Prices Slashed For Nook, Kindle E-Readers 255
b0bby sends in a report from ZDNet about the sudden outbreak of a price war in e-reader devices. "On Monday, Barnes & Noble cut the price of the 3G Nook to $199. It also launched a $149 Wi-Fi version. Just hours later, Amazon responded by cutting the price of the Kindle to $189. At $259, the price of the Kindle and Nook just 24 hours ago, an e-reader purchase competed with an Apple iPad, which started at $499 for a Wi-Fi version. Below $200, a dedicated e-reader purchase makes a lot more sense." Sony dropped prices for its readers three months ago, but the move didn't kick off a price war at that time. Some believe that dedicated e-readers are doomed in the long run to lose out to general-purpose devices such as the iPad — and its coming imitators, many of which will be based on Google Android.
EBOOK PRICES (Score:5, Insightful)
Until they drop Ebook prices, they can pound sand...... For those prices, Kindle/Nook should be free
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Re:EBOOK PRICES (Score:4, Insightful)
Factoring in the free books, the average cost of the books in my nook is about what used books would cost, or a bit less. I haven't had time to get serious about filling it with free books, or it would be even lower. I'd be happy to buy many more books through their store, but I won't do so aggressively until prices are reasonable (at $5, I'd go nuts, and their profits would skyrocket; everybody wins. But I guess they don't like money). So the Nook will save me money over the year, though not as much as I'd prefer. I read a couple thousand pages during my vacation, so it saves on weight, space, and trees as well.
If they raise the prices more (dick move, Steve Jobs), torrents of ebooks will become much more popular.
Re:EBOOK PRICES (Score:4, Interesting)
I won't do so aggressively until prices are reasonable (at $5, I'd go nuts, and their profits would skyrocket; everybody wins.
$5 isn't bad, but given the fact that their manufacturing and distribution costs are essentially $0, I would never buy many ebooks until the price hit $3 or less.....but that's just my opinion. With prices at $5 I'd rather just spend the extra couple bucks and have something physical that I own. As it is with the average price being over $8, it's cheaper to buy paperback books, and that's before you factor in the cost of the device.
I'd love to have an e-book reader, but I'm not buying one until the price (for both the books and the reader) are reasonable. $150 is reasonable for the reader, now they just need to fix the pricing on their books.
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For novels I agree, but I think some technical books are worth more than that. The Art of Electronics is my favourite example. £40 is quite a lot for one book but it's usefulness and the support it gives the authors (hopefully leading to the third edition some day) is IMHO just about acceptable. Just.
Unfortunately technical books don't work well with eInk displays. You need to flick through them quickly, scanning for the information you need.
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I never really got this thing about "sharing books" being so important that it would choose your format for you. There is something about a physical object intuitively being worth more, but I have to say one of my favorite things about the kindle is the books you buy are stored remotely as well as on your
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I have to say one of my favorite things about the kindle is the books you buy are stored remotely as well as on your device, so unless Amazon goes out of business (unlikely) you have the book forever. I can't keep track of how many books I've lost, read until they disintegrated, etc. The kindle book is always there.
I'm guessing you weren't reading slashdot back when they had the scandal of removing copies of 1984 that people had purchased....
What you see as the biggest upside, most of us see as one of it's biggest downsides.
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Actually, you can "really share" the DRM-laden ebooks sold by B&N, since they have a lending feature which will transfer your copy to someone else for a set period of time and then return it to you. And, of course, you can really share DRM-free ebooks.
Additionally, ebooks (both DRM-laden from bookstores like B&N/Amazon, and DRM-free from indep
Well you can slap Apple for that crap (Score:2, Interesting)
because they found a new customer, publishers. We are just the frill too line the publisher's pockets. Amazon was doing great with their pricing model yet people still yelped over the "high costs". Well for the time being we will have to look back on their model as the good old days.
I am disappointed that the larger Kindle is still held at its price. That is the one I am most interested in. Can't stand the iPad, totally useless in the sun; as in I like to read outdoors, I don't need another device to m
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The Nook can display PDF, EPUB and other files, and you can load up a Micro-SD card with all the ebooks you can find.
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The nook has over a gig of regular internal space, which corresponds to about a thousand illustrated books, or about five thousand just text. It'd be difficult to read that much without ever being near a cell tower or computer. You certainly couldn't make it between charges.
