You have surely read or heard about Amazon’s latest venture
in the digital world domain. On Monday, hoping to reinvent the electronic books or at
least the way they are read, Amazon launched a hand-held digital reader capable
of downloading thousands of books without a connection to a personal computer.
The device, named Kindle, is about the size of a paperback, it costs 400
dollars and uses the same electronic ink technology found in Sony's Reader,
which will represent its main competition. Also, Amazon offered some 90,000
titles for download at launch, including most current bestsellers, and said it
plans to eventually offer its entire catalogue of 5.8 million titles of books
in print. As Kindle is still a novelty, let’s take a closer look at Amazon’s
latest device.
The Pros:
A dedicated device. If you are really into reading e-books
no matter where you are, Kindle will be your “weapon of choice.” Weighing just
over 10 ounces and displaying text on a 6-inch diagonal screen, Kindle is the
prefect reading device.
The battery life. Kindle uses the passive display technology
invented by E-Ink which produces no light. Not only is Kindle’s display perfect
for reading, but a two-hour charge of its battery lasts for 30 hours of uninterrupted
reading, which means that you will never run out of batteries while reading a
book.
The Wireless connection. The books from Kindle store are
downloaded through Sprint's EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) network and you
don’t need to pay for the wireless connection because the bill is included in
the price of the books. A smart move on Amazon’s part, but we will talk about
this option later. As you have wireless access to the store, this means you
won’t have to use a PC to download and transfer the books. But if you are out
of wireless coverage, such as traveling overseas, you can download books to
your computer from Your Media Library and transfer via USB to your Kindle.
The storage. According to Amazon, Kindle can hold on its
internal memory somewhere around 200 books and by using a SD card you can
always have a huge library in your pocket (ok, maybe in your bag) as the
average size of a book is somewhere around 500 Kbytes to 800Kbytes.
Additional features. With Kindle, Amazon tried to go beyond
electronic books and the device has built-in access to The New Oxford American
Dictionary and to Wikipedia.org. Also it has search capabilities.
The Cons:
Black-and-White display. Although it has a remarkable
technology, E-Ink is years away from adding color to its display. While this
aspect won’t matter too much as you are using Kindle only for reading books, it
can become very frustrating when reading newspapers and magazines.
The Design. Kindle looks like an asymmetrical tablet with
big buttons and a keyboard which can be used to take notes. With sharp edges
and quite big to fit in a pocket, Kindle looks like it has landed straight from
the 80s. In a world in which Apple and its fancy gadgets are setting the trend,
Amazon proved some courage to unveil such a device. But if you don’t care about how it looks, but about what it does,
then Kindle is a perfect fit.
The Price/Prices. Charging $399 for a device that knows to
do only one thing, unable to browse the Web although it is wireless
connected and displays the pages only in black-and-white seems very bold on Amazon’s part. Also while it is understandable to pay $9,99 for the
electronic version of a bestseller, charging
$5.99 to $14.99 per month for newspaper subscriptions and $1.25 to $3.49
per month for magazines doesn’t seem a smart move as most of them are available
for smaller fees or free of charge. I understand that the price includes the
cost of the wireless connectivity, but maybe Amazon should have considered a
better policy about the prices.
All in all, with the pros and cons, so far Kindle is a
sold-out, according to Amazon’s website. So let’s not forget that after all the
customers are those who dictate the success or the failure of a device.
Moreover, as only two days after its official launch Kindle
is no longer available, maybe it will be the i-Pod of reading after all.
