Amazon unveils 9.7-inch Kindle DX with focus on education - Page 5

I know one person who has one. He bought it because he wanted to see what it was like. Ho hum.

It's ok, but the opposite problem about reading is also true. If the light isn't good, then it doesn't make it. I have a problem using it in the living room, because the light level is fine for what it's used for, and reading books and magazines works well enough. But the Kindle is just too poor to easily read there.

My friend sort of likes it, but I think it's the novelty. He doesn't seem to carry it around when he goes somewhere, and he does read.

It's too easy to stuff a paperbook in a pocket somewhere, and you have to come up with some other less convenient way to carry this, and worry about not damaging it.

I've been reading books on my iPhone, and have no problem with it. I like the fact that with this and my earlier phones, I only need one hand to operate it. Very good when I'm holding a pole in the subway. You can't do that with the Kindle. You really do need two hands.

In NYC I see all kinds of devices. I see many iPods daily. Many. I also see many iPhone/iTouch's.

I see them on the subway every time I'm on it. Sometimes two or three!

I've only see one person with a Kindle. A late middle aged lady sat down next to me and took one out. I was reading from my iPhone at the time, and maybe she saw that and chose to sit there.

Most people are shallow. If they weren't, they wouldn't be buying game machines instead of books to begin with.

A paper book or newspaper can also be shared or re-sold. Amazon forgot to ad these capabilities to the Kindle.

Unfortunately, I don't think the publishers will allow that.

iTunes allows sharing, and everybody has their price. Unfortunately, considering technical books for the Kindle cost nearly as much as hard copy, the publishers may already have it too good. The OCR apparently used to create Kindle books is also not error-free, which is a distraction while reading and a big disappointment--and potentially very concerning for technical books. One would think in this millennium the publishers could get exact text into the hands of Amazon.

But how long does would the battery last for? Different kettle of fish.

I just bought a few bookcases for around $400 each. They only hold around a hundred books each and take up valuable space in my apartment. A kindle sounds like a deal.

Think of how beautiful all those books in your new book cases will look as functional and decorative accents in your home. I guess you could hang the Kindle from a hook on your wall, but I'm guessing it would look rather puny that way. Both make for good conversation pieces, the book-filled book case to your face, the Kindle on the wall will probably result in conversations among your friends you won't want to hear

Great idea! Buy a Kindle for every member of the family, plus a couple for guests, and replace them every 3 years or so as they age and Amazon support wanes. No book sharing problem: Just let guests take a spare Kindle home with them for a time. The Kindle is indeed the every man's (and woman's) library!

I got rid of my CD towers years ago, my movies are all on hard drive, and hopefully apple will do something in the e-book arena good enough for my bookcases to follow suit.

Sooner than you think dude.......sooner than you think.

As much as I love Amazon to buy things online I can't understand how they keep putting out this kind of products. I mean: a B&W screen in 2009 when LED & LCD displays can offer so much color? more than $300 just to read books? But I get more surprised because there are people who actually buy this incredible expensive device. A lot of phones with great displays can read PDF, text files, office documents, play music, shoot photos and videos and you can call your friends and they call you back and that device can be in your pocket. And I will buy a Kindle that doesn't do nothing and the books aren't at least shown in a high resolution display with full color for more than $300 $400? Just give me a f'cking break!!

It's a different tech with its own benefits.

You're kidding? Sure that's not an analogy from a Psystar thread?

I have not seen a Kindle in person yet but I really want one. It is a great step in the right direction.

This is going to be an amazing device!

Funny, people said the same thing when I got an iPhone. $399 to use a phone that doesn't even have most of the features that an actual phone has! And they were right, the iPhone is a very expensive phone. It still is, when you consider the iPhone's plan is around $80/month for 2 years, making the iPhone a $2000 phone. The Kindle is $300-$400, but the 3G is included for life.

