So, apparently Amazon’s new wireless book, the Kindle 2, had already sold 300,000 units in about 2 months since its launch in Feb. A stark contrast to the mere 400-500,000 sold in the entire lifetime of the previous generation, which was released with a bunch of fanfare of its own in 2008 (sold out within 5.5 hrs!). There is already another newer Kindle device, released in May, that has an accelerometer, which means you can turn page by moving the device and it will change its view from landscape to portrait depending on how you hold it.

The basic device is that you can install book files on this thing and read it on the bus or train or plane or car: an iPod for books. It also has cellular network and wireless capabilities. It requires no computer to load content onto it, and it’s also really really expensive. The things it does well are:

• You don’t need to use WiFi to download content - you can use a 3G cellular network…for no monthly fee.
• It’s light, and relatively unobtrusive
• It gives free access to wikipedia, the coolest website on earth
• It uses “Whispersync” techonlogy to help “hold your place” across multiple devices and networks
• You can read PDFs on it
• You can put MP3s on it

Now, the things it doesn’t do well, or at least falls short on:

• If you had a Kindle, why would you care if you could hold your place on a different Kindle? They’re expensive as is, why would you get two? Whispersync makes sense for mobile devices, but again, who wants to read a book on their iphone?
• For that matter, who wants to read their book on a screen? There’s something to be said for holding a book in your hands, folding and turning the pages, taking notes in the margin, reading a gift message in the inside cover, etc
• It’s really really expensive. The cheapo version costs $360 - while there’s no monthly fee, that’s like…36 books. or maybe 20. but really, that’s a lot of money
• It’s black n’ white and the web browser is horribly basic. I wonder if it’s like using one of those mobile browsers from a nokia from 2005…
• While having 2500 books on your kindle is cool, having a bookshelf with 2500 books on it is infintely cooler. Kind of like having hundreds of albums on itunes is ok, but imagine a shelf full of hundreds of records - that’s better!
• Why the hell would you put MP3s on it??

so there you have it, my overview of the kindle. i’ll close by saying the only people i’ve ever seen using one are middle aged women on the train. I really like Amazon for a lot of things they do, mostly involving their cloud computing services, but am not convinced the Kindle is the wave of da future. Peep another opinion at Engadget.

Tags: amazon, ebooks, kindle, mobile devices, technology

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Gray Matter, Superior Judgment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.