Although the article doesn't contain much more information about the
Amazon Kindle that we hadn't seen before, Newsweek's cover story on the device is the first
official confirmation that the device exists. Featuring an interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the article lays down the feature set -- $399, 6-inch E-ink screen, no backlight, EV-DO "Whispernet" on Sprint for over the air book purchases -- and the company's vision for digital books replacing "the last bastion of analog." Books will go for $9.99, and users can even subscribe to newspapers and "select blogs" for monthly fees. Also news is that the Kindle gets 30 hours of battery life, and can fully recharge in only two. One thing's for sure, this is looking way more compelling a package than
previous attempts at the eBook idea.
[Thanks,
Alex]
posted Nov 18th 2007 4:52PM
What's this about listing battery life in hours? The beauty of e-ink is supposed to be that it's measured regardless of time and only uses power during refreshes (in this case, page turns)
It is probably that integrated ev-do card that checks for updates to blogs,
checks your email, etc that kills the battery. Still, 30 hours is
pretty good.
yeah 30 hours is enough to read...one reasonably large book at a time. When it runs out, you then got home and charge it.
Alternatively, you could buy a paper book, read it, take it home when it's finished and buy another, without paying the extra $400.
Unlike music, which is listened to repeatedly by people several times, books are read once or twice, left for ages, and read again when bored.
Books also take lot longer to finish than, say ,an album for example, and thus you do not need to be carry more than one at any given time.
I really therefore cannot see the advantage of this, especially since it really isn't more portable than a book, is more fragile, and costs $400, before buying any books for it!!
someone help me understand the point please..
Well if they're smart about it they'd have two power units, one for the display and one for the EVDO stuff, so when the evdo drains the battery you can at least still read your existing books for days/weeks on end. If they allow the evdo drain the full battery rendering the device useless in 30 hours, it's a POS.
Jamma hit the nail on the head. I can't possibly see how this can work. It's hard to justify spending that kind of money for something like that.
Jamma, I agree with you on all points. This is probably just an attempt to get into the market first. Some day reading books like this will be more common than paper, no doubt in my mind about that. Possibly in 10 years when this thing costs 20 bucks I'll get one.
@Jamma
If it were possible to get college textbooks on this thing that could be a rather interesting neiche this would be appropriate for, even at that price tag -
this semester alone i spent $700 on text books - not to mention they are heavy as hell to carry around campus so if i could have spent $400 on that and just bought each text for $30or w/e they'd charge (because lets face it, even an e-textbook is going to be sadly over priced) over the course of a single semester let alone a 3 year program the savings could rack up really quickly
College textbooks is an interesting idea, but it seems like it'd be hard to replace the physical aspect of thumbing through pages to review or look for a particular thing. Then again, while typing this, it occured to me that a built-in search function could be even better than just thumbing through. Interesting idea.
Jamma, I believe the biggest advantage to this kind of product is the distribution system. You can purchase a book on the whim online and after uploading the content to your reader, immediately start reading on your reading couch. There are also many free books you can obtain online (legally) and read them on this reader. I have been reading downloaded books on my laptop but this sure beats the cumbersome experience of that.
I have the Sony PRS505, which, btw, looks a whole lot better than this monstrosity. Guttenberg press makes it well worth the price, as I can curl up in bed and read it just like a book. It looks just like what words look like on an inexpensive paperback novel(the background isn't that white, kinda dingy). Ebooks failed on notebooks and desktops because it hurts the eyes and who wants to curl up with a laptop or sit at a desk to read a book? Not so with these.
Hundreds and thousands of free books. Not to mention, if your so inclined, you can get more modern releases off of various sites.
30 hours is ridiculous for an epaper device, it should be at the very least be 300 hours.
Yea, so, I just heard on NPR that there's an easy switch on the back for EV-DO, so that should help some, they said you should get "weeks" without it on, which is still time (doh!) but better than 30 hours ;)
10 dollars...i wonder what the markup is on those sales....corporations will never learn. publishers, labels...
Buck Rogers called; he wants his book back.
Oh dear god, is it really going to look like this?
The best attempt so far? You're joking, right? It's effin' huge, ugly, and expensive! Let's do the math here.... I can purchase most paperback novels for anywhere between 5.99-8.99 these days, but Amazon wants 9.99 for the thing in an electronic format. That's like charging more then full price for a normal book, then saying you have to have this special 400 dollar dust jacket first to even read the damn thing. Yeah that makes all kinds of business sense. Oh... I can read the newspaper on it too? Guess what, I can already do that for free from my desktop, laptop, or cell phone if I'm out an about.
