Amazon Enters Gadget Market with Kindle, an eBook Device

[benspratling]

the good, the bad, and the m* f* ugly.

Amazon has done a few good things here:
Used a fast data network for purchasing content from the device without charging a monthly data fee. Kind of like the Wi-Fi Music Store, except slower.
Used new technologies to make display of content easier on the eyes, and use far less power than conventional LCD's. Kind of like the iPhone's visible-in-daylight screen, except not in color.

But they have done a few bad things:
The edges of the screen, which is where I would prefer to hold the thing, are buttons, so I can't get a grasp. Unlike the iPhone, which provides easy-to-grasp stainless-steal edges.
There seem to be concerns about which file formats it can support. Unlike the iPhone which supports all major file formats, except Flash.
I can't flip to the next page by swiping my finger across, unlike a real book or the iPhone!

And they have designed one m*****-f******-ugly device that looks like a prop from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (And I don't mean in a good way). If you ever want technology to be pleasing to the eye, don't ever give money to people who design ugly technology, or they'll never learn.

Yet it costs as much as an iPhone! Just put file browsing on the iPhone and the Kindle's days will be over!

 

[queshy]

Weak. It looks extremely cheap. It does not look like it costs $400. For roughly the same price, you can get an iPod touch, which does everything the kindle does minus the buying books part. I mean, obviously the screen is a bit bigger, but that's the only "Tradeoff". No chance of being able to see anything in not-so-amply lit rooms, either, from the looks of it.

They should have made the device $30 and then more people would buy it and would spend more $ on content.

 

[kas23]

In a world where some celebrities get a c-section/liposuction combo at 7 or 8 months of pregnancy, I'm not even surprised.

But give it time. If this is a success, it will evolve quite fast. Just compare a 1st gen iPod to the iPod touch.

I think for a totally unnecessary, superficial device that is trying to act as a replacement for one the most important creations mankind has ever known (i.e. books), it is only appropriate to comment on its looks.

Saying looks aren't important for this device is like saying looks aren't important for a prom queen.

 

[skeep5]

Yet it costs as much as an iPhone! Just put file browsing on the iPhone and the Kindle's days will be over!

I agree. For that much, it should do a lot more. Like be able to receive phone calls. You could hold it up to your face, and talk on it. That wouldn't look weird at all...

 

[HiRez]

I just found about this ereader http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad but at that price... have to think about it

Yeah, I definitely much prefer the Iliad design and functionality to that of this Kindle box. But as you say, at almost twice the price it's a hard sell. I really believe an e-reader needs to be under $500 to be successful. Maybe mass production will help bring the costs down, especially with a new technology such as e-ink.

For me, I'd want something under 1 lb., at least an 8" screen, touch interface, and Wi-Fi. Actually, I find myself reading more and more on the iPhone. If they could make an iPhone with a slightly larger screen (still pocket-sized), a more dense screen (higher dpi), and a little bit better battery life, I'd probably be more likely to use that for reading than one of these e-readers, because it's got color and I'd just be much more likely to actually bring it with me places (which is why my iPhone has replaced my MacBook Pro and dedicated digital camera for so many things). If something is too big or bulky to haul around with you, you're not going to use it no matter how good it is.

 

[Vanilla]

Things I like:

1. The quality of the screen display. Standard LCD screens are very tiring on the eyes reading for any significant length of time, they've clearly done their homework on this area (a feature that distinguishes it from Touch/iPhone/laptop alternatives bandied around).

2. Having the wireless fees rolled into the price of the downloads is brilliant. No contracts, setup fees etc. As a user you just use it to buy books and access wikipedia. Excellent.

3. According to the video Amazon will hold details of all your downloads so if you lose/break/upgrade your unit you can easily reload from Amazon...even iTunes doesn't do that !

4. It looks light and a good/handy size to carry around with.

Things I don't like:
1. Its awesomely ugly. They seriously need to steal Mr Ives..

2. Without a colour screen magazines & newspapers lose out to standard online and printed variants. Books will continue to work of course but it would be nice to have colour.

3. Its not clear if you can have multiple owner accounts on one Kindle. Could I, my wife and my kids all share the same Kindle and see only the books/magazines relevant to us? I think it's important to be able to avoid havng to fork out for a unit per family member.

4. No backlight is fine and I totally understand from a readability viewpoint. However it would be nice to have a solution for reading at night/in bed.

Personally I would like nothing better than to replace my rows of paperbacks and stacks of magazines with digital alternatives, just as I have steadily digitised my CD's. I do not believe Kindle is quite there yet (and they really must improve the design, good God...) but it's a great start.

I think the biggest issue that will hold it back as opposed to the success of the iPod is that with the latter users could go through their existing physical CD's and digitise them themselves to enjoy on their iPods. Currently there is no easy way of doing the same for your stack of existing paperbacks at home! Solve that and you move from a great niche product to mass-market appeal.

Vanilla

 

[nbs2]

if i was you i would hide in a save place till your blasphemy is forgiven or forgotten.......

Forgiveness is possible, but blasphemy is never forgotten.

For people who's career/education (journalism major) require you to read dozens of newspapers and blogs a day, this thing is great.

