Refurb Kindles now available for $329; please, try to contain yourselves
By Jacob Schulman 
posted Nov 30th 2008 9:42AM
posted Nov 30th 2008 9:42AM
[Via KindleBoards]
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I just came.
Ew.
Stop stealing lines from Dane Cook.
Welcome to the site... :)
Just so you know, we don't take kindly to AppleFanboys here...or any Fanboys for that matter.
Thats like, $ 30?
You would think that they would not try and dupe people who actually read...
I wouldnt spend a dime on this hideous thing even if it is new.
I bet if Apple made an eReader with twice the screen space of the iPhone, running the ipod touch OS, it would sell.
You slide your finger from the right to the left to turn pages.
the iBook.
I would spend more on a used old one then on one of those new ones
I love how people say these things are ugly, there's nothing wrong with it. It serves the function it's meant to serve. If you want to knock the design, knock the button placements, the on-off button being on the back, not being able to drag pdf's on, etc but to say it's not pretty enough for you to read a book on is silly.
It would need to be an E-Ink screen, so the iPod Touch OS would look crap, and there wouldn't be the smoothness.
You CANNOT read seriously for a decent length of time from a regular screen.
@Flashpoint
I think what you're talking about sort of exists already. There's an e-book app called "Stanza" on the App Store.
^^ The design is important for a device that you would likely be using in public. Like it or not, people judge you on everything. If you're holding some device that looks like a 1980s kids toy people are going to think you have no idea how stupid it looks and probably assume you think it looks good -- therefore making you look bad. It's just how the world is. Some people don't care and good for them. (although some people wear dirty clothes, don't brush their teeth, and stink like a trash can too. It's all about how you want to present yourself to the public)
@flashpoint:
They already made an iBook, I'm using one now :p
@Ted
I would suggest that anyone that requires their ebook reader represent them in their entirety get some self esteem. The fact that someone thinks their Kindle looks fine does not mean they don't care about how they present themselves, I find it hilarious you would even suggest otherwise.
@Ted - have you seen one in person? I think you overrate how "snazzy" this needs to be - an eBook reader is for reading books, not for watching media (like an iPod Touch/iPhone). I don't use a Kindle because it needs to upgrade my "style", I like it for its utility - I can travel with several books (and still buy more wirelessly, or add material to an SD card) at a time, and the screen lasts a LONG time. Sure, it's not a perfect device, but I think you judge too quickly by saying "that's the way the world is". In fact, this matters more in some markets than in others.
Kindles would be nice if it supported drag and drop PDFs, since then I can store all my school text books on it.. oh well...
You, sir, have a point there.
Instead of carrying a bunch of textbooks (the ones at my school are 2-3 lbs each), students could have ALL of their textbooks and other research/reference materials on their Kindle. Schools whine about not having enough space/money for books, but buying digital copies of stuff would probably save them a pretty penny.
The only downside I can see is students putting contraband materials on their Kindles...girlie mags, anyone?
I got mine brand new a few weeks ago for $309 (thanks to Oprah).
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/25/oprah-calls-kindle-her-new-favorite-thing-gives-everyone-50/
Yea this is still far too expensive. If they can release a $250 version of the new one with wifi instead of cellular data connection, I'd be on it immediately. Like most people, I have to foresight to download a book or two before leaving my house.
The cell service is FREE! You don't pay for it, amazon pays for it. Amazon pays for it with some of the cost of each book/newspaper/whatever.
So, if Amazon is taking part of the price you pay and gives it to the cell provider, who is paying for it again?
I wouldn't mind rocking an SD-card only version if they could drop it to around $200. Spending a few minutes putting a book onto a memory card is nothing compared to the hours spent reading it.
Maybe a little off topic- but is the keyboard really necessary? A little D-pad would shrink it down a lot and everyone knows that D-pads equal sex appeal.
Remove the "3" in the price tag and I might consider it.
For real. You may be able to get used/refurbished laptop with decent specs for that price.
Yawnsville, daddy-o.
Yawnsville.
Kindle's are back up in the $600-$1,000 range on ebay.
i saw a ppc mac mini on ebay for £900 ...
Ebay doesnt make sense
Someone hand the Kindle a shovel please.