Cut the price in half, lose the ridiculous looking keypad and replace it with a decent touch interface like most other handheld products are using these days, and we'll talk. Until then, a lot of us are going to have a nice laugh at your expense Mr. Bezos.
Cash: Where are you shopping? Please let me know. Cost me $90 the other day for 4 books. None of them over 200 pages, all paperback. $9.99 would be amazing.
Cash,
The $9.99 is for new releases and best sellers. The article mentions that he purchased a particular book that was $1.99
urza: You were ripped off.
Cash: I can get them for free on BitTorrent.
Of course, most of the authors whose books I read are dead.
>> Of course, most of the authors whose books I read are dead.
You do know that current copyright law gives the author/assignee of the author's rights control over the copyright to life of the author + 70 years, right? While not an issue for Shakespearean works, etc. which are all in the public domain, it is a very real issue for just torrent-ing Hemingway and other modern classics.
-p-
Those copyright laws differ per region/country.
This is NOT going to catch on. Everyone who reads loves having them in paperback(or hardcover) form. And books are definitely not dead.
O.o "Everyone who reads loves having them in paperback(or hardcover) form." I read and I would much rather have something like this (although I'm not digging the kindle). Unless you actually go and ask everyone what their opinion is, you probably shouldn't make such statements.
Obviously. "everyone" was an exaggeration of "most". The thing is that we've all seen electronic book mediums appear in a variety of forms but none of them have really taken off. And the kindle, especially with its price and design, don't seem to be any closer to the idea. I could be wrong though. There are no absolutes after all.
I love to read books and I've been reading from my PDAs for years now (I have nokia N800 now). When this device gets to the right price point (less than $200 for me) I will definitely buy it. I feel awkward when I read a paper book now - just imagine that to get a translation or a definition of a word I need to put it aside and get to my computer - instead of simply clicking on a word :)
Do you have to pay for EVDO usage? If so how much?
Also $19 for a digital book is too much
Unless I'm missing something, it's $9.99.
somebody tell me about THESE features:
drm?
backups?
printing?
usb connection?
replace the book, my ass. replace the pulp fiction paperback, possibly, but books are far too important in too many fields, not least of all education and academia, for this greedy, half-baked scheme.
"replace the book, my ass. replace the pulp fiction paperback, possibly, but books are far too important in too many fields, not least of all education and academia, for this greedy, half-baked scheme."
Books in education are the real scam! If I could get one $399 body freshman year and fill it for only $100 a semester and then only have to carry one thing to class I would go for it in a heart beat. Kids if you want to be a US History/Poly Sci major you'd better love books
This thing would be way cooler if it has a multi-touch interface.
A sensitive bar at the bottom on the screen (like that mouse the other day) will allow you to use gestures to turn pages (or bunch of pages), double tap it to put a book mark (naturally eh???), or do a dismissive wave on it to close the book or rather shutdown the book!!
Nice!
This is the only real concieveably good usage from this. Plus it cuts down on paper consumption. Not that I care, but it's a plus regardless.
i'm a grad student. kids, this would suck for academic books. imagine if you had to pay $80 for a lousy encoded file, perhaps even one with a time limit, and you couldn't even write on it or copy pages for a friend. and what if you needed to reference multiple titles in order to write a paper? are you going to buy 4 $400 machines, and line them up? the publishing industry is NOT the friend of students. lots of library ILL departments are already being forced to send encrypted PDF files of articles in place of photocopies. who do you think marks up textbooks so high to begin with?
Quoted by "m": perhaps even one with a time limit, and you couldn't even write on it or copy pages for a friend. and what if you needed to reference multiple titles in order to write a paper? are you going to buy 4 $400 machines, and line them up?"
If this would have school books, why would they put a time limit on it? If they did, they certainly wouldn't do it while you were attending class. That would be similar to your school taking away your phyical book in the middle of the semester. As for not writing on it, you can most likely just make notes on it. If you needed to copy pages for a friend... why would you do that in the first place? If you both are using physical books, he already has a copy. Unless he is some nerd that loves to read school books for classes he doesn't attend. Either way, copying copyright material is a no-no. If you want to share notes, just email it to him from the device or transfer it with an SD card. If you need to reference multiple titles in order to write a paper are you going to buy 4 school books and line them up? Probably not, but on this you can bookmark pages, run keyword searches, and who knows what else.
