Amazon "Kindle" - anyone buy/try one yet? - Page 4

Too bad all the benefits of the kindle are US only, the Sony 505 is much better for everyone else, even though it's been out for a while.

Too bad the kindle experience relies so much on 'free' 3G cellphone service, only amazon sells the latest ebooks at $10, I find the newest ones are often pretty much the same price as the hardcover on other ebook sites.

Actually, pricing is becoming a thorny issue in the Kindle community. About a third of the library exceeds the publicized $10 price. But another large portion is considerably cheaper.

The thing that really upsets many of us is that some Kindle volumes actually cost more than Amazon's hardcover price. Here's a case in point:

The Third Reich At War, Richard J Evans

$40.00 list price
$26.40 Amazon's hardcover price
$32.00 Kindle price

This is a large, expensive-to-produce, book and worth the hardcover cost. But IMO the electronic version pricing is ridiculous, and the reading experience in ebook form can't possibly equal that of the pbook. This is why we bibliophiles will continue to support both formats for years to come.

BTW, according to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, Kindle volumes will eventually be sold for other ereaders, smart phones, iPods and similar devices.

It costs the same as those ultra portables laptops (Asus eee, Msi wind, etc)? It seems as a big miss market that way IMO. Even if it is much lighter.
I definitely would prioritize an ultra portable laptop as an alternative.

I see it as a general market inefficiency issue. There's no real reason why a Kindle book has to cost less than it's dead tree counterpart. It is a fairly boneheaded move with a new release though.

While there is some overlap, the Kindle and Netbooks play in different markets. As a tool for reading, the Kindle is by far and away superior. Better form factor, better battery life, better readability, the list goes on.

In any case, Amazon doesn't need to move a ton of units to be profitable. As long as Kindle owners buy significant numbers of books (and 10% of Amazon's total books sales is significant), the Kindle will be a runaway financial success.

Wow, Spad, even kindle books have that pricing problem! There is a real reason why ebooks should be less, the cost to produce it is significantly less than actually printing and binding a book.

By using the same price, publishers are increasing their profit margins to huge amounts while the consumer gets stuck with the same old $30 book. Certain books warrant a high price due to their superior content and/or binding, but the majority of hardcover books out there are just fine in plain old mass market $10 paperback form.

Just look at the NY Times, it costs them twice as much in one year to print the paper than if they were to send a free kindle to every one of their subscribers!

I've got several books published on Kindle and I can tell you that the profit margins are not what they might appear to be. Everyone (publishers, authors, distributors, Jeff Bezos...) is still trying to figure all this out. I think the books should all cost about the same, regardless of size. But most of my books are under 200 pages...

At first blush the Kindle may seem overpriced to you, but remember that it includes such things as an expensive e-ink screen, free unlimited 3G wireless, and matchless convenience. It's certainly not for everyone, but for serious book lovers it fills a niche that nothing else can satisfy at the moment. For me, the convenience factor alone is worth more than the price.

Besides, I like Jeff Bezos. Not as much as Steve Jobs, but he's getting close.

the Ipod touch/ iphone can be a really good ebook reader. Get the free app called Stanza and it'll download any ebooks you want, in many formats (pdf, txt, html, etc) so you can read out-of-print novels, not just what Amazon sells. You can change the color of text to make it pleasant to the eye as well (no color on the Kindle, for that money id expect a color screen). Plus, iphones (and eepc's) do much more than the kindle does.

Of course a Kindle book doesn't have to cost less than a pbook. But it should, and for some of the same reasons that a paperback is priced lower than a hardcover version of the same title.

Pricing in the ebook market is in a real state of flux at the moment. There are huge fights underway concerning digital rights, even to the point that some publishers/agents want to have licensing rights concerning the Kindle 2's ability to read their text. Keep in mind we're talking about a computer voice, not an audiobook performance. Crazy--and stupid, IMO. So even though the K2 can do a credible job of reading text, Amazon has announced that it will only be allowed on a book-by-book basis in the near future. I doubt it will be restricted in any widespread way, but K2 owners are up in arms over the issue.

The touch is a fairly good ebook reader, despite the limitations of Stanza, Instapaper and the other text oriented apps. I use mine for shorter pieces like magazine articles when I need a backlit display. For this use the touch certainly isn't the equal of my Palm TX running TibrPro, but I like having 32 gigs of music and other media at hand. I often finish off my evenings in bed with my touch and W3s reading articles I've tagged during the day with Instapaper. BTW, if you own a touch or iPhone and aren't using Instapaper you're really missing out.

Have you actually seen a K2? Are you aware that Stanza and Calibre will output any format to the Kindle? Or that the Kindle can read anything the touch can read plus Amazon's 240,000+ Kindle catalog? Or that many of freebie sites such as Gutenberg and Manybooks can download directly to the Kindle in its native format? Surprised? I thought you might be.

Incidentally, you're wrong in believing the touch can read Amazon's Kindle books, just as you're wrong in thinking that the Kindle is restricted to Amazon's offerings. It's by far the most versatile dedicated reader on the market in this respect. Even though it has a 3G radio, a browser, plays music and audiobooks (Amazon owns Audible and Brilliance) and reads any text aloud, it's primarily meant to be used as a book. As much as I like my touch, and I own both generations, and my Sony PRS-505 (another e-ink reader), neither holds a candle to the K2. In that role it's absolutely peerless at the moment.

Well, amazon is really gunning for the kindle store to become iTunes for books, because they've released an iPhone (and ipod touch)app that reads kindle store books!

Amazon Kindle iPhone app

Wow! That is O U T S T A N D I N G news!!!. Thanks, vagarach. As soon as I saw your post I immediately bought 100 shares of AMZN at 64.02. This adds literally millions of potential Kindle book customers and, even in these economic times, Amazon stock should prove ultimately to be a good investment.

This software is great in that it keeps the books synced across devices, meaning that if I'm on page 73 on my K2, I'll be on the same page when I open that book on my touch and vice versa.

Last week during his Charlie Rose interview, Jeff said they were working on software to allow Kindle volumes to be read on the iPhone. Vaporware is so common that I really just brushed that info off.

I am going to buy the Amazon Kindle version 3 with the 3G cellular technology this Christmas 2010. It is the very best e-book reader with one of the widest support of audio and e-book formats. I read a lot of books and carrying them around in my new FUL Cross Fade backpack is so old fashioned.

 

Who else here has the new Amazon Kindle version 3? What do you think about it?

Don't be surprised if Apple borks Kindle with an iTunes "update".