This may come as a surprise to you (although probably not, you smart devil), but it turns out that plenty of people are dissatisfied with their current
e-reader options -- according to a recent study conducted at the University of Georgia. The study was conducted over a six-month period where participants read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on a Kindle, then provided feedback. The results were, well -- not entirely shocking. Younger adults found the Kindle to be lacking because it had no touchscreen or other applications (though to be fair, neither does the print version of the paper), while older adults seemed more satisfied, but also reported missing the crossword puzzles and comics of a real, live newspaper. Pretty much everyone agreed that the screen was nice and comfortable to read on, but almost no one was a fan of the price. All in all, there's not terribly much here that we think is overly telling -- besides (of course) the fact that paper rules.
posted January 30th 2010 10:25PM
@pika2000 I am doubting it will drop to $99 anytime soon. You have to remember a significant chunk of the price is whatever Amazon has to pay for the lifetime free 3G connection courtesy of AT&T (and formerly Verizon).
Now maybe if Amazon made a WiFi only version, or the government implimented some sort of free or subsidized nationwide WiMax, and they made a version to run on that, but otherwise the price is beholden to the cell companies, and they don't like to drop prices.
On march 26 a new study will show kindle sales down 200%.
Hmmmh I wonder y. Maybe it has to do with the vowel pad????
@logic thinker
Maybe they decided to not mind stealing the name ipad since by the time the suit is halfway the device will be phased out due to poor sales anyway, now that's forward thinking.
QuetSion is there someone that is dieing to buy a kindle as opposed to vowel pad? Lol. Be honest.
Study will also show that on march 26, kindle sales will plummet by 800%. again we r seeing shifts n changes. No need to panic effetcs of the ipad revolution. Kindle is just one of many products that will be gobbled by by ipad. Just victims like tablets n nerbooks , readers will also suffer.
@pedro We will all buy ipad to satisfy our urges n desires
Why does every device ever released have to be an all-in-one? Who out there is complaining that the Kindle doesn't have apps? I really want to know, because there's one thing I could imagine doing while reading a book, and that's listening to a podcast or music, and the Kindle can do that already (also, I usually need full concentration, anyway, when I'm reading, so I might not even use that functionality).
If there's a shortcoming from all viable e-readers so far, it's the limitations of the current generation of e-ink display technology. The perfect e-reader would be large enough to display text-book and newspaper sized content, and would have a full color display for the many cases where one would benefit from it. I've heard magazine designers turning away from such devices because a lot of their business comes from the perfect page layout and eye candy, and they aren't willing to compromise over those limitations.
Finally, yes, the device has to cost less. Especially when you *are* talking about a purpose-built device, a $260 price tag is a lot to swallow. Surely the Kindle DX can't cost upwards of $500 to manufacture? Sure they need to profit from it, but keeping prices as low as possible would rope in some of those naysayers, establishing a base to market your e-books to, and securing your future in the e-book industry. Of course, if things don't get real serious real fast, I predict it being just another fad of a product for a number of years to come.
iPad bitch!
My cell phone takes pictures and my video game system plays video and my e-reader is supposed to play games?
Ah... Apple... May I congratulate your fantasic ability to remain the topic of conversation regardless of the 'product' currently being discussed.. Every credit.. And no! I don't particularly like Apple products in general but DO own the best gadget on the market (iPhone)
Wow there are a lot of Apple posts here, and the article didn't even mention Apple. Seems there's a lot of insecurity about that around here, causing people to try to hijack perfectly decent topics.
I'm not a big fan of E-Ink. Perhaps in a few years it'll be more readable and faster, and perhaps within a year or two there will be better alternatives available for the Kindle and other similar devices. E-Ink should either improve, or it should be replaced by much better screens.
It's a little odd how defenders keep saying "well it's for reading, dummy!" or that they would hate if it were given more features. People seem able to convince themselves of practically anything.
Though some people would not use video, video-rate display capability would improve reading and browsing quality for many people. Some people would not read Moby Dick in color, but many people will look at diagrams and pictures. Just because the devices are called ebook readers or e-readers does not mean their function is limited solely to slow text-only novel reading. Even the presentation quality of ebooks may improve substantially in the future if better devices and higher consumer standards demand it. Yet people continue to defend present-day ebooks, which have all the formatting and typographic quality of a pocket calculator--many ebook readers don't even directly support authentic italic variants of their built-in fonts. That's just cheap.
"But we don't need any of that stuff, because we're READING, not analyzing typography!". *rolls eyes*
@BubbaJ Some of us don't care about typography in a reader, just readability. I grew up working in print shops and have done everything from old school typesetting, to scouring font books for the perfect font. However, when it comes to reading a novel, website, or sending an email, I couldn't care less as long as it isn't some bizarre difficult to read font.
@RandomGuy Yes it's rather unfortunate how low ebook reader standards are.
Should probably amend that since paper book readers generally have low standards too (and most of them care not one bit about typesetting), but ebook readers take it to new levels of crap and seem happy with it overall.
Hey Engadet why don't you just leave a image on the Home page of the iPad being shoved down our throats with a shovel? Sheesh *smh*
One reason why I like the iPad: it'll be interesting to see where the Kindle goes from here. Competition is a good thing baby!
@AckbarsFist Well if the rumors are correct and the Kindle gets the upcoming Mirasol display from Qualcom, then it will change the ebook reader market substantially. I know I will gladly plunk down my cash for one, if it even comes close to living up to its promises.
It seems that people are happy to admit that the kindle is a flawed compromise that is only good for reading text. It disappoints as a newspaper reader. The kindle is doomed unless it can meet it's customer's expectations. They better drop the price again.
So far, there are many, many e-reader options out there. They all have at least slight differences. All have good , bad, and indifferent features. I've seen nook v kindle v sony flame wars as well. Accusing each other of being haters because someone prefers one brand over another seems dumb to me.
And, since the Kindle does show grayscale images, what's so impossible about creating Kindle-friendly comics?
Now crossword puzzles are another matter. But I'd surely like to see them, too.
I currently subscribe to the daily Austin American-Statesman on my Kindle. I find it takes me about 4-5 times as long to read the "paper" this way. Articles I usually skip over in the less linear paper medium are suddenly the next article. The articles don't begin on a new screen, so the "skip to next article" button is frequently one screen before the article begins. And there is no "go back one article" or "go back to the beginning of this article" button at all. That is VERY bad thinking on the programmers' parts.
I don't have any way to remember which issues I've marked things in, so I tend to delete them all. This means I can't find an article, unless I go right into the computer room and email links to friends then.
I don't seem to be able to save whole articles. And, since the articles don't begin on top of screens, anything I want to save as a quote is almost SURE to extend beyond the end of the screen, which means I have to save TWO pieces of the quote. Useless!!
The newspaper failed to have a week's worth of issues ready in December for distribution via Kindle. That was handled by giving us the month of December for free. There does not seem to be a way to communicate with either the newspaper or Kindle folks to find out where such problems lie At least, there is no obvious route to communication.
These are just SOME of my dislikes after having the Kindle I for a few months with only ONE newspaper subscription.
I can't imagine what subscribing to an image-intense publication like Scientific American would be like.