I'm sure you can bung it on a photocopier and make a copy that way, it's reflective technology after all.
But I agree on the DRM, and what if it gets busted or stolen? then you lose ALL your textbooks? ouch.
As for notes, why do you think it has a keyboard? I'm sure you can make notes/placemarks.
And the reason you have 4 books open is because the information is in 4 books, now if you could push a button and switch between the 4 pages of info that might work too in many cases.
why can't they make these things cheaper? I could get laptop with that price tag.
Because the technology is still quite new, and like with all other technology the development costs has to be paid somehow.
Four hundred bucks, no backlight...
Still feels lacking to me. They need to make this thing significantly more appealing than simply carrying around a slim-design notebook.
The only real interesting point is the notion that this tech could finally reduce the long-gouged price of newly published books. Other than that, I'll wait for paperback, thanks.
It looks very unsightly.
White? Why white? After a few long books that thing will become yellow and gross.
Use black, and make it more sleek and ergonomic to hold.
And a backlight should be built into it (for night time reading). Just cause, it can be. A lot of people like to read in bed at night, and not having to have a lamp on to read a book is a big plus.
A backlight would be great, but obviously you haven't done any checking into e-ink or it's manufacturing process. Backlighting is impossible due to the way the molecules are sanwiched into the polymer layers. A front light is, however possible, and according to the previously leaked manual for the Kindle, it is equiped with one that folds out from the back (assumedly part of the thickness when compared to the Sony PRS-500 and 505).
Learn to understandthings fully before sticking your neck out to criticize a device.
I have owned most ebook reading devices since the RCA 1100, including palm pilots, the RCA 1200, the cybook, the PRS-500, and my current PRS-505.
I haven't held a physical book in my hands for several years, and couldn't be happier.
I'll buy this one next week, and spend the holidays evaluating wheather it beats my 505.
As a consumer, I don't need to research the manufacturing process of a device before critizing. It doesn't feature a backlight, and I don't really care about how the technology works, I am just a mere reader of a gadget blog. The article says it doesn't have a backlight, and makes no mention of a front light, and I don't have time to go searching for some leaked operations manual to see if there is a front light or not.
Besides, I am more concerned with how this thing looks. White is a bad color for consumer electronics, especially those you hold with your hands.
The lack of a backlight isn't a big deal to me, I will never buy this thing anyways, but thanks for enlightening me on e-ink technology, and its inability to have a backlight.
Whilst I can see this replacing something like daily newspaper or possibly magazines I can't see it ever replacing books for things like novels. There's just something more real about holding paper in your hand. Anyone who has ever tried to read an eBook on their computer knows it's just not the same.
You are right - reading an ebook on the computer sucks. But it's not because of the feel of paper - it's because of the resolution of print. I know this because I can't read documents and books well on my computer screen (96 dpi), but I can read books on my Archos 605 (220 dpi) as well as on paper.
I read my novels and Analog Magazine using Mobipocket on my Verizon Pantech PN-820 Smartphone, with its little two-inch display. I prefer it to paper. I don't try to cram the display full of text in a tiny font; I use a nice big font. Not very many words per page, but I don't care - it's trivial to hit the Down button.
I have the phone in my pocket anyway, so my books are always there when I have a few minutes to read. Wouldn't work for a mathematical text like John Derbyshire's _Prime Obsession_, but for the pure text in the SF I read, it works great.
about time
I had to register with engadget to say I think this is the stupidest idea I have ever heard all year next to the folio.
1. Price is way to high.
2. Why can't people use their laptops to do the same stuff.
3. Why can't people use their smartphones to do the same thing.
4. The target audience would probably already have a smartphone, laptop, and ipod.
5. Why not just make the service work with the devices that people already have.
Who is planning on purchasing this device? We should really get a poll going for this.
Right, because "registering" with Engadget is difficult and time-consuming.
I had to buy a computer, subscribe to an ISP, open up a web browser, type in the address to Endgadget, and hit enter just so I could submit this comment.
Nik you haven't seen an eink display in the flesh have you?
