Amazon Announces Kindle 2, With Slew of New Features 451
Engadget is reporting that Amazon has announced the new Kindle 2 for release on February 24th at a price point of $359. Thinner than an iPhone and coming standard with "Read-to-me" text-to-speech capability, the new device also has seven times more storage, faster page turning, a 16-level e-ink display, longer battery life, and a new five-way joystick. Looks like life just got a lot more interesting for fans of the original device. Engadget also has live coverage from the Kindle 2 press conference.
And Still Ugly As Sin. (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on Amazon. It still looks like a plastic toy. For god's sakes, team up with Sony or Apple (kidnap Jonathon Ives). Alternatively, license out your DRM tech so Sony can build a reader compatible with your service.
Frankly, I can't wait until someone figures out a way to make a digital version of the public library. Make it like O'Reilly's Safari: Monthly subscription, X amount of titles on your "shelf" at any given time (tiered subscription?), with the option to "buy it" for permanent downloads (or just buy it outright and skip the sub-shelf), etc. I'd gladly pay $15/month for something like this, much like I already do with Napster To Go.
Funny this. (Score:5, Insightful)
A few days ago, I was invited to the Union League in Philadelphia to see Mr. Gladwell speak to a group of roughly 550 local leaders, CEOs, etc. We were all provided with a "free" (in quotes because there was an entrance fee on all tickets, so the book was paid for by that cost) copy of his latest book and breakfast, and then afterward Mr. Gladwell did a Q&A session followed by a book signing.
It was the collaboration at the event, with people scribbling notes in the margins of the book, discussing certain paragraphs, and having the author sign each copy, that made me relish having the hardback with me. (Even if I do find his work a bit trite at times.)
In the end, I've opted not to buy this gadget, because ultimately, it's just not as satisfying or lasting as having a book. I have books given to me by my grandparents that they had as teenagers, what do you think the odds are that a Kindle or the formats it supports will last even two decades? I'm going to stick to my dead trees, thank you.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:4, Insightful)
My beef with kindle is use of DRM and its high price. For $350, I would want unlimited access to books.
Re:And Still Ugly As Sin. (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on Amazon. It still looks like a plastic toy. For god's sakes, team up with Sony or Apple (kidnap Jonathon Ives). Alternatively, license out your DRM tech so Sony can build a reader compatible with your service.
It actually looks... clunky to me... like an "Electric Book of the Future!" from the 1970s.
The screen appears too small, but that's really because there are far too many buttons, and way too much unused space.
For the price of an iPhone, can't they make it touchscreen?
Read-to-me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, and moreover, as someone whose personal library (easily several thousand books, 'bout half of which I've read) came mostly from USED bookstores, specialty dealers, random online sources, yard sales, etc., the idea that I don't have an option of buying used/wholesale/opportunistically-on-sale is pretty much a deal-killer for me.
iPhone or Android App (Score:5, Insightful)
Will I pay $359 for a dedicated e-book reader? Not likely.
Would I pay $20 for an app on the iPhone or G-phone that would allow me access to the Amazon e-book store. Sure I would.
Re:corrrection (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the new numbers are better, but not so much that one would now find their older version 'useless'. 7 times more than you need is still more than you need.
Books aren't like songs - there's not really a lot to gain by having 1500 with you at all times. I keep ~5 books on mine at any time usually, just because there's not really any motivation to have more. I tend to only read one book at a time or two in parallel.
My main complaint with the gen 1 device is that even though it has a mini USB port, it can't be charged that way with any standard cell phone charger. It has it's own charger and connection, which means one more charger that I have to travel with. I haven't seen anything that says if this has been changed with the updated device.
Even hollywood started to get this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Want to spur consumers to use eBooks?
-Consider DRM-free books with the name embedded. The geeks will get it out, but for the majority of people, they'll buy their own books and not share.
-If you are going to use DRM, make it worth the hassle by making the book much cheaper. In essence, when I buy a DRMed eBook, I'm buying a license that can be revoked at any time to read the text. Why should I pay $18 for an eBook when it's from a $20 hardcover? Especially without distribution or even physical costs.
-If Amazon sold Kindle "codes" in the books to apply the book to your Kindle, you get the pride of owning a book (that can't ever be turned off) and the convenience of a Kindle copy too. And newspapers, if they don't want to go the way of the dodo, should include Kindle access for print subscribers. I get the WSJ and they want me to pay TWICE to get it on a Kindle. Even if I got a Kindle I wouldn't pay twice.
At $360, with a nonremovable battery (thinness is good, but I'd prefer being able to pop in a spare) and expensive (for the format) content, I can't bite. I've wanted to get an eBook reader for years, but this isn't ready yet.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the point of DRM-encumbered digital media. They want to kill the second-hand market. If they can keep people from selling their books/music or loaning them to other people, then they get to sell that a few more copies.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is 100% the deal killer (for ebooks) for me.
I don't mind iTunes (though I've only bought maybe 30 or 40 songs) since I can burn the songs to CD and I have them for as long as Apples is around or my CD doesn't degrade, whichever is longer. And I've bought some TV episodes for my daughter to watch on my iPhone--same deal: it's not a huge loss to me if I can't see Backyardigans for some reason :-)
But my affinity for books is such that I just cannot accept losing access to ones that I've paid for based on the service going under. It might not be rational, but I just don't have the same feeling about music.