I hadn't considered that group, but I don't think I could use this. Starting in law school, I had access to all the newspapers and case reporters I could imagine with Lexis and Westlaw, but I preferred to print and read on paper. Having the electronic copy was nice for finding and moving from one document to another very quickly, especially a large stack, but I really liked being able to sift through pages, highlight, circle, dog-ear, pull out specific pages, etc - all the benefits that paper provides that digital just can't.

I can see benefits to this, but I can't see myself using it - yet.

 

[ntrigue]

I value the Kindle not as much a leap forward as a foundation for an incredible amount of products related to eBook.

Design-wise...where is Apple on this? We need their aesthetics to make this great!

 

[kas23]

I'm in the medical field. For us, having a browser is important. But, having a pdf reader is huge. Additionally, most medical textbooks are not used by that many people, so the drive to digitize them would be not be financially beneficial. So, this would have very limited use in the medical field.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Its great

Hi there,

I think it is a great device (not the design - thats ugly) for a certain purpose and that is if you like to read books, newspaper, blogs etc. while commuting or travelling. If I had to do that a lot I could see myself buying such a device and have the news and maybe an interesting book with me.

BUT - I would never want to read a book on any device at home on my couch. I would always always prefer a real book or magazine and maybe even for the newspaper. I can use a pen and make marks and highlight stuff and so on.

 

[barkins]

I personally never saw the point in releasing eBooks. Whenever I get across a .pdf scientific paper, I tend to print it out, if it really is interesting.

Considering the amount of text I can read in a book (which basically shows really sharp contured letters and adequate size - with approx. 1400 dpi), and comparing that to the hassle of scrolling and clicking on my laptop, I'd rather carry the book.

Next thing for me is the DRM-related stuff. You see, I can buy a book, and after I have finished, I can pass it on to a friend. Basically if you do the same with digital data, you are alleged of copyright infringement.

Last but not least, reading a book is a very deep experience (if the author is good). The page flipping movement is so embedded in our spinal cord (due to years of training), that it doesn't distract you. But I think scrolling and page flipping are way a distraction from the plot, as they steal concentration.

I don't know if it's the difference in our age (I'm 25 and I assume you're older), but at least for me, reading a book or a newspaper is a tremendous burden. A newspaper more so annoying than books, having to flip through pages and hold them down is a hassle for me. Don't get me started on newspapers, huge pieces of paper with jumps from above and below the fold making readers fold and bend pages to read the stories is a HUGE annoyance.

I prefer reading my news online. It's very simple to jump to exactly where you want to go without any hindrance.

Although this Kindel may not be a good-looking thing, I think it's something worth checking out, at least for the younger generation and probably myself.

 

[Tom B.]

I really hope eBook readers take off. Especially if Apple are leading the way, just like they did with the MP3 player. I really feel that I do not read nearly enough books at the moment, and something like this could be the thing to stop that. I do not care at all that eBooks are not 'real books'.

I even thought of the perfect name for a Apple eBook reader:

ePod!​

 

[MacTheSpoon]

Count me among those who feel that this is technology for technology's sake. I really don't need to carry around lots of books at once, I am not such a speed reader that I go on a vacation and need that many books. One or two paperbacks are fine. And being able to do text searches doesn't interest me very much.

There are a lot of advantages to a book. Physically it can be made from very large pages if necessary, for example my art books are very large; with an e-reader you would have to scale that down or scroll annoyingly all over. You can have two pages open at once, an e-reader becomes laptop-size if you want that capabiity. Environmentally it's probably lower impact than manufacturing stuff from plastic and metal and running it off of electricity, and then getting a newer model every couple years. A book is biodegradable and entirely recyclable. It never runs out of batteries, never needs to be charged. If it gets wet it won't stop working. If you drop it, it won't break. If you sit on it, it won't crush. Powerful magnetic fields don't destroy its data. It will never become obsolete, forcing you to upgrade if you want to read your current materials. In fact you can be sure that people will still be able to read it hundreds of years from now, no matter what the current technology will be, and long after hard drives and flash drives have lost all their data to corruption.

And after all the time spent staring at TV screens and computer screens, at least you are looking at something non-electronic for a change when you read a book.

 

[pixieotronic]

This will be a total failure. It's ugly, expensive and the ergonomics are horrible.
All of you comparing this to the iPod don't really understand why it became a great success. When the iPod came out it was expensive but it was innovative in the sense that it let you carry the music you owned with you within an attractive and functional package. This lame thing has a big problem, it costs 400 bucks and, on top of that, you have to buy content for it. Remember with an iPod you could just add the music you already have very easily, so you don't need to spend more money. With the "Kindle" you cannot add your books to it, you have to buy them again in the format this thing uses. Just imagine if Apple forced you to re-buy your music for it to be accepted by the iPod?
Also, books are a very different media from music, i.e., with music you need a player, when you buy a record it doesn't work by itself, whereas a book is a complete functional system, you buy it and it works without extras. That is why ebook readers still have a long way to go and the price is completely absurd, it costs the same as an iPhone and it doesn't bring any real innovation.