I have a Kindle, and it is an expensive book reader. But I love it. I can't read a book on my iPhone, the screen is too small and too low-res. Plus all that pinching, squeezing, scrollingit's not a book reader, it's a phone. With the Kindle, I no longer have to put a bunch of books and newspapers in my briefcase when I go on a business trip.

Plus the Kindle lasts a whole lot longer than my iPhone. The iPhone I have is starting to experience some battery health issues that all Lithium ion batteries faceits battery drains more quickly then it used to, so keeping the screen lit for 30-45 minutes can drain its battery by 20%. Since I need to keep it alive for its intended purpose, a phone, I tend to not use my iPhone much anymore except as a phone. I don't have to worry about the Kindle; its battery seems to last forever (that;s not literal, but I've yet to drain its battery fully even when going a week without recharging it).

I can't read a book on a laptop or netbook while I'm on the Tokyo Metro the way I can on the Kindle. I can't lie down on my bed and read from a netbook like I can with a Kindle.

The iPhone allows me to, but I prefer the Kindle 2's bigger screen and the fact it'll resemble a book more than the iPhone.

Please -stop SPAMMing us!

Some of what you say is certainly true. The background isn't completely white. There was a Grisham book years ago, where the paper was very light grey and the type was dark grey. Stylish, maybe, but unpleasant to read. And if the lighting was less that brilliant, it was extremely unpleasant.

And although I feel you're wrong that the Kindle isn't suited to 1-handed reading, neither does it seem like a device you just take when you're out & about. I'm not sure if it's because I'd feel self-conscious reading with one in public or what. Mostly when I'm reading, I want to blend in and not be interrupted. It seems like I'd kind of draw unwanted attention and questions reading with a Kindle in public.

It's an all inclusive device with its own OS and wireless connectivity- you pay just as much if not more for your Apples.

Kindle books lock users into the Kindle, making it more than a $2,000 device. Kindle books cost more than they should, given they can't be shared or resold, and one's investment in Kindle books requires periodic homage to Amazon for a new reader every few years.


That would be for the life of the device.

Dear Amazon: demonstrate interest in going truly cross-platform--not just a meager iPhone app--and you'll sell a lot more people on your e-books, even if they are often priced too high.

Another suggestion: sell Kindle books at a further discount to people who have already purchased the hard copy from Amazon.

"Just to read books".... but although you don't get it, for some people reading is a great source of pleasure. And they've been using black & white typeset for ages. Seemed to work out okay for Dickens. The e-ink screens are higher resolution than LCDs. And the passive displays are more like reading paper. It's a different experience. If you don't get it, then you don't get it. But you act like B&W is ancient tech. For e-paper, it's not. This is pretty advanced technology here. The Kindle is a 4 out of 5 star device for me. They need to improve the whiteness of the page, and a couple of other things, but it's a really nice device. In medium-light, I need a book light, or I have to switch to paper. But outside, the faintly grey background actually makes it easier to read. And I mainly bought it to read by the pool anyhow.

I WOULD. Especially if it meant that my child would be spared carrying around 10 - 20 pounds of books in school. Many Jr. High and High schools are dropping lockers, forcing the kids to carry their texts all day and it is having significant negative effects on their back health.

I think my child's health is worth more than $500.

Can it be used as a computer display? As an LCD? To connect it to the VGA port?

Well, the WSJ Kindle subscription is 20% more than dead-tree form. ($120 vs 99 per year) While I appreciate that it may be more valuable to some people in that form, the pricing of the content reinforces the idea that this is a toy and not a device that would be viable on its own.

What you said, generally.


Almost what you said.

There are other scenarios. The overriding theme on which at least some of your thinking seems based, namely, that device convergence is inevitable, is being validated every day.

However, it's also possible that the Kindle (and successor devices like it) will also move higher up in the food chain themselves. Take the original iPod as a case study, picture that fat little 1GB b/w music playing only device for what was it, $500?, and hold it up against a 32 GB iPod Touch mobile computing device about to get iPhone OS 3.0 and selling for hundreds less.