You can complain all you want about the price, but Amazon has long sold out of it's stock, so I don't think the laws of supply and demand are on the side of tightwads.
Or course they sold out, they didn't make that many of them to start with. So when they couldn't fill the orders because of "demand" they could put that notice on amazons front page and make it seem like they were cranking them out as fast as they could but just couldn't keep up. When in actuality they just weren't making that many of them so amazon could artificially inflate how in demand these things were.
Nice
The link says used Kindles are $360...
Whoops. Looks like the $329 refurbished models are all sold out. My bad.
There will always be a market for published books. Some people will prefer books over a Kindle.
That said, the publishing industry needs to learn what the music and movie industries are begrudgingly learning. The digital age is here and there isn't much you can do about it. You can either try to get out and front and lead or sit back and let it run you over.
As someone who works in Publishing i am concerned. Yes, by not physically printing the book we are saving money, plus the reader can carry as many books as he wants with Kindle.
BUT printing books is not really all that expensive for a publisher and what concerns me the most is that Amazon will have this power to force publishers to sell book to them at a much cheaper price or else the publisher will not be available at all on Kindle.
Right now Publishers sell book at about half the price you see on the book to retailers (Barnes&Noble, Amazon) but with Kindle now there's no need to print actual book, everything is digital, so Amazon will ask for even lower price.
I have no problems with e-books but i really want to see some heavy competition to Kindle, there's that Sony E-book which i like more than Kindle, but that is not a real competitor.
I also fear that Kindle will start offering College Books, that will be a real killer, having college books on Kindle will give us a generation of people who for 4 years (while in college) do nothing but read from a screen rather than from an actual book, after that i doubt they will ever go back to a real book.
Also i hate to sound like a guy who opposes progress, but most books are printed here in USA, and those binderies provide a lot of good paying jobs, all the way from blue color to finance and most are good paying. Also right now Publishers hire people who oversee the production of books and people who track the inventory and warehouses, if the book is digital there's no need for all that. Plus Publishers hire Design Artists to make beautiful covers, that job will also be eliminated.
" ..plus the reader can carry as many books as HE wants with Kindle."
Are you saying girls don't read books?
Yeah. I say knock down all the trees to print the books just so that people can continue with their "good paying" jobs.
Trees and forests are highly overrated anyway.
He is actually the proper pronoun to use when referring to both males and females. I hate it when people get all offended when people use the word 'he' in the correct way.
The beauty of digital distribution is that it gives producers (publishers), the opportunity to leverage on the value of their product. In other words, a publishing company could offer digital books from its website. In my view it is all about perspective and value. The publishing world just needs to reinvent itself, you guys can be as professional in the digital era as you were (are) in print, and you can still bring on board designers, marketers and even expand to other positions for it related operations.
@cajie
Really? going to play the tree card? the amount of trees cut down to make paper is insignificant to the amount of new trees planted each year AND many many many companies now use recycled paper in their books.
I was reading and giving you the benefit of the doubt until you touch on the "printed in the USA" and college books.
There are a lot of books, specially kids books, that are now printed in China. That's terrible. We don't even print our books anymore. Maybe we should have the Chinese printing our currency, after all, they own us.
Then college books are ridiculously overpriced. $200+ for a textbook that is revised every few years. WTF??? The whole institution of higher learning is way too much of a ripoff. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it. But, tuition rising to the tune of 15% annually is silly. With so much money spent on football teams and building their stadiums rather than on education. Oh, how about all those bs courses that serve no purpose other than keeping incompetent professors employed. But, that's a whole different conversation.
As mentioned by other poster, selling the books electronically rather than print saves paper and trees. I'm all for that.
@Flashback
And the paper production process is now completely non-polluting. And the movement of huge amounts of heavy paper is now done in entirely carbon neutral ways.
Oh, wait...