But yeah, somehow the card slot is a selling point.
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Being a somewhat obsessive buyer of books on webscription, one of my irks with my nook is that it doesn't have a search function - which when you load up 300+ ebooks is kinda important.
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The prices are high, but I would be willing to pay it. My problem is the overbearing DRM. Do you really think all of these ereaders are going to survive? No way. None will be around forever. One day, you will lose all the books you have bought. I can't accept that eventuality with books.
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That's certainly a reason to be concerned about purchases from the ebook stores run by B&N and Amazon, but both the Nook and the Kindle will read DRM-free documents in their supported formats, and there are plenty of sources for DRM-free ebooks.
Taking advantage of
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Ebooks are generally cheaper than dead tree, but I would buy them even if they were more expensive. The convenience of having an entire library available to you anywhere is simply amazing. The ability to get a new book without getting out of bed is valuable in itself.
The Kindle just brings a better overall experience, therefore it is "worth" more.
That said, I do expect competition to eventually bring the price of these books down to something significantly below print costs (rather than slightly below print
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There are plenty of good, reasonably priced and even drm free ebooks. Price of books is no reason not to get one.
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http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org]
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Forget the prices on eBooks as a blocking factor.
Until they drop the prices on eInk cartridges I'm steering clear of those devices. Who cares if they are a bit cheaper when it will cost probably half the price to get a refill.
Is eInk made of gold? I think not!
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"While I totally share the view that Ebooks are much less worth to the buyer (me) than "real" books, they're hardly cheaper to produce than paper books. "
I don't doubt you for a second.
But as a customer the reality is still that the ebook gives me a lot less value than the printed version. There is a solution, however. The marginal cost of distributing the ebook is just about zero once you've created it. So sell them as a bundle. Add, oh, 10% to the price of the paper book, and give me access to the ebook v
Neglect the benefits & tablets win... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a lot easier to say that it's over and the iPad/tablet rush will kill the eReader revolution.
Not to mention the fact that the nook/Kindle are much, much cheaper. That makes taking it to places like the beach (large zipper plastic bag keeps it safe and readable) or just on the go in general is something you don't have to worry about.
Yes, the iPad will have its fans. But there are people who don't want a "do everything" device, they want something that reads books really, really well. And the nook, Kindle, and other eReaders do that. Until there's a radical revolution in color screen technology that gains the benefits that e-ink has (which are great for a book reading device)
Not to mention that the 3G iPad is $130 extra, and doesn't include free 3G for the store so you can make an impulse book buy wherever you are. That's major in the convenience factor of the device.
Re:Neglect the benefits & tablets win... (Score:5, Interesting)
iPad meh... I've been reading books like a fiend over the past year with my iPod touch. It's readable outside without a problem (with sunglasses), it's small so my puny nerd arms don't get tired, fits in a pocket, supports Kindle software, as well as numerous others (I recommend Stanza - vertical swipe -> brightness adjustment).
Battery life of maybe a day without charging, but I can live with that.
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I know, anecdotal, etc...but at the price of these devices, they're great for people that read more than a book every once in a while.
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Your battery is faulty.
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I have an 8GB iPod Touch that's under a year old and I get maybe two hours of continuous use browsing the web indoors (where the backlight doesn't have to be full blast to be somewhat readable) and I get a couple hours of usage tops.
You should run the battery completely down (wait until the thing shuts down, start it up again, rinse, repeat) at least once a month. If you don't do this the power management has no idea about the charge the battery can actually hold and will shut down much too early.
Either that or your battery is junk. I have an 8GB iPod touch (first generation) that is nearly three years old now and still runs about 4 hours or more. I use it every day and I've read about 300 books on it now.
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You should run the battery completely down (wait until the thing shuts down, start it up again, rinse, repeat) at least once a month. If you don't do this the power management has no idea about the charge the battery can actually hold and will shut down much too early.
Interesting theory, but you're better off not doing that and just putting up with an inaccurate battery meter. The deeper you cycle, the faster you consume the battery, and it's not linear. I'd expect advice like this from someone who makes a living selling batteries....
Star Wars tie-in? (Score:5, Funny)
iPad meh...
Is that Apple's version of Natalie Portman?
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No, I think it's Apple's new Top Chef thing.