The Kindle's already more than a book reader with limited net and communication capabilities. It can incorporate low power draw/hi res color display technologies coming to market as well as any PC maker. Imagine where that can go in another 5 or 6 generations.

Just wondering: who exactly does engineer and manufacture the Kindle? Is any of it done in house at this retailing company? And device convergence is far from any conceivable point at which a single 5 oz fully pocketable device can display a 15" or larger screen, full size actual keyboards (or even full, accurate, intuitive voice control) - that's Wiley Coyote Acme Corp. special stuff you can't mail-order in the analog world.....

So there will not only be form factors all along the spectrum from the smaller-than-the-latest-shuffle to full scale work stations with multiple monitors and all manner of peripherals wired into 'em, the number of permutations on which functions are converged in which devices will proliferate and multiply as binary possibilities advance.

I'm not putting money on the Kindle per se, or e-ink or even Amazon, but I do believe in that future.


Granted

But whatever, mobile computing in general is at the most exciting, game-changing point we've seen in decades. There will be a lot of roadkill along the way as there was in the beginning of the PC era.

The Kindle may be among the fallen (though a lot of people who've bet against Jeff Bezos lightly are already among those) -- still, something like it, with its own set of converged functions (current and new) will be among the significant winners over the next 3-10 years, that is, a device class (with book/magazine/news/media + other capabilities in various sizes) which will sell and remain relevant for up to a decade or longer.

Books are not music. I already pointed this out. You're looking to the wrong example. Look to DVDs and Blu-Ray. No copying allowed. I'm not talking about programs that allow you to make illegal copies either. That's for personal use, and you're just allowed to make one copy, if you are at all, which is something the courts are still out on, both here and abroad.

There's no reason why they would have to use OCR on a book that's less than about 15 years old. Those are published from digital files. That was part of my business. If they are, then something's not right.

I'm serious. There are people who are dedicated to doing this. just like there are people devoted to "cracking" software. It's piracy by whatever name it's called, but it's done.

They even have different versions of books, depending on how much correction has been done, and how advanced the formatting is.

Except that the 3G is devoted to your buying from Amazon. If Apple did that with the 3G on the iPhone, people would have screamed.

This isn't a real 3G service. It's just a buying service. Let's get this right. You're paying for it when you buy books, and other content from them. It's part of the price of that content. It ain't free!


Nonsense! The iPhone has about the same rez as the Kindle. It's 160 ppi. Don't tell us that you can see the difference between 160 and 167 ppi.

Nobody pinches or squeezes when reading books on the iPhone. You scroll or turn a page, and it happens much faster than the sluggish Kindle.

I don't think you have an iPhone at all from your description of it.


The battery life is the only teur thing you've said here.

But I can read a book for several hours without an problem. You really haven't used the iPhone for this. I've read for as long as 4 hours a day on the phone, and it was still working fine.

One need for a book reader is that it accompany you when you go somewhere where you will have time on your hands. My friend began taking his Kindle with him, but over time took it less and less, until he mostly stopped taking it at all.

Just too inconvenient. If it's a computer, and you may need it for that, you take it, but unless you're the type of person to carry a pack around with you all the time, as most people aren't, there's no easy to bring this. You aren't going to carry it all the time. There's not going to be a belt holster for something this size.

The other problem is price. This is simply too expensive for most people. It's like people here saying that a Mac is too expensive. $400 or $500 for a book reader is outrageous. When you couple that to the $10 price for books, its too much. I can buy, and did today buy several books from Barnes & Nobel where each book costs significantly less. I bought 4 pocket novels. The most expensive was $8.09, and the least $6.29. That's with my member discount.

This is why I think it will ultimately fail. While there will be a few people, as we see here, who will have one, most people won't find a need, or use for it.

It's got to do something else that people need, and need enough so that they will bring it with them everywhere they go (well, almost everywhere).