On the one hand, you say that printing books doesn't cost all that much money, but on the other hand, you say that the publishing industry supports a whole lot of jobs. The prospect of job loss is a terrible thing, but the bare fact of the matter may be that those jobs are as redundant as any that have been made obsolete by the apparently inexorable march of technological progress. While there are many examples of this sort of thing in the heyday of the industrial revolution, let me suggest one that's closer to now: CDs. Did you argue a few years ago that downloadable music would cost jobs at CD production and duplication plants, or in the warehousing, distribution and retailing of those products? I say rejoice in the loss of those jobs. Are we worse off several generations on from the loss of millions of back-breaking, soul-destroying jobs that were made obsolete by farm machinery and assembly lines? This sort of progress never eliminates jobs that are fulfilling. If a number of book-warehouse joes have to look for new jobs (which sucks), perhaps their children or grandchildren will end up finding more fulfilling jobs (which really doesn't suck). By all means, think of the near-future in these matters, but think of the far-future as well. If your only argument for physical books printed on tree-corpses is that it keeps people employed, then it's a weak argument.
And as regards the "Amazon as monopoly" fear, the thing is, if ebooks take off (as I figure they will) then surely competition and market forces will even things out in the long run. (Of course, I thought that about iTunes, so I could be totally wrong here...)
Sorry bro, but the publisher job is as necessary as a car salesman. With things going the way they are, middleman jobs are becoming obsolete. The whole intellectual property industry is heading fast towards a brick wall.
yeah, it's really nice that workers at publishing company's are making $25+/hr on the backs of broke college kids
This thing fails in design on so many levels. #1 failure is its price. Get rid of the EVDO and just use WiFi. Trim back the features until the price is reasonable. And hire a reputable design firm to design the enclosure AND the interface. Geez guys doing shit right ain't that hard. This thing should have had a replacement last year.
I think you're only ever going to move these things in numbers by directly demonstrating it to them.
Mike, clearly you do not have any real experience with publishing on the Kindle. Amazon does not in anyway force publishers to set specific prices. Amazon works out the $9.99 deal on bestsellers, and in some cases underwrites the price.
I don't think there is anyone that can make a valid argument that the iPod is a bad thing. It changed the music industry into a more consumer friendly one. The music industry has been adapting to that change, and there are a HUGE amount of artists that have greatly benefited from it.
The same thing WILL happen to the print media industry. Consumers always want things to be easier, and as a Kindle owner for about 6 months I can assure you the entire process is far easier, and just like with the music industry, is opening up the market to a lot of independent publishers/authors.
I understand your fear with the idea that the person who actually creates the intellectual property will no longer need a publisher outside of possible advertising. But in all things, getting rid of the profiteering middle men is always a good thing.
I for one like what iTunes did to the music industry...
Why? because It gives me the power to pay $0.99 for the one song that I like and not be forced to shell out $20 for the other shite songs...
And most of my favorite music is from the 80's, so there is no way I could ever hunt down all those songs...
Let the suckers pay as much as they want for Kindle, who cares. DO it now as the Kindle II is even larger and has no memory expansion slot
Lol, look at the book at the top. My favorite book of all time!
You guys are so full of it, that its not even funny. If this was an Apple product you'd be all claiming this was a wonderful discount. But it doesn't have an Apple logo on it so Screw you guys I'm going home and complain on the internet how it sucks. Pathetic.
PS- BUt of course Apple would never make an e-book reader because "people don't read anymore" or so Steve "I'm a douche" Jobs tells its fanbois.
worst refurb price ive ever seen...
Until things get down to $200 and I get a price advantage on books I'd rather just stick with expanding my library. There is no deal in this "refurb" deal. There is still something about holding onto a book and coming back to it in a few years and reading it again.
Michael Crichton died! Engadget, why have you not reported this!?
They are petrified he'd write a book about them having a small penis (as in with Mick Crowley).
The kindle screen size and battery life are nice, but I've found by reading on a PDA-size screen that the only sacrifice is pressing the page-turn button more often, because even speed readers don't read more than a few lines at a time. So having a couple of paragraphs on the screen is enough, particularly when that means you can use the device you already have (pocket pc/phone or iPhone) and it fits in your shirt pocket.
Still costs too much
OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY!!
Oh wait, I still don't want one. Not even a little, teeny bit.
Is $330 supposed to be... cheap?
$100 and we have a deal! Any more and I'll think about it. Just to let you know - I'm still thinking about it for two years now but the price is definitely not what I want it to be.