You really need to, so as to appreciate just how much like paper this technology is. Because it's so paperlike it has none of the eyestrain associated with smartphones and laptops and the battery life can be amazing.
I agree with you that the price is way too high, but the same was true of MP3 players when they first came out. The same is true of next-gen consoles, Blu-ray players and everything else. It takes a few products and a few companies to play with a concept and improve it, before you get to a really good design at a really good price.
With this technology you have the added disadvantage that it's hard for people to understand just how easy on the eye the display technology is. Plus a lot of people rate a physical book very highly on their comfort meter.
To really break through, these things need to feel more like a book, look more like a book, and be at a $100-$150 price point. With a couple of free books thrown in, and stores where people can go try them out and see just how different the screen is from a laptop or PDA. I think once they hit that point where a good few people have them, the problem with not understanding the screen tech will go away.
Sorry that was longer than I intended.
Ok now I get it Fruit and Chay, I should look at what the product will eventually be and not what it actual is. Maybe they should just ship version 2 of the product and skip this one. The iPhone was overpriced also but people still wanted it. This product doesn't make me want to purchase at all.
I happen to buy books from Amazon.com all the time, but I don't think i would buy this device because I own a laptop. I would just rather download the books to my laptop.
You are correct Chay I have never seen a eink display so I won't talk bad about that part of the product anymore.
And no I don't think it was hard to register with engadget I just never had the urge to comment until now.
@ Chay:
"To really break through, these things need to feel more like a book, look more like a book, and be at a $100-$150 price point"
If it feels and looks just like a book, and I have to pay the price of the books I want on top of the $100-$150, why not get just get books?
and however good these displays are, they won't come anywhere near as cheap as $150 for a long time, and will NEVER surpass actual paper
Sorry Nik, it just sounded like it was some great ordeal you went through. Now that you've clarified, I apologize for criticizing you.
"If it feels and looks just like a book, and I have to pay the price of the books I want on top of the $100-$150, why not get just get books?"
Um, because, if this thing was in the $100 range, then if you're gonna put more than around 10 books on it, it's cheaper than buying the actual books. Plus you save trees.
Droppin loads all over the Amazon Kindle? rofl.
I was very skeptical of the whole eBook thing, until I bought myself the PRS-505. It has been a fantastic device and I am reading more because of it (maybe I feel the need to read more becuase it cost me so much, but that's another story.) Now will I be returning my Sony for this? Probably not, this is ugly and has less battery life because of all the other features that they have added. I will be excited to see if Sony will see subscriptions as a nice feature and allow them to be purchased for the Reader (sync up when plugged in like normal.)
Your logic is FLAWED james. HE probably IS the target consumer for an ebook device the problem is most manufacturers REFUSE to make a CONSUMER ebook device. They are making consumer lockin drm laced nearly useless locked down restricted devices.
So far the ONLY "major" manufacturer to have broken through this is SONY. While there device is also DRM laced etc.. etc.. it will also allow TOTALLY USER FRIENDLY CONTENT IE regular old txt pdf and rtf files AND ONLY TOP OF THIS without proprietary interafces and drivers. I just shove an SD or MS stick memory card into any card reader. DUMP my files on the device and AWAY I GO. No installation NO software NO DRM NO RESTRICTIONS.
THAT is a consumer friendly ebook reader THAT is the device for the consumer market to the person your replying to AND IT SHOULD be the device you should be demanding from manufacturers.
ASKING me to buy a subscription is one thing TRYING to COMPEL me to buy by locking down MY PROPERTY (the hardware I purchase) is a whole nother story and I DO NOT LIKE IT.
Neither should you!
Capitalizing entire words in a disjointed fashion in comment is like a big flashing sign that says "DON'T READ ME! DON'T READ ME!".
You are not the target for ebooks obviously.
And I don't see this being better then a Sony (more on that in a sec)
1. I go on business trips to deepest darkest africa and remote places across the globe, my current Sony E-Reader lasts up to a month of heavy reading each day. I can take ten or so books at a time in less space then one real book.
2. You might not read a book a day but I have been on a single airplane trip that took three days from first take off to final landing. I think I read six books during that period. Other people I know read a book a day at minimum.
3. Some books are quick read (If you use Sony Connect get 5 People Who Died During Sex. Great quick read) and can entertain over and over again.
4. Though the sony is FAR from perfect it has been abused and abused again and has outlived my ipod, two laptops and my Nintendo DS on the same trips. It's strong.
