Kindle coming to Target on April 25?
By Nilay Patel 
posted April 7th 2010 2:51PM
posted April 7th 2010 2:51PM
[Thanks, zeroleonheart]
posted April 7th 2010 2:51PM
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@Ipadsucks
30 year old calculators didnt have E-ink but lcds, or leds, or plasma displays. But no E-ink.
The principe is about 30 years old, but its the newest of all flat display technologies. LCD technology can be traced to 1930s patent. Led display principle is as old as LCDs.
What happened with that free Kindle for Prime members rumor? hopefully the Target deal will come with a price drop.
@CBONE
Where did that come from? That would be amazing.
@CBONE Yea, where did that rumor come from? I have been a prime member for 2 years now. That would be pretty damn nice.
@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi
I've been a member since it came out (not sure how long that was) and I love it. A Kindle would be icing on the cake.
Here's where that rumor came from:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/amazon-wants-to-give-a-free-kindle-to-all-amazon-prime-subscribers/
@ScienceProUSAcom I love it too, I buy well over 10 items per month on average from Amazon so that $80 pays for itself in a month or less. If they really did give us prime members a free kindle I would surely start buying my books from them instead of just using the library all the time
@CBONE
too late... already bought the ipad
@CBONE
I will be pissed beyond words if this turns out to be true. I just canceled my prime membership to scale back a bit on my monthly costs (and since I was mostly using it to ship books to my house, I didn't really need it after I bought a kindle).
@hbueain This is why a price drop is more important, IMHO, but both would probably do the most justice. You need to make sure the most avid reader would not choose a tablet over an e-reader, they either have both or just an e-reader.
I hope so, that box is lame.
Getting it into stores is definitely a great idea. Despite the magicalness of the iPad, the Kindle is still a much better device for reading in any situation, especially outside. The Kindle can truly replace a book, but the iPad can only try to imitate it.
I like the fact that it might be coming to a local store. I prefer to spend some hands on time with any major tech purchase before I drop the cash on it.
It would be nice to try one out. I looked at the nook, & the page refresh time was a deal-breaker.
@ChristianTexan
Thats the reason they dont have Kindle in stores. They dont want you to try kindle before buying because refresh rate between page is equally bad for Kindle.
@ashu2411 :
I have no issues with the refresh rate on my Kindle. It's not instantaneous but I'm guessing it's faster than I can flip a page in a book. It would probably not be good for random-access flip-lots-of-pages type of access but for sequential reading of novels, it's perfectly acceptable.
@ewilts
If they replace they black white thing they generate during page refresh with a cooler effect, then i wont mind it much. but it distracts me to see that weird screen while waiting for page to flip.
In another case, sometimes I quickly want to go 2-3 pages back because of some reference. In kindle, it takes painfully long time to do it. I think they need to improve technology with this refresh rate. That would make kindle cool too.
@ChristianTexan The Kindle is many times faster than the nook. I've had quite a few friends buy one after borrowing mine for a day or two. They had used the nook and found navigation and page refresh speed cumbersome.
@ashu2411
They display a negative because without it the pixels wouldn't change completely. There would be a ghosting effect of some sort.
@ChristianTexan How fast can you turn a physical page?
@elducko If I were to guess, I would say 5x as fast as the nook, which I think is about average for the average reader. Also, I suppose when you turn a page, your mind is engaging in the task. If you click a button, then wait, your mind has to stop & wait for it. I found it really distracting... but to each their own. If it doesn't bother you, then enjoy it.
@ashu2411 I have a cybook that allows me to turn off the black flash during refresh. It is an interesting experiment to see what happens, the page flips much faster, and is less distracting, but it leaves a faint hint of the previous page. If you flip from a page with an image it is annoying, if you just flip from text to text it just makes the print look really uneven and blotchy (dark and light spots in the same letter). If you go too long it makes the image almost seem dirty, like a well handled newspaper.
I do think it would be cool if you could set it to flash every 3rd page or something like that. I think it would be a nice compromise. In the end, the flash between pages is far less distracting to me than the artifacts left behind when it doesn't.
However it does make me wonder why every reader doesn't have the option to turn it off, just so that people can experience the trade-off.
@ashu2411
You can just hit the page button quickly 3 times, it will flash once and then jump 3 pages. You don't have to do each page individually. The flash is exactly analogous to the "flash" that happens when you turn the page of a paper book, there is a short visual shift and then the new page is visible. It doesn't take much time at all to get used to it and no longer notice it just as you no longer notice the page changes in a paper book.
Kindle: Coming to a place where electronics go to die.
That's how I see it at least. They need to sell it at Costco.
@Jake Root
agree Costco members would gobble these things up. They generally have the cash to make frequent impulse buys. Target shoppers, maybe not.
Still, the real factor is whether or not you can try it out in store.
@Jake Root Yea, because ANYONE can get into Costco without a memebership....oh wait...
About time!
@Ipadsucks that ain't true. I guess you need to think of power consumption.
@Ipadsucks Gyricon and electrophoretic e-ink screens, while based on similair-ish principles, are hardly "the same technology".
I suppose you're one of those people that says:
"core i7.
same old technology as 30 year old calculators but with a new fancy name"?
Frustration-free packaging becomes Free-frustration packaging.
April 25 seems to be a good day to be a consumer. Kindle at Target and HTC Incredible on sale those dates? Good time to buy things!
