Amazon's Kindle Sells Out In 5.5 Hours

necro81 writes "As reported on Engadget, Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has sold out. Charlie Rose's interview with Jeff Bezos reveals that the Kindle sold out within just 5-1/2 hours of going on sale. Amazon hasn't revealed how many it had in stock at launch, so it may just be that they didn't anticipate early demand. A check of the Kindle's product page shows that more will be rolling out starting December 3rd." Wired also has a brief head-to-head of the more prominent ebook readers and PCWorld has a review of the new gadget from Amazon.

Low production run?

I wonder how many units were made available.

I somehow doubt it is a case of 'we made lots, but demand outstripped supply'. More likely this was a limited production run to test the waters.

Re:Low production run?

Call me a cynic, but I'd say its more likely a case of a limited production run so they can get sites like Slashdot to report how they sold out in just 5.5 hours.

DRM Suckage

Kill it. Now.

Re:DRM Suckage

No. E-Books has been buried for long enough. It is time to accept this technology into our lives.

Crack it.

Re:DRM Suckage

> Crack it.

Why? It is a joke. The BOM on the thing would run you less than $200 quantity one and I seriously doubt Amazon paid $100. Most of the sticker price is an all up front subscription to their cellular based wireless network that probably isn't even available out here in flyover country where I live. So if yuu don't value the handcuffs to the Amazon Store that why would you bother buying one just to hack it?

No, we need to design our own. There ain't squat in one hardware wise. No wireless (eats battery like crazy) and two SD slots (for easy copy action!) along with the ability to read PDF files. But first e-paper tech needs to finish developing. Current incarnations lack the resolution of a cheap laser printer, to say nothing of commercial printing and the screen refresh speeds blow goats. And color would really be helpful along with a touchscreen UI.

But like all things tech these issues will be solved after enough early adopters with big wallets and small brains spend insane amounts of cash on not ready for prime time hardware that won't even be compatible with whatever ends up becoming the standard. Then I'll buy one. :)

Re:DRM Suckage

Is it just me, or is there something a bit weird about naming a product for reading books with a word which means "to set on fire"? Now, maybe as a name for Dell laptop...

Re:DRM Suckage

"to set on fire"

I used to work at SGI (late 90's) and one of their ad slogans was ignite your mind and I think it had a picture of an octane (model name) sgi box there.

the thing is - we sold a lot of SGI boxes to gas and oil companies. 'igniting' from a computer is the last thing they'd want!

for a while, some SGI boxes (their power supplies) had a nasty habit of, well, blowing up or catching fire. the move team (who moved employees when we had our frequent re-orgs) would often have blown power supplies after we powered down systems and moved them, had them sit unused for a weekend and then powered up monday. I guess an always-on system being turned off, let sit and then powered on can cause strain.

PPFFFTT! "stand back, I'm about to power on an SGI box!"

ignite your mind. yeah - and your tie, if you are standing too close by to some of them.

Gullible much?

It is however perfectly easy for a company to launch with a limited number of items received from the factory. This is a basic sales trick. Amazon ordered the production of the kindle, but that doesn't mean all the units arrive in one go, that itself would be extremely foolish, it would delay the launch and cost a lot of money to stock everything.

Say that a factory can produce 100 devices per day just as an example. You want to launch as soon as possible so you tell them, when you got 500 send them over, so I can launch. Then at launch those 500 are "sold out". Sure they are, but the factory has been busily producing so they in fact now got 700 more, but because sending small orders is uneconomical you told them to NOT send the daily production over, you told them to wait till they got a 1000.

Bam, you get a head line of being sold out while the factory has plenty.

The kindle ain't sold out because it is still in production. It is trivial to set this scenario up and Amazon should fire its marketting department if they hadn't set this up. It is a basic move. Make the item seem hot, so that people get the idea that they MUST buy it now or they may not have another chance.

Have you EVER sold anything? It doesn't matter what house you are looking at buying, they ALWAYS got an intrested party about to make a good offer, so if you are quick you might just beat them. Decide NOW!

Re:Low production run?

I wonder how many units were made available.

Only 1. It was bought 5.5 hours after launch by Jeff to ensure amazon.com was still up.

Re:Low production run?

I'd reserve judgement till you'd personally experienced an 800x600 eInk display really (such as the one Kimble uses), it's considerably different to any LCD/CRT with regards to eyestrain, how your eyes will perceive the resolution.

Re:Low production run?

The important metric for readability is not resolution, it is pixel density. Kindle has a pixel density of 167 ppi, which is higher than most LCD screens, which these days tend to run around 100 ppi, and is slightly better than the iPhone, which has 160 ppi.

I haven't used the Kindle, but I have used the Sony eReader, which has a similar resolution, and it is *much* easier on the eyes than an LCD.

Two Things

1. There are always a number of people with "state-of-the-art-addiction" who must have the hot new gadget.

2. There are always people looking to profit from the above people, who jump on these product launches to then turn around and sell the product on Ebay.