Re:Neglect the benefits & tablets win... (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually own both a Kindle (DX) and an IPod Touch, and can testify that the Kindle is much more eye friendly. Having both is awesome, because my iPod is always in my pocket for quick reading, my Kindle is much more eye and battery friendly for serious reading, and the software keeps both in sync. Well, when I buy kindle books anyway, with other DRM free ebooks that make up most of my collection I have to keep in sync myself, but it's not that hard.
And yes, the iPod touch is barely readable outside in the bright sunlight, but the Kindle is gorgeous, and only gets better the more light falls on it.Even indoors, the kindle is much easier to read.
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Bottom line: Don't knock the benefits of e-ink until you've used an e-ink device for a few days.
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Counter-anecdote:
I had a Kindle 1, have a Kindle 2i, have an iPod Touch, and have an iPad.
My house is apparently less naturally lit than yours, the backlight on my iPad is worth much more than the eInk's readability.
I further suggest color, which I hadn't realized how much I was missing, and the ability to CHANGE THE GORRAMN FONT.
Both the Kindle iPad app and the native iBooks reader allow font changes. Amazon clearly realizes it's wanted, so why one font only on Kindle?
Also, while the iPad loses badly to Ki
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What part of "they're not really the same market, although there is some overlap" do people not seem to understand???
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I actually own both a Kindle (DX) and an IPod Touch, and can testify that the Kindle is much more eye friendly. Having both is awesome, because my iPod is always in my pocket for quick reading, my Kindle is much more eye and battery friendly for serious reading
Seconded, only in my case it's Sony PRS-505, and Nexus One with Aldiko. I've only read from the former for a long time, but after buying N1 a few months ago, I found that always having it in the pocket is convenient for reading on the road and such. If I know in advance that I'll have to wait somewhere for a while, though, I'll definitely grab the PRS. It's also the one used almost exclusively at home, combined with a comfy couch and a well-positioned lamp with incandescent lightbulb (short of scattered sun
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Easier on the eyes?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. I've owned a Sony Reader and an iPad. The iPad is, hands down, easier on the eyes.
The Kindle and other eInk displays have a contrast ratio of 6:1 to 7:1. The iPad backlit IPS display is 750:1 to 930:1.
Other than perhaps directly under the sun, the iPad display wins. In dim light, the iPad owns.
Re:Easier on the eyes?!? (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree. I've owned a Sony Reader and an iPad. The iPad is, hands down, easier on the eyes.
The Kindle and other eInk displays have a contrast ratio of 6:1 to 7:1. The iPad backlit IPS display is 750:1 to 930:1.
You do realize that overly high contrast is precisely what causes eyestrain? (in general, and especially common when staring at a computer/gadget screen)
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No I don't realize this. Source? In fact, it seems nonsensical on its face. Picture playing an FPS on a Kindle display that refreshes at LCD speeds. Would it be less of a strain to see your targets, or more of one? And even if somehow lo-contrast is better, it's fairly easy to lower the contrast on a LCD using software and often possible to dim the backlight using hardware. So why isn't everyone running their monitors in low-contrast Kindle mode?
BTW, I own an iPod and a Kindle, and despite the legions
Re:Easier on the eyes?!? (Score:4, Informative)
No I don't realize this. Source?
JFGI [google.com].
In fact, it seems nonsensical on its face. Picture playing an FPS on a Kindle display that refreshes at LCD speeds. Would it be less of a strain to see your targets, or more of one?
I don't understand why you're bringing up refresh rate - it's an altogether different issue, and it is entirely orthogonal to contrast. For book reading, it's also mostly irrelevant.
Anyway, the simplest way is to test it for yourself by playing with the contrast settings of whatever you read books from, and noticing the level that is most forgiving on the eyes.
Oh yes... too little contrast also causes eyestrain. However, it is much more typical for people to have contrast jacked way up on their displays than to have it low. Another common problem is keeping contrast suitable for daylight into the night, with no or little ambient lighting.
And with decent lighting, the contrast of a good eInk screen is fine. It doesn't quite reach the perfect level - that would require a tad lighter background - but it can match a typical paper book, which is good enough.
it's fairly easy to lower the contrast on a LCD using software and often possible to dim the backlight using hardware.
It's true, and my comment didn't contradict that; only your assertion that extra contrast of iPad makes it superior for reading.