This thing though? Wireless def. doesn't help me while traveling outside the states. What's with all the buttons? How big is this screen compared to the Sony? It's alot of casing taking up space.
I will check one out in person, but I really don't think this is the whole "WOW" thing that will finally get ebooks going.
is it better then the SONY e-ink reader? SOMEONE tell me which is better, amazons or sonys? amazons cost more though...
Without hesitation the sony unit is better. Better Design Better form factor, better price, better battery life, OPEN file format support, NO software needed at all to upload your own TXT PDF OR RTF content. Takes SD or MS Sticks. Battery goes for weeks or even months on a charge. Ultra thin and light weight. it "feels" booklike in your hand. A little larger than your average paperback novel and around the same weight as a medium/thick one. About as thin as one of those thin hard kids book. (thinner than your pinky most likely)
As far as I know the kindle has NONE of these pluses.
The ONLY advantage they both share in common is the nice eink display. about 90% like paper. The smallest amount of light is enough to read it by just like a real book and like a real book no amount of sunlight will wash it out (these reasons are WHY they can not backlight it sadly though they are working on side lighting with LED's) Very minor inconvenience :-) any normal book light should work just fine.
If you read a LOT of books and have a habit of finding and downloading lots of ebooks online (torrents usenet project gutenberg etc..) you will NEVER regret buying a sony reader. I have not purchased a sony product since the minidisc came out. Its the only 2 things sony did right (well mostly right) the minidisc and this reader :-)
I am book addict. I LOVE real books on my book shelves. I LOVE books. but I also love the convenience of ebooks. Many times I will buy a book from the book store (such as clark and baxters coop Time Odyssey) I bought both of them (Time's Eye and Sun Storm) Never cracked the spins. I found the digital versions on a torrent site and dumped it to my sony reader. I get the best of both. A digital file with NO RESTRICTIONS and that wonderful pack of paper sitting on my shelf :-)
I love owning books. I love reading ebooks. Never have to worry about damaging them. You see I can put a case around my sony to protect it (and its a tough little critter) If I want to carry round 0 books I need a BAG to carry them in to protect them. My reader is the same size whether I have 1 or 1000 books with me.
Sometimes I get bored with a book for a short time. I bookmark and start another book. Switch back as often as the desire hits me. Its just so convenient. But its only convenient when its not infested with DRM and "conditions"
IF they released Ebooks at a FAIR price with NO DRM NO RESTRICTIONS NO TERMS NO CONDITIONS. Fair price to me is a FRACTIONS of what the paper back costs. They would sell more than they could deal with. They would get filthy rich. Books would become IMPULSE BUYS people would purchase ANY book that just vaguely caught there attention.
You see publishers make less and less money on me each year and I am a book addict. I am forced more and more to wait to shop the bargain bins or ebay for used copies because the books just keep getting more expensive. I men I just bought diamond age paper back and dammit it cost me $14 freaking dollars !! Most regular paperbacks are $7 now adays. They USED to be $3-$4
I do not magically make more money. Higher prices in this arena NEVER equals higher profits. It just means I spend the Same amount of money and therefore end up with LESS BOOKS.
Just because you increase the price does not mean I can magically spend more.
I would love to buy ebooks but they are going to have to learn. You either sell them to me ON MY TERMS or the highway. Its MY life MY Money.
Us consumers have become sheeple and have let the corporations forget there place. IE LOWER in the food chain than us.
We don't know yet which one is best. Hopefully it does support open text formats and hopefully the functionality of the EVDO isn't locked to only Amazon content.
I think the wireless Internet connection is a huge advantage if it is well implemented, if good content services go with it. Then it confortably replaces not only the book, but also the newspaper, magazine, blogs, emails, forums, websites (on computer screen).
It's success will depend on the library it has to offer. If major publishers are not on board, or if it has gaping holes in it's catalogue well then I am sad to say that it won't succeed.
I will buy one depending on the selection but goddamit, that thing is U-G-L-Y. Also the pricing is not aggressive enough, $399 is really pushing it.
I officially crown this product Foleo the 2nd. Another great idea with piss poor pricing and implementation. The got alot of things right, like evdo download, and newspaper subscriptions..and then screw the pooch on basics like backlight? and pricing? Come on $399? for that much I can just buy a Asus EEE PC...no evdo,but I understand it's possible to use some usb laptop connect cards.