Audacity of Hope is on there, but no Manifesto?
im assuming you are referring to the Communist Manifesto and that is supposed to be a cheap jab at Obama. But you failed because Obama's tendency towards socialism, is of course, not communism.
I really like the idea of Kindle, one that enables avid readers to carry hundreds of books with them, displays text on a paper-like surface, and connects to wikipedia or amazon seamlessly.
But for me, Kindle still falls short of what real books can provide me with. There is something subtle about flipping through actual pages that a piece of plastics just can't replace.
That being said, I may still get one IF the price is set considerably lower (like $150).
Wonder if anyone here actually owns one. I do. Yes, the buttons are in the wrong position but the books are very easy to read. i actually picked up a paper book yesterday and throught it
was now hard to read.
It has been great to own and I am not sure why it needs WiFi. I have been able to download books easily and very very quickly. It does what it is supposed to do. And it is lightweight - so no more lugging multiple books everywhere.
It needs Wifi so Amazon doesn't have to pay for the cellular data plan. If it's cheaper for Amazon then it's going to be cheaper for us.
"It needs Wifi so Amazon doesn't have to pay for the cellular data plan. If it's cheaper for Amazon then it's going to be cheaper for us."
If it knocks $100 off the price of a Kindle, it wouldn't be worth it. We are talking free EVDO for the foreseeable future. This is a valuable feature for those who subscribe to daily newspapers available on the Kindle, who may not be around Wifi when they want to download that days edition or use their basic web browser to view various blogs or other web pages.
still expensive to me
What gets me is the lack of any REAL sales. No real bargains at all. With this economy and businesses starving for my money, they better really cut into their profits or else they're not getting a darn cent from me.
Walk into any store and try to get the sales person to drop the price. Not even a dollar. Well, you know what? Screw that. I'd rather keep it in the bank than stimulate an economy that could care less about my well being.
Uh, here's an odd question from a technical writer. Why are these refurbished? At the most, they're a few years old. Are they that brittle? Would I pay hundreds of dollars for a gizmo that breaks so quickly?
Do you realize how many new books I could buy for that money? At a used book store, I could almost buy out their entire stock on any day.
This is, without question, the most unnecessary application of technology yet. Rube Goldberg would be impressed.
Why would I spend $300 on a machine that could display books which cost $10 each?
Garbage, I would consider it if it was $1000 or so and could get access to all the books(including textbooks) I wanted for free.
damn! you would pay $1000 for it but not $300?! you're like the real life version of peter griffin!
No, he'd consider it if it was $300 with a lifetime subscription to all textbooks for another $700. Which would be quite a good deal, as you can sometimes spend that much on one year's worth of texts (at least at retail pricing).
touche, i read that too quick
I tried to use one and found it utterly useless.
What did you try to use it for? It is great for reading books but less so for remotely controlling microwaves.
If you want Mac-like quality and design skip the Kindle (yes, I owned one and set the junky thing back) and get the Sony Reader PRS-505.
Essentially, I would love one of these things. For all it's greatness and flaws. But at THAT price?! You gotta be kidding me. Maybe at $150 at the most. But then again, the first gen iPod price at first was crazy (compared to what it has become) and hopefully the Kindle will morph into something amazing. But at THAT price?!
I want one but it's too expensive, and doesn't have enough features. If it did more or cost less the price would be justifiable. Not to mention it is ugly as hell. But I still want one.
What exactly more would you want a book reading device to do?
Well maybe check email, instant message text message it does have 3g right. All I'm trying to say is it's really exspensive. For a book reader and u still have to pay for downloads of books.
and the benefit of this over a eepc would be?
I'll start with two: 1) The battery life on this device (Kindle) is much much longer than an eeepc or other laptop (or iPhone), thanks to the eInk screen. 2) It has a [free/included in the price] CDMA wireless connection(Sprint), so you can buy or transfer books to pretty much no matter where you are.
It is still ugly.
The new one is only $359, why would one get a used one. I have one and I like it particularly because of the built in dictionary. I'm a fob =). I got mine through a friends website: www.Top10ProductsOnly.com
forgot the link: http://www.top10productsonly.com/Amazon-Kindle-p/101.htm