I'll buy eBooks from Baen based on the fact that I can download text/HTML versions that I can keep even if their bookstore goes under. But I'm not buying DRM eBook content and I'm not subsidizing Amazon's DRM efforts by buying their reader.
Re:Funny this. (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, some of us just want to read the books, not treasure them as eternal keepsakes. That's what eBooks are about.
I won't say I don't have books that I treasure because of who gave them to me (Grandma's gift of Mark Twain) but those books are few and far between. I read a -lot- of books, and 12 years ago or ago, I had so many that it wasn't possible to move to a new house without getting rid of some. I moved across the country. Most of my books were sold then, with only a precious few kept.
Had I had eBooks, I'd still have most of the those books instead of the $.50 each I got from them. And yes, I'd probably re-read most of them.
So now I buy eBooks. I can read them whenever I want and they weigh nothing. If I lose them, I can re-download them for free and all I might lose is a bookmark. (Losing a book while reading it would be an odd event, though.)
What I'm trying to say is that you're closing off the idea of eBooks without ever having given them a chance. There will always be things that real books do better, but eBooks have things as well.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And Still Ugly As Sin. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a screen, it's digital paper. There's no touchable form of this yet.
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix
One sony and both iRex devices seem to have touchscreen capability, according to this page.
Re:Cute. (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn you, Amazon, for preserving my annotations and bookmarks! How dare you enable me to keep multiple devices in sync or to avoid losing my contents, place and notes if I lose my Kindle and buy a replacement device!
Sheesh.
Re:Funny this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you realize your entire argument could have been based around a backstage pass, having your boxed CD or Vinyl Record, and being glad that they signed it and vowing to never turn that in for one of those new-fangled iPod thingies with the same basic effect, right?
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing with the kindle is that it includes "free" online access to locate and deliver books. so you can be anywhere and look for and purchase a new book. the book is then delivered to your kindle.
That's the thing that angers me about Amazon's current Kindle plan. I mean, being able to buy a book from anywhere is great, but not worth an extra $200 for me.
I would happily restrict myself to only being able to buy books when I'm plugged into my computer via USB, or in range of a wifi network if it meant that I could buy a Kindle for $150 instead of $350.
I don't understand why Amazon insists on only selling one expensive version of this product. If they released a cheaper version sans cellular capabilities, I think they'd sell lots more, and by extension sell many more e-books.
Oh Amazon, why do you fail me?
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:2, Insightful)
Mod Parent Down. Too much FUD. Most of the material I read on my Kindle comes from feedbooks.com. You can also convert from many other sources, including PDFs and Word Documents. You aren't limited to DRM'd books only.
Still not good for textbooks (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd get one of these the second it became usable for textbooks/research papers. You need 3 things for that to happen:
1) Native PDF support (which I don't believe this has).
2) Color.
3) A pen for the ability to annotate.
That would be a killer device. This...is not.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not just free books that are the issue, it's compatibility with paid-for books. There seem to be various "standards" for eBooks, and buying a Kindle basically locks you in to Amazon's DRM-fest.
When they start offering books in plain text or a similarly light weight and open format (because having some more advanced formatting for books is nice) I'll buy an eBook reader.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:3, Insightful)
Since you are at a university, how do you find the kindle sized screen for textbooks. I'm thinking the normally large math sized textbooks.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:5, Insightful)
it is hopefully the last time I will have to buy that book.
Given you've bought it in yet another DRM format, I can pretty much guarantee it's not the last time you'll have to buy that book.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep seeing this come up as an opportunity for the Kindle. This is one of the places where I think the Kindle would be a huge failure. I buy textbooks used on the Internet (NOT from a bookstore) and sell them used on the Internet. I come close to breaking even with the exception of transaction fees (commission to half.com and shipping costs). I don't understand why I would be interested in paying $349 in order to pay $100/book for books I can't sell, and worse, might have some kind of time lock associated with them (these are already sold on some websites).
Wake me when O'Reilly is on it. (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife has a Kindle 1.0, and loves it. She has loaded a large number of her favorite reference volumes (finance, mostly) on it, and cleared out several bookshelves in her office. For her, the dollars spent are well worth the space saved. The math is easy... compute the cost per square foot of owning a house in Silicon Valley, and consider if you really want to use those square feet as storage for books that have no emotional value. The Kindle is a bargain when analyzed like that. DRM and short life of the media is not an issue... all the books she put on it will be of little relevence in a few years. Oh... being able to make any book a "large print volume" is an outstanding benefit for those of us of bifocal age.
As for me, I wish I could put my entire O'Reilly bookshelf on it so that "lex & yacc" or "Practical C++ Programming" were always in my laptop bag where ever I went. But the Kindle technology sucks at displaying technical content. See Tim O'Reilly's blog post of a year or more ago on the topic. That's why you don't see nutshell books on Kindle. And that's why I don't own a Kindle. Wake me when Amazon gets a big, fat clue about formatting technical content. When it's good enough for Tim, it's good enough for me.
Re:Very tempted to get this (Score:4, Insightful)