I know a lot of people read books for leisure but what about academics?
Most textbooks require at least a letter sized page and the same applies to journal articles.
Color- I can do without, but innate pdf rendering capabilities with no conversion and letter-sized screen, I think, is essential if they are looking to reach out to more than just the fiction readers.
If there was an eBook device that does native PDF support, letter-sized screen and perhaps a stylus to annotate, I'd be willing to pay at least $1000.
And yes, I do realize I can do all this on a tablet PC (I own one) but it's just not the same with only a 5 hr battery life, heat, LCD screen woes and so on.
This will never be allowed in on any tests because of the e-mail and keyboard. Another over-engineered over-priced device that only suckers will buy.
Are you an idiot?
Why would you need books on tests?
And do you ONLY read for tests?
What about people doing research?
Do you think only students read textbooks and journal articles?
Sign me up to pay $1K for that ebook too!
People stop bringing up PDAs, smartphones or tablet PCs in discussions about eBooks.
LCDs and eink are apples and oranges.
Ability to read well under any lighting, almost-paper-like clarity, lack of concern for battery life, and lack of heat are all advantages that LCD technology is simply not able to offer.
Sounds great - so make smartphones with e-ink displays and we can all just use those.
I don't think most readers have any interest in buying a standalone device just to read books. It's easier to just buy a book; all you need to read it is your eyes.
I agree if you're reading novels.
Novels usually don't weigh a ton, and you're usually only reading one at a time.
And this is why I think they need to look beyond the fiction market and reach for the academia.
Students (grad students especially) have to carry many books at once and researchers usually have stacks of papers on their desks, mostly journal articles that they've printed out.
Wouldn't this be a marvelous substitution for all that paper?
I agree that it's a perfect solution for students, though I'd question if those students wouldn't be better off using a laptop for those files.
Most students already have laptops. And if we're talking about strictly pedagogical purposes, students waste more time with computers than do productive tasks on them.
This is not a device I could look at for anything but a brief amount of time. I really wonder if they designed it under poor lighting then turned on the light to find the monstrosity before them then decided lets add some EV-DO to add some distinctiveness to generate a sale.
Early buyers then bargain bin.
Sad that dumb is now the new smart.
What a shame.
This product will fail and people will say "e-books and readers can never be".
In reality, failure will be attributed to poorly-engineered device with a poorly-implemented distribution model.
I can envision e-book readers to be remarkably useful. Hardware, software, and distribution all need to be thought out. Sadly, this hasn't happened yet.
Can't wait for a company to make one of these things that is aesthetically pleasing.
I think the real lure of these things is that they have the ability to really be environmentally friendly. For some, this might not matter, but for others, this is a huge selling point. It is my hope that more and more people become considerate about the environment's limited resources to really look into this stuff. Those who prefer paper books can keep on reading them, but please don't knock some people's desires to conserve resources.
I like the eBook idea for things like newsletters, newspapers, blogs, magazines and the like, as those things (minus the blogs) are inherently wasteful uses of paper. I think the idea is especially great for newspapers. I'd love to be able to just subscribe to the front-page news, comics, and art/food sections of my local paper at a reduced price. However, I don't think you'd catch me using one of the things for books. I like to be able to feel my books, smell the paper, write notes in the margins. Besides, who doesn't love the smell of coffee and books at a good bookstore? Nothing compares. Bookstores are also a social place. I don't want to give that up.
I think the dumbest thing in this release is something that is continually a dumb move by "content owners". The idea that a subscription model will have any lasting appeal with the public.
On the business side of the equation, I can picture the Amazon bigwigs, the publisher bigwigs going "how can we maximize the revenue from this machine". And they go "okay, drm, of course. and people are comfortable paying $9.95 / $19.95 for a book so we'll go with that pricing..." Then they go "and we'll build in a very easy way for people to download, over a paid service, new books... revenue streams for us, revenue streams for our telco provider, it's all gravy folks!"
These companies never seem to look at the purchasing of any creative content from the consumer point of view. They miss that people don't like subscription services. They miss the fact that people believe they *own* a book after purchasing it - free to share, trade, resell it. They miss the fact that people have a real expectation that a digital copy of a book - one that doesn't have publishing, storage, transport, inventory costs associated with it, should never be priced anything close to a paper version of the book.
