Bezos just stepped off the stage after announcing that Amazon would drop the Kindle DX this summer for $489 - about $150 more than the smaller Kindle 2 released just a few months ago. I watched the live blog and left, on the whole, disappointed.
I love e-readers and want to see them succeed. Same with newspapers, so I think the NYT, WaPo, and Boston Globe subscription options are great, particularly with the larger screen. Gizmodo noted, and I agree, that this needs WSJ to become a serious player in the newspaper market.
There are two downsides: A lot of people just shelled out for the Kindle 2. Given the price and popularity of Kindle 1, I think a lot of people would have just waited it out for Kindle DX had they known it was coming so soon. Second, fine, so there is a bigger screen and PDF support, but to be a business tool this needs to permit annotation. iRex offers a touchscreen version of the machine for just $600. You can take notes directly on the PDF docs and transfer them back to your machine. You have "Whispernet," but they will really permit us to go paperless.
3 comments:
I was ready to buy a kindle 2 when I heard about the reader option. I spend 2 hours a day in my car, and I like listening to audio books. I figured this would be a very good way to essentially turn any book into an audio book. (I would hook it up to my current FM transmitter and listen on the car radio). Unfortunately Amazon killed that feature under pressure. If that comes back in the DX, I might hop on the bandwagon.
I bought a Kindle 2, and I absolutely love it. I do miss buying books a little bit, however, I really enjoy not carrying them around. I tried reading a newspaper on the Kindle and it was awkward and unfulfilling. I think I would have waited for the DX if I knew it was coming, but the Kindle 2 is actually a perfect size for reading just books.
Regarding the reader option, it's still there (albeit somewhat awkward and machine-sounding), but Amazon has given authors/publishers the option of disabling it for their titles. The technology just isn't there yet to really make the reader option enjoyable.
Slate reviewed this, not so favorably: http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/0s-1s-and-s/2009/05/06/kindle-dx-sleeper-agent-amazon-s-future
Post a Comment