Funny, I saw a Sony Reader display at my local Target last night and muttered to myself "That's not a kindle, heh,"
I guess they must've listened. In a day.
@Leindurstit And we all thank you for making it possible.
No, really, thanks! I mean it.
@Leindurstit,
My favorite post was one that said the writer had just seen a Kindle at a store and thinks that maybe Sony was the maker :-)
I still kind of want a kindle, but I'm not 100% sold on it....however I may get one for my wife for her birthday as she has wanted one for a while
This would be pretty awesome. I've been wanting a Kindle for a while, but I've never got to play with one. The Sony e-readers are nice, but everyone says the Kindle is better. I haven't been able to make that assessment myself, so I haven't bought either. Oh, and I wasn't a fan of the Nook that I handled at the display in B&N.
I just hope Target places them right next to the Apple display area.
hahaha thats the target pda. i recognize the menu. im gonna search for it today and see if it comes up in our store.
Too little, way too late.
Just like the iPad, I can't justify buying a device for hundreds of dollars in order to then use it to pay more for media that I now get for free or cheap.
Just like I won't be paying for glorified Flash apps on the iPad I also won't be paying $10-15 to rent a DRM-locked book that I could just borrow freely from the library or buy for $5-8. These new devices aren't making things easier and cheaper, but rather nickel and diming us for the same things the web promised for free or cheap.
@jerbear I feel you on the books comments, but to get good books it can be a bit harder to find them at $5-8. Unless you are waiting a year or so after release, but lesser-known books are even harder to get at a cheap price.
Glorified flash apps? Now that is a stretch.
@trainwrecka I don't know. Some of the best books are free. Don't dismiss the classics.
Why did you block that part out of the image? That part of the screen does not contain any personal information. Prevent releasing store info?
@Bengal34 I'm guessing it would pinpoint him a little too close
for comfort. That info is confidential and he could be terminated for it.
To everyone else, April 25th is a general set date, unless it's streetdated which I highly doubt. Target is about to reset the electronics department to look completely different. You'll most likely see it on the floor during that week depending on how far ahead or behind the team that sets the new planograms is. Also, where it's placed will depend on what store prototype (layout, not test device) it is.
Too late now that the ipad is out. I would take a free Kindle with my Prime but otherwise who cares?
@krimsson People who read books care. The iPad, with its eyestrain-inducing LCD screen, is terrible for reading books. It's only good for magazines and the like where color is important and the time spent reading is short. For novels, the iPad is such an unpleasant experience I doubt it will attract people away from paper books the way the Kindle does. There is a very good reason no one made an e-reader until after e-ink came out. The iPad, from a book-reading perspective, is like a horse-drawn buggy in the age of automobiles. It's a nifty device for other stuff but it's no e-reader for books.
@elducko And millions of people who spend 8 hours a day reading text that is far less readable than a simple page layout on their LCD screens without any appreciable eyestrain would say that you are wrong. There may be a couple of good arguments that favor the Kindle as a reading device but claiming that reading books on the iPad "such an unpleasant experience" that it's "like a horse-drawn buggy in the age of automobiles" is nonsensical hyperbole. It's not as though reading black text on a gray background is the greatest thing since sliced bread either.
By most reports and reviews, the iPad makes a very good book reader, and flatly denying that is not going to help make the case for the Kindle. I think we're going to see a $199 Kindle (or less) very soon, because the people who can afford the luxury of buying a book reader for $269 are the same people who can afford to buy an iPad which also does many other things.
Competition is good, and the iPad is good competition for the Kindle.
@tacitus I spend 8 hours a day looking at several LCD screens. I read email, articles on the web, etc. I only experience minor eyestrain doing so.
I offered to proofread a novel for someone, within a few chapters my eyes were in pain and begging me to stop. There is a significant difference in reading a novel with contiguous text for an hour or more at a time vs. reading a bunch of short articles and emails that take no more than a few minutes each. The time you take to look away from the screen, even if brief and hardly noticeable, doesn't happen as often when you read a book.
Beyond that, but I don't know about you, but the lighting in my office is very controlled and set just how I like it to reduce eyestrain. It is something I certainly cannot replicate everywhere I would like to read a book.
@tacitus
Steve Jobs was right, people don't read, that's why he can push this out as an ebook and people will think it's just as good (for that purpose)
I think you're incorrect on a couple of points:
First, in many ways working on a computer is different to reading on a computer. Working requires looking away from the screen just as must as looking at the screen. Reading is concentration on the screen. That said, as a graduate student, there is major eye strain after a weekend of typing a major paper. My wife started to get headaches when she took a job that put her in front of a computer.
Second, although reviews try to be thorough, I doubt anybody who reviewed the ipad sat down and read 90 - 150 pages in one sitting (I'd be willing to guess most barely read 15-20). They glanced at features, played with options, changed some fonts, saw what the screen did in direct sunlight, but I don't think anyone actually sat down and really spent time and just read from it (I mean 3 to 4+ hours just reading - this might come as a shock to you but people who buy a kindle read from it)
hey you guys remember those huge magazines they used to call books?
i remember that rumor on techcrunch as well. don't think that'll happen but as a loyal prime customer, i'll take it. :)
Let me guess a "COLOR KINDLE". I am not hating, these guys started this ebook reader thing. But how else are they going to upgrade there Kindle? Lets wait and see.