader you can get for it that uses very little power
i dont see a replacment for paperback books anytime soon, maybe never.. unless they can invent something as small,convenient,cheap and can last for years.
i didnt even know they built portable ebook readers .. i like the idea but as has been said the price is a bit high i think $400 works out at about £200, i cant see it being worth no more than £50 myself
The screen of this ebook-reader is made from e-paper, which is still very much in development, and reading from it should be much like reading from paper (except for now the resolution is probably pretty low). It doesn’t emit light, and only consumes power when the output on the screen changes.
I personally can’t wait for this technology to mature, I think it’ll become very popular one day.
I would rather just pay a few quid for a cheap 2nd hand paperback or 30p for a newspaper, than spend $400 on something as useless as this.
I already have a much cheaper ebook reader. It’s called a PSP and it also plays games,movies, music and does a bunch of other things. A decent sized memory stick stores thousands of books and if you know about the IRC channel #bookz you have hundreds of thousands to choose from. I don’t get why more people don’t use it.
I like e-books, e-magazines and audiobooks. However if I buy a device like the Kindle (which I won’t) it must (for me) do a number of things:
1. be large enough so that I can get an actual page of text on the screen
2. allow me to upload my own content (which the Kindle does not unless you go through Amazon)
3. have battery-power
This still isn’t mature enough for me to consider buying one
for anyone who has a laptop this would be entirely pointless really.
& for anyone who doesn’t in the UK you can get a laptop for like £200 and it would still be more useful than this.
i guess it’s smaller and lighter etc. so it could be useful for people who really want to spend that much.
what would be better is an iPod touch with the ability to read .pdf files or something
One more failed device before it even hits the store.
$400 NO!
E-paper/ink, no reading at night, still slow to refresh.
will it read 90% of the formats, NO
Will I buy it.. HELL NO!
the only one out there right now that is somewhat thinkable, in a strange way is the $200 “everybody” laptop that is meant for poor countries.
You have to buy 2 of them if you want one though, 1 for you, 1 for the actual use of them.
It runs a stripped windows or Linux, has a color screen, is FLIPABLE (V+H) so you can read it like a book, and can run all the programs needed to read anything.
Power= plug or crank to charge, No HD, but takes SD cards and has USB ports so you could plug one in.
Oh yeah built in wireless as well.
with a small re-design, it could be a killer reader (maybe just color scheme)
Especially at the price
I have 2 ebook devices the Sony PRS-500 and the Cybook Gen 3 and I’m very happy with them specially the Cybook which the screen is clearer and has a faster screen refresh and have replaced all my pbooks with it’s electronic cousin. For anyone interested in ebooks check out this site: http://www.mobileread.com
Not going to work. I do read plenty of books and generally use my old FS Loox720 to do this. Note, my FS cost me $400 brand new and this is a multi-purpose device, portable, concealable. Only problem is with picture pdf’s.
This rubbish is in no way good enough for me to fork out this kind of money. If I really wanted to, I’d prefer Sony ebook or what is it called rather than this. Or better yet the new HP Ipaq 214 …
4″ screen is plenty of screen estate to allow for comfortable reading.
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Not a mainstream product. Too dear, doesn’t do enough. As others say you can get a cheap laptop or a PSP. I have a phone with epaper display and it is very slow to refresh, there is a ghost image for several seconds.
I think i saw something similiar in startrek…
It looks quite ugly. Big thing to carry around. It would just end up staying on my desk. The only reading I do off a screen is mainly ‘internet based things,’ like news, blogs, myspace…things like that. Can you imagine laying in bed with that monster propped on your belly? Not for me….when i read books i need a nice light paper book.
Very unawesome. Too expensive, looks way too bulky. Shame, really, cause some smart foldable that you can open like a small notebook and read ebooks would be cool.
I use my IPAQ PDA, it’s a bit more versatile then a dedicated reader, and can be backlit for reading at night. Interesting that the PSP can be used as a reader too.. if it had wireless I’d probably drop my PDA for it since I use my phone for all my contacts etc.
test
This will be a hit when it hits the $99 price.
Especially if can download newspapers for free overnight and be ready to read the next morning.
was this designed in the 70s? my gawd its ugly.
$400 dollars? no thanks. acrobat pdf? nope. open source? nope. DRM-ed books/blogs/magazines/audibles? check.
point is, jeff bezos’ “kindle” will bomb hardcore, and will probably be at the end of the years “what were they thinking” category. mark my words.
design looks like the production team from 2001: space odyssey from 1968 created it for the side panelings of the interior of the movie. c’mon Bezos…
At least it’s made of plastic, so the Kindle will make good kindling! Oh, I kill myself!
Ba-dum-TISH!
how about a paper like insert that would give the appearance of texture like a real book.
Did everyone miss the free evdo but me? Does anyone realize the potential of this if it’s hacked? If someone hacks this to get to any page or download torrents (if there would be enough space, the article said about 200 books, I’m not sure about the size of an amazon e-book), or if someone could rig it to be hooked up to a computer for wireless EVDO internet for free I’d be on it right away. Sure it might be $400 at first but unlimited EVDO through Sprint for a laptop costs $60 a month at the moment plus the price of an access card, I’d gladly carry the extra bulk and price for free internet. Better yet, hook it up to a router for access at home.
No backlight, boooooh!!!!
Otherwise I would buy it (only if it read pdf)
if anything, this will hopefully result in more ebooks being pirated. im not talking about magazines or technical/scientific books but even literary/nonficbooks, really recent ones, even criticism & poetry collections that seem to be lacking in the freely-downloadable-ebook sector right now.
As a long time ebook (eink based) reader I would love to see RLSLog coveering ebook releases (especially mobipocket versions).
[...]i don’t see a replacement for paperback books anytime soon.I agree.
http://www.electrocomputerwarehouse.com
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