So why isn't everyone running their monitors in low-contrast Kindle mode?
You'd do your eyes good if you read text from them for long periods of time; indeed, that's precisely what I do on the rare occasion when I read from my netbook. However, more often you're dealing with media richer than text, and colors in particular are better perceived with higher-contrast display.
BTW, I own an iPod and a Kindle, and despite the legions of Kindle fans constantly insisting how much better the latter's screen is, I totally prefer reading on my little backlit iPod.
I don't own a Kindle, and have only tried it a few times when it was on display in the store. I do, however, own two other eInk-based readers. Judging by a few replies that I've got in comments to this story from people who used Kindle more, its display quality is sub-par for eInk standards. The one I can personally recommend, from using for 2 years, is Sony PRS-505 - its screen seems to be higher-contrast than even the later Sony readers that I've seen.
I do wonder how you deal with the extra weight (more than 2 times compared to Kindle, and almost 3 times compared to PRS-505) of the iPad when holding it with one hand for reading...
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The Kindle and other eInk displays have a contrast ratio of 6:1 to 7:1. The iPad backlit IPS display is 750:1 to 930:1.
And how does it compare to netbooks, and other tablets?
I mean, I'm confused by this obsession of only comparing the Ipad to e-readers, as if other LCD portable computers didn't exist. I mean, you either want the benefits of e-ink (in which case, the Ipad doesn't count), or you don't (in which case, there was never any point in buying an e-reader compared with LCD devices). Perhaps this mean
Re:Neglect the benefits & tablets win... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have an iPad, and though I like it pretty well, I have to say that I don't like it for reading books. Part of the reason is the display. It's strange because I'm completely comfortable using it to read long web page articles, but reading a novel on a lit screen rubs me the wrong way.
I have another complaint, though, which is arguable a stupid complaint but it's much harder to solve: I'm too easily distracted. If I'm trying to read a novel and I have a device in my hand that can browse the web, I might just go to one of my favorite websites for a minute or two to see what's going on. If my iPad beeps because I received an email, then I will immediately stop reading to see what email I just received. In short, when I tried reading a novel on my iPad, I couldn't get any reading done.
Now in both of these complaints, there's not really an inherent problem with the iPad. It just doesn't quite work for me. Still, I doubt I'm the only one who would have these complaints. Personally I've gone back to dead-tree distribution for my novels. I might consider a dedicated e-reader if it was cheap enough, and if I weren't concerned about the DRM.
Re:Neglect the benefits & tablets win... (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to get frustrated when I'd come to tech sites and people are claiming the iPad has the better screen because it's color...
Then I put it in perspective. We're on a tech site dedicated to computer geeks. For the most part they're not looking to read, they're looking to browse the web. When you look at book enthusiast blogs, eInk readers are still highly preferred. The kindle and the like are for hobbiest readers, and serious readers aren't going to put up with an LCD screen. I don't think price is even the biggest issue, hobbies are almost always expensive, but comfort wins. I'm curious what a slashdot poll would show for how much readers spent on their keyboard/mouse.
If you read a few books a year, then you don't need an ereader. If you read a few books a month, you'll want eInk reader, maybe even if it's in addition to the iPad you use for other functions. Borrow one from a friend and try reading on both for a couple hours.
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Simon.
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I think the battery life of an iPad is just fine. I charged it exactly a week ago and I still have 65% battery life left. I've used it for a few hours here and there and have not turned it off. There's a point when longer battery life further doesn't really add anything, it's not really a terrible inconvenience to charge a device every few days while sleeping.
Reading in the sunlight is supposed to be a selling point, but I've never read paper books in direct sunlight. I don't know why I'd read a Kindle
Re:Neglect the benefits & tablets win... (Score:4, Funny)
That's a bit redundant, you already said the Ipad will have fans.
Re:Neglect the benefits & tablets win... (Score:4, Informative)
>>Not to mention that the 3G iPad is $130 extra, and doesn't include free 3G for the store so you can make an impulse book buy wherever you are. That's major in the convenience factor of the device.
Yeah, exactly. Paying for 3G is a huge issue - it's like adding $360/year to the cost of an iPad. B&N also offers 20% the purchase of a Nook, which is nice. They were offering it for $259-($50 free gift certificate)=$209 up through yesterday, so I guess the price reduction to $199 makes sense.