Beyond that I wouldn't read too much into this just yet. The Kindle may be a success, or a flop. All we know is that it a newly hyped gadget that sold out at launch, like most new hot gadgets.

Front Page of Amazon

Well yeah it was the front page of amazon, yeah the entire front page.

Basically the best advertising that any device could have.

nifty e-book reader comparison matrix

Nice to see linux across the board for all of them - even running lots of proprietary stuff. :)
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix [mobileread.com]

Why would Anyone Bother?

It Has DRM

Has nobody been paying attention to the many and various articles in recent years about "some random company" who decided to revoke their DRM product (new DRM, dropped product, company died, etc) and totally screw all their customers who had paid license fees to use this DRM functionality?

VOTE WITH YOUR WALLETS people.

I still say OLPC's XO laptop is better :)

More versatile, has a camera, reads a wider variety of formats. It's a (funny little, purpose-built, not-your-ordinary) *laptop*, but it has a book-reading mode and a 200dpi screen (in monochrome mode).

A bit bigger than the Kindle, sure, but sure seems like the one I'd rather have in my backpack / fallout shelter / carry-on bag. After all, does the Kindle have a game pad? :)

timothy

My display died in 3 hours!

What a mess. I ordered one. They shipped me two. (only billed for one). The one I opened died after about 3 hours. Unit still worked but the eInk screen was dead. Sent that one back for a refund. In my opinion the build quality sucks and there isn't really any good place to hold the unit where you aren't accidentally pressing some button. I still have my free unit new in the box. I'm so un-impressed I may just send it back to Amazon for some other dumb bastard to buy it. I hope this endeavor dies in a big way to warn others.

Re:Reading an LCD

it's not an LCD, it's e-paper or "electronic ink".

Yeah, they finally got that technology out of the lab about a couple of years ago.

Re:Reading an LCD

The e-ink is the only thing going for this critter of a device. The old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind. Books are:

• Proven: they have a 600 year history of mass production.
• Robust: at worst, they fall apart after 20 years or two toddlers.
• Reliable: the words don't dissapear if it gets too hot/cold/wet/dry or an EMP event occurs.
• Archival attributes: we will still be able to read in 100 years, but we might not be able to open DRM protected files.
• Portable: they are more pocket sized than Kindle.
• Batteries not included: because you don't need any.
• Transferable: they have resale value including content... legally.
• High contrast: higher even than e-ink.
• Flammability: despite the name, Kindle's probably don't burn well. A definite negative for the Puritan at heart.
• Light weight: unless you get the hard-back edition.
• Accessible: they don't require a network-connection, so they work all over the world.

Re:Reading an LCD

So... you're saying that a book has all the advantages of an abacus?

Re:Kindle doesn't have an LCD

Wouldn't buy the Sony, not gonna buy the Kindle... Not interested in 'locked in' DRM from either, and the potential for 'interesting' spyware from either.

I have the Sony Reader. There are a myriad of free texts for it. It can display TXT and RTF files just fine. The (unlocked) version of the LRF is well understood, so there are plenty of texts in that format and they work really well. It can display PDFs (but doesn't scale them well, so an A4 document will usually be unreadable).

I've never bought a DRM afflicted text and I never will. But the hardware's a different matter; the fact that it can display DRM doesn't preclude the device as long as it can display free texts.

Sony is kind of schizophrenic; their hardware is usually excellent but sometimes crippled by the media lobe of the company. In the case of the Sony Reader the hardware was left relatively unharmed, but the marketing of the device was absolutely crippled; they were so keen to push their online book store that most people don't realise it can display unencumbered texts just fine.

The Sony Reader is pretty damn good, though not perfect. For example, it doesn't have a page turn button on the right hand side more or less forcing you to hold it in your left hand or uncomfortably in your right. The iRex Iliad looks excellent, but it's pricier and the form-factor doesn't appeal to me.

Re:I was interested until

It does play mp3s. And you can copy things via USB to avoid the fee. You can even have Amazon convert them to its special format for free, email the doc back to you instead of transferring it wirelessly, and avoid the fee.

But then again...

A lifetime of free wireless access to Wikipedia for $399 - that's a pretty good deal.

I'm surprised it doesn't include "amazon email".

Re:I'm I wrong or the only one to notice the EvDO

According to the video I watched on the Amazon site, it is indeed wireless and connects to "Amazon's whisper net" for free. Like WiFi but no need to log into anything as it does find service just like a cell phone. From there, you can look at the catalog of downloadable stuff and download for the presented price much like a downloadable Amazon website. You can email stuff to your Kindle, but that costs money. They never mention exactly what the whisper net is or how much coverage it has.

Re:As a Sony ebook user

Esoteric? Typical American attitude. Why, Korean Automotive Foreign Direct Investment in Europe: The Effects of Economic Integration on Motivations and Patterns of FDI and Industrial Location (Kindle Edition) is standard bedside reading for many of us 50 million South Koreans, thank you very much.