AmazonKindle

[Gary Keedwell]

Anybody know anything about it? Looks very interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ajamasmedia-20

Go Pats

Gary

[Per Swenson]

Hi Gary,

Sure looks great, like a 1980 brother typewriter design.

I guess they want that "Retro Look"

Now if I go buy a Book at Amazon, I can read it, give it to my kids

before or after I am done. Sell it. Donate it to the library.

Take it down to the Book exchange....

You know, the Book is mine. I own it.

Not so with der Kindle.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...eement&spell=1

Nonsense.

Per

[Gary Keedwell]

Per,

This is true. I was just thinking of the ther features such as reading newspapers, blogs,etc.
There most be an interest, it sold out in 5 1/2 hours. Of course they didn't say how many they had in stock, LOL

It won't be for everybody...just like woodworking

Gary

[Frank Hagan]

It won't replace books, but in my days as a "road warrior" I would have loved to have something like it; books were left at home if it tipped the balance toward having to check luggage, which sometimes added 2 hours to the day.

The nice thing is you can store the digital content on SD cards, and re-download it any time you want, to any computer, to transfer to the Kindle. Neat toy, but I wouldn't pay $400 for it, especially now that I don't travel on business.

[Mike Henderson]

I looked at it but some things are unappealing:

1. You don't own the book as you do with a paper book. You can't sell it "used" or give it away when you finish it. I understand why, of course. Digital books don't tear or get dirty like real books do so the digital books could float around in the "used" market forever and create a secondary market - meaning that Amazon would sell less "new" digital books.

2. No support for PDF files or any kind of files except the Amazon files. I understand that they want to tie you to Amazon for buying any books to read on it, but then they should sell the reader for a lot less money - like Gilette sells the razor cheap so that they can sell you blades.

3. It does not have a touch screen and you can't "write" on the books to make notes. The keyboard is a clunky way to interface to a book.

4. It would be really great if you could also get your e-mail on the unit and be able to write on the screen to reply to it. I know they're selling a book reader but business people don't want to carry multiple things - just one thing that does it all.

Mike

[Randy Cohen]

sony makes a reader that seems to be similar and supports PDF and is cheaper.

[Jack Hogoboom]

I bought one the first day and love it. Great for reading on airplanes and on long car rides. Built in cellular modem is a great feature. I can easily download content from anywhere I get a cell signal.

Screen is very readable and fonts are scalable for those of us with older eyes.... Battery lasts almost a week unless you keep the wireless on.

From my perspective, it fills a couple of significant needs for me: portability and virtually limitless storage. My house if filled with books. Anything that cuts down on the number of hard copies is OK with me.

I think Amazon would have done much better pricing the unit at $199, rather than $399. Lots of people like the concept but hate the price point.

Best thing about it is that Amazon has the distribution clout to make content available. $9.99 for NYT best seller and $2 or less for real "literature" beat the pants off Sony's inept market positioning.

If I had more money, I'd give a few as gifts....

Jack