Until book publishers (if music publishers are in the stone age, book publishers are back in the early bacterial forms of life stage!) realise these things, eBook appliances will never fly.
Charging a "fee" to get podcasts, blogs fed to the device??!!? Next, please.
I guess if the blog publisher wants to charge a fee for the automatic download of new blog items, then why not if Amazon provides those blog publishers with a monetization platform. But hopefully users will be able to read any blog for the Internet that are free and open also by simply adding some RSS feeds to the blog reader on this device.
Just as we hope this device supports unprotected and open formats for the books, hopefully it also is open with regards to blog, email, forum and website reading over EVDO.
As an MIS major, I foresee my department requiring that all of us IT nerds go and buy one of these to subscribe to digital only versions of our already outdated text books (between going to the editor and hitting shelves, IT books are behind the curve by 18 months).
That's great, especially when you consider that the cost difference between the physical book and the digital representation is like 2 dollars plus shipping!
How wonderful it will be to not be able to make margin notes or highlight passages.
Seriously though, for 400 bones give me a touch sensitive KB on screen and get rid of that fugly QWERTY at the bottom, let me use my finger to touch-highlight the passages that are important to me with that same touch screen and please don't tether it to a telco.
Check out the iRex Iliad, that one is an e-ink ebook with a wacom touchscreen, letting you write digital notes with the stylus and all notes are saved digitally and handwriting recognition is applied if needed. Also great to select text and great for navigation, even though e-ink technology implies a slight 1 second delay when you click on things.
I've never been so excited for technology. This IS the future, what is dreamed up in hundreds of Sci-Fi stories.
The only way it could it for me would be
DRM
The lack of a properly implemented library function (Only acceptable form of DRM)
Bonus features. As mentioned above, note writing. For me, it'd be multiple book marks, a very fast way to turn the page back, back light, and an easy way to buy new books.
We will know tomorrow if Amazon has implemented wacom touch-screen or some other type of touch-screen with or without a stylus to easilly highlight text and take digital notes. In principal that could be possible since the iRex Iliad is able to do it.
1) Will I have to buy one of their devices in order to get the content? Or can I use an existing device (without any hacks)? Yeah, yeah, I know "eink is god, eink is father, eink is mother, how dare you read ebooks on an lcd" ... blah blah blah. I'll spend my money where I want to, and I'll carry how many devices I want to (which is, ideally, one). So... can I put read these from my Nokia N800/N810, or not?
2) hm. does it share that EVDO feed via bluetooth DUN or wifi? That'd make me carry it in addition to my N800 ;-)
That thing is giant and ugly. I'm much happier with my new n800 for ebook reading. Hell I actually didn't even mind reading on the much smaller screen on my Treo.
OK I am confused. You compare this to the sony reader with a NEGATIVE view on the Sony reader when the sony reader was and still is the only ereader that is actually useful and does not suck? your kidding right? ALL I WANT my reader to do is READ TEXT. Thats it. The reader does that magnificently. NO SOFTWARE. NO DRIVERS. NO PROPRIETARY CRAP I just POP my SD OR MS stick into the unit with txt pdf or rtf files on it and OFF I GO. What more could you possibly want? I charge my book once every few WEEKS and I read SEVERAL books per week sometimes.
You compares this close up limited restricted proprietary expensive reader to an affordable open unrestricted unlimited nearly reader and you consider this to be superior?
I AM NOT a sony fan but dammit they did it RIGHT this time. OPEN as it should be ITS MY PRIOPERTY not theres.
I would NEVER touch this abominations just because there is no way to put MY OWN unencrypted stuff on the device. IE its infected with DRM from head to toe.
You surprise me engadget. There is no comparison between these devices. The sony reader is a consumer friendly useful device while the kindle is going to be a DRM infested consumer useless unless you want to get it up the butt with there fees device.
I am dissappointed in you guys :-(
I'd say it's the distibution that makes this exciting, not the device. This is a tech blog, but sometimes the device is less important.
I totally agree. Engadget, stop being so anti-Sony. This post screams how much you guys hate Sony. Sony's Reader is not that bad, prolly even better, and certainly cheaper. Yet, you still think this unreleased and ugly first generation (?) is more compelling... Has Toshiba or Microsoft paid you or something?