 

[GoodWatch]

It’s a beginning. The e-ink has clear potential but one of the drawbacks is the current lack of colour. There are already prototypes that actually look and feel like a thick sheet of paper. Could this be the future? A tabloid sized sheet of e-ink ‘paper’ with a thicker strip at the bottom to house the electronics. No more waste of resources like paper, ink, power to drive the presses, distribution, etc. Every newspaper subscription should include a free e-reader. But it would also kill thousands of jobs if it really caught on. An interesting dilemma. Just imagine how reading a newspaper would be; articles that update themselves real-time as more precise reports reach the news desks, photos that do the same! No longer the need for a separate morning or evening edition. 20 years from now? Yes.

 

[Yateball]

There are A LOT of positives to this device, and really the only negative is that it isn't the prettiest device I've ever seen.

The fact that it's wireless anywhere like a cell phone, but doesn't have any monthly charges is fantastic.

Like other people have said, this will be a hit... one generation or two down the line.

 

[CatharticFlux]

This looks really terrible, particularly when you consider that we're been waiting for an eReader for a looong time. The ergonomics of this device seem cumbersome at best (wtf is up with the scrolling thingy? and the keyboard is just sooo reminiscent of something out of the 80s), the eInk display is monochromatic, and the EVDO connection is useful only for buying more books?

Am I the only one that is seriously underwhelmed? This almost makes the Zune look good...

 

[GQB]

Books and 'style'

Since style is one of the drawing points of the Apple community (at least in our own humble opinions), I'm seeing something left out of the discussion of e-books...

A wall of books is one of the great design ingredients. Yeah they're a hassle to move, but nothing looks as great as a beautiful library wall.
In addition, what you put onto that wall is a statement of what you want the world to believe about your intellectual makeup. My bookshelves represent 40 years of (hopefully) intellectual growth.
I often buy a book even after I've read it via the library if its something I want to share or just have.

But I could easily see using my touch for light reading.

 

[slicecom]

I have no desire to own this, but then again I dont read many novels. I'm sure some people will value it though. I'd just like to know how they managed to create a product in 2007 that looks like its straight out of 1994! Kindle seriously makes the brown Zune look beautiful.

 

[Vanilla]

Since style is one of the drawing points of the Apple community (at least in our own humble opinions), I'm seeing something left out of the discussion of e-books...

A wall of books is one of the great design ingredients. Yeah they're a hassle to move, but nothing looks as great as a beautiful library wall.
In addition, what you put onto that wall is a statement of what you want the world to believe about your intellectual makeup. My bookshelves represent 40 years of (hopefully) intellectual growth.
I often buy a book even after I've read it via the library if its something I want to share or just have.

But I could easily see using my touch for light reading.

Couldn't you say the same for your Vinyl, CD, DVD collections? Yet many of us are happily digitizing them and relegating the physical artifacts to the attic/basement to save space. The past was physical the future is digital, the momentum is simply unstoppable.

Vanilla

 

[Kaiser Phoenix]

Kudos to Bezos and Amazon on this. An integrated ebook reader + ebook downloader + newspaper reader that can fit in a briefcase or laptop bag.. brillant..

So you can download a book on the go, read it on a plane, and then when finished download another book and read it on the way back. No need for books in your bag or anything like that...

Newspaper downloads and magazine downloads are the killer.... Being able to take this on the train or bus and reading your paper vs a laptop will be HUGE...

Kudos... will wait to see the engadget and cnet reviews on the press conference on Monday afternoon.

Completely agree that the newspaper and magazine downloader is the killer, it is for me anyway, coz now i dont have to spread the newspapers and make a racket every where and get my fingers dirty!

 

[sthpark7791]

Ehh, I would rather get the sony reader. Smaller, better looking, cheaper and no fees to view your own stuff. I don't see the EVDO as a major feature since it's not like I'd need to buy a book on the road.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Haven't read through the thread, but honestly, this is amazing. Sure it's expensive, but it's a step in the right direction. Less trees being cut down for newspapers, cheaper books, easy to follow blogs anywhere. I would rather have one of these than an iphone, to be honest. For people who's career/education (journalism major) require you to read dozens of newspapers and blogs a day, this thing is great.

Why not just use the current 20 year old technology that has served us well all these years? Next thing you know some mis-informed CEO will reinvent the wheel and make it out of a rubber like material that costs more and uses more resources to make, but it's cooler than a regular wheel and he/she would think they are on to something.

eReaders are stupid, plain and simple. Journalism students already have laptops and computers, or they can just read the $.50 newspaper. eReaders are a waste of time and money and I don't think anyone in their right mind will pay $400 to read a book on a computer screen when they can do that already with their phones and laptops.

What the hello are these CEOs thinking?

 

[redrabbit]

Someone should post a link to the thread when the ipod was first announced

 

[the vj]

Terrible device

The first impression that comes to my mind is my English teacher coming into the classroom with one of those trying to look "modern and fashionable".

That device is so late 70's. I bet there is something like that beside the bateries display in any Radioshak near you.

Steve Jobs will have the time of his life making fun of this device when ever he comes with his Apple tablet.