Right now, that's a smartphone. A book reader is just one more program.

Or a computer of some sort if a bigger screen is wanted.

Except that the connectivity is just for buying something. You're getting free access to what is basically a shopping network.

That excites you?

What if Apple said that you were getting free 3G service, but it would only go to their iTunes service, and a couple of other sites with something to buy?

Would you have been just as happy about that?

I doubt it.

And the price of the service is being added to the price of the books. Don't doubt that. It's one reason why they cost so much more than paperbacks.

Millions of kids aren't having health problems because they carry some books to school every day. It's just something they do. I did it, you did it, my daughter did it, and they will be doing it for some time to come.

Heh! For some kids, it's the only exercise they get.

I hink I've said that Amazon might be thinking about moving the Kindle up when the possibility is here.

To me, it doesn't matter who does it. Amazon can do it. I'm not so sure people will want a Linux based model as they seem to be rejecting Linux based netbooks.

But it will be done by someone, perhaps Apple. Maybe the two companies will have a convergence device together. That's legal.


If it's a convergence device, it doesn't have to be 5 ounces. People will accept more. As long as it's under a pound, it will be ok. The less the better of course.


I've not bet against Bezos. I had Amazon stock when they were saying that Amazon couldn't make a profit.

I just see this device as an intermediary between what we've had, and what we will have. I don't know why some people are so upset about that.

wow
i am 50 now .seems like all my sci-fi dreams as a kid are here . a nice 7-9 in mac tablet .
you can ask what does it not do ?? well iguess we'll now be making phone calls too from our future tablets .

i simple love reading . and the kindle is a fine product . amazon will kill it soon . they only want to have a ibooks store like apple .i guess google may win this one .

peace

9

spam.. why my gosh how could that be ??? 9 or 10 comments for each story is fine .lol

OK TOPIC CLOSED

To summarize all the posts here read below .

last words
The kindle is 5 yrs. too late to the market.
It WAS a great idea .
But its over priced and many multi-function machines can already do a better job at no extra cost except for adding a single app.

Why bother ???

some college kids and types like that. this as a great temporary solution

i think apple should learn from amazon here. no contract (price included) 3g service. it's probably a stretch if this mysterious apple device is internet based. My thought. If apple releases something like this. create a way to link it to the iphone to piggy back off the service. Not contract then.

I think it's brilliant what amazon has done though. the DX will keep the student focused on the task. no internet with facebook or chat in the DX to distract the learning process. one of the biggest problems universities and the public school system would have if apple were to compete with this. Which, is the only way they can compete with this is by sellling to the big institutions like schools and the health care industry.

Students should be very leery of supporting electronic text publishers. First, the price between the actual book and electronic copy is often insignificant. Second, you can't sell the book to try and recoup some of the over inflated price you paid. Third, if electronic text books take off, publishers likely will eventually raise the prices on the electronic books to match the paper books and do away with paper books all together.

my only concern about this would be that to do what kindle is doing in color would be difficult. I have an iPhone and i can't stare at the screen for more than 20 minutes before my eyes start to get all strained. it would be tough to market this as a device for schools and universities on a LCD back-lit screen. It would have to be some kind of colorized version of the "e-Ink" display with no back light.

i think that's where big brother will have to step in. there has to be regulation because as we've seen with the banking industry, the market economy produces a lot of greed. Sure, make the ebooks the same price as the print text for 3-5 years until ebooks become mainstream. then lower the cost to the average used book.

They should learn from itunes on pricing. People are more willing to by books one at a time if the price is right. Think about it, 99 cents when you add it up doesn't sound bad for one song, but when you buy a whole album over a period of time, then 99 cents doesn't look so good. That's why the album price is cheaper. but if you don't initially want the album and just get a few songs, realizing later you want the whole album, then you're kind of stuck. Point is...people are more willing to buy more books if the per/unit cost is the right price.