Heres what they gotta do before I'm going to buy one of these half-baked ideas:
1) $50 price point
2) Color: Magazines and the like don't print in black and white, they have graphics and the like
3) Just book reading - I don't want email, I don't want over the air purchases, etc.: I've got an iPhone/laptop for that, and for a book I can wait until I get to a laptop at least - $10 a book is not a good enough price for an impulse buy when a store is being shoved in my face every time I turn the device on.
4) No DRM.
5) PDF/MS Word support. I got a couple eBooks in PDF and people do distribute stuff in these platforms. Part of what would make the platform better is being able to do all this stuff that you can't do with a stack of novels, other than the whole weight/trees saved etc. thingy.
Other than that, I concur with jamma above, who wrote:
"Alternatively, you could buy a paper book, read it, take it home when it's finished and buy another, without paying the extra $400.
Unlike music, which is listened to repeatedly by people several times, books are read once or twice, left for ages, and read again when bored.
Books also take lot longer to finish than, say ,an album for example, and thus you do not need to be carry more than one at any given time.
I really therefore cannot see the advantage of this, especially since it really isn't more portable than a book, is more fragile, and costs $400, before buying any books for it!!"
Chris Taylor, I think my comment got posted wrong. I was responding to Jamma who couldn't see why anyone would want one over a book since apparently we only read one book once in a blue moon according to him then never touch it again.
The Sony Ebook doesn't require submission and outside of a crappy proprietary format (to best function with font zooming etc) it will read drop and drag rtf pdf and txt.
What kills me is that NO bookstore outside of Sony Connect supports the drm'd format my thing reads. So if Sony Connect doesn't sell it I am out of luck. And there are tons of people I want to read but aren't on that book store. If this new Kindle thing reads the books I want I might have to buy it for that reason.
Sort'a like why I have a PS3 and a Xbox 360 or why I have an iPod for Itunes Store. People who make the exclusive content AND the hardware at the sametime have you at their mercy.
They were totally waiting until after the Half Blood Prince came out before doing this, just like how they wit ages before publishing a paperback.
This is why we don't read books - they're crap and don't fit in. I have the collected works of shakespeare and crist it's heavy and why can't I just search through it to find some monologue? Bah.
Oh and woo for this. Can't wait until competitors come in though.
This thing looks it will change everything. Check out the specs at http://kindlespecs.com
Don't click -- he's just getting ad hits with no content.
Also, who OK'd this cover image?
You would have to be a real asshole to make something that ugly.
Sorry Jeff, but I think you're betting on the wrong horse. Or at the very least, a horse that is still in the fetus stage and won't be winning races for a while. Is there a market for these devices? Sure, there are a core group of people that can and will pay for this thing. But this thing is not the next iPod. The iPod was revolutionary because it did something that couldn't really be done before: carry a ton of music in the palm of your hand. It reminds me of a chance encounter sleeping at a train station in Switzerland a few years back. A fellow traveler was trekking across Europe with a Discman, 40 or so CDs, and some semi-portable speakers. I thought it would have been nice to have some music with me, but it wasn't worth the weight. A couple years later the iPod came out and it would have changed my decision a bit (and helped out my fellow traveler a ton). I happened to be reading "The Fountainhead" that same trip and once I finished, I was able to pop into a small bookstore and purchase another book, no problem. Total cost, probably about $15. The kindle just can't compete in this arena for most people. Very few people need to carry around more than a few books at a time, and if you happen to be traveling and don't want to carry one, just give it away. But the fact that I can buy 40 paperbacks for the same price as this thing means we're still a ways off. Plus I can borrow books for free at the library. At least the iPod allowed users to rip their already purchased music from CDs (as well as the birth of filesharing) which boosted its sales. No real alternative for ripping your books is out there. Now if libraries began lending eBooks, I could see a device like this being a better buy, but $400 plus $10 a book just won't do it for most people. But for the very few that may need something like this, enjoy.
sweet. 88,000 new books ready to be hacked and uploaded!
Sorry but these things are DOA. Too bulky, too expensive, too large and too inconvenient. Can I go to the library and check out an electronic title, didn't think so. Just my opinion.
Actually, New York libraries have had ebooks for a couple of years already:
http://ebooks.nypl.org/
... so it is possible and has been done.
I dunno, this kind of reminds me of the inventor of the Segway saying it was the "future of transportation", or something along those lines.
I'd take a paperback over a 400$ electronic handheld anyday.
Foleo 2.