To contrast the two:
Nook 3G: $199, 3G+Wifi (no monthly), 2G+MicroSD storage, digital ink + color touchscreen, Android (easily rootable)
iPad 3G: $629, 3G+Wifi (used to be $30/mo unlimited, now $25/mo for 2G), 16G non-expandable storage, nice color touchscreen, iPhone OS, much better at surfing the web, sending email, and looking at photos.
Without a doubt, if all I wanted was an ebook reader, I'd get a Nook. If I wanted a general purpose portable device to surf the web and send email... well, I wouldn't buy an iPad. I'd just keep using my Android smartphone. I have no desire to drop that kind of cash for an iPad.
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But there's little question that more people will find a tablet useful and worthwhile than an e-reader, even at three times the price.
The biggest point in the e-reader's favor is that the tablet (as it exists today) is a replacement for devices I already have. Also, a finger is a poor substitute for a mouse for someone who actually wants to work on the damn thing. I'll agree that a tablet is a much better fun toy that any other multimedia toys out there.
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the sparkly/glittery effect of the e-ink screen and the relative low contrast between the green background and the charcoal text
"Glittery effect"? Green background?? What "e-ink" reader are you smoking... er... I mean, using?
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I've seen Kindle, but don't own it, and didn't use it for any extended period of time.
That said, I own 2 other (different) eInk readers, and know people who own yet another different one. Neither has greenish background, and neither sparkles under light (there is some glare under direct light, but even a slight angle takes care of that).
My prediction (Score:2, Interesting)
Forrester projected that the $150 price point would jump start e-reader sales.
And I predict a $49.99 will make them take off like a rocket!
Now if only there was a price war with content.
I think subtracting the printing and distribution costs of a printed version from a dead tree version of a book would be a fair price for econtent - the publisher makes their money, the author gets the same royalty, and the consumer doesn't feel like their over-paying for content.
Example: $50 paper book - $20 for royalties, advertising, general administrative costs, publisher profit = $30 for printing
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Forrester projected that the $150 price point would jump start e-reader sales.
And I predict a $49.99 will make them take off like a rocket!
Now if only there was a price war with content.
I think subtracting the printing and distribution costs of a printed version from a dead tree version of a book would be a fair price for econtent - the publisher makes their money, the author gets the same royalty, and the consumer doesn't feel like their over-paying for content.
Example: $50 paper book - $20 for royalties, advertising, general administrative costs, publisher profit = $30 for printing, paper, trucking of the dead trees. Sell the book for $20 + retailer markup = $28.
I can live with that for the same content. Now if they'd allow for that content to be transferred easily ..... yeah, dream on. I guess if someone want's to borrow a book on the eReader, you would have to lend them the entire reader. That sucks!
The manufacturing and distribution costs of a paperback book are not much more than half a dollar today. Printed paper is nearly cheap as dirt meanwhile and trucking goods around is also not exactly expensive (you couldn't afford even bottled water if it were otherwise). And digital distribution is not free.
I agree that Ebooks are much less worth to the buyer but they're not that much cheaper to make. If written text in digital form would be worth much all bloggers would be rich.
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Razors vs. razorblades (Score:2)
It doesn't matter to them if the profit on the reader is razor-thin (heh) or even negative, so long as people are buying overpriced e-books.
The lock in is more important (Score:3, Interesting)
When you entice people to make a significant investment in your platform (via books with your proprietary DRM system - the nook uses ePUBs, but it's wrapped with their own DRM) so switching means throwing all of the books they bought away, you'll have them buying your device (and more importantly, the books) for years to come.
Some people would argue that you argue that you only read books once, but some people wa
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What Apple did was invert the normal rules by being first to market with a credible MP3 player and leveraging their extremely loyal base. It was a beautifully executed coup, but not one that Amazon or B&N are in a position to duplicate. They gave it a go, but now they're having to fall back on the tried and true Gillette model.
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It's applicable in the sense that the eReaders aren't a major cash cow (like the iPod is), but it's not applicable in the sense that the blades (books) don't dull. There's a cost to switching that builds up over time as you invest into a library.
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There's something to that, but I'd say that the majority of books are read once or twice at most so in that sense they're disposable. Of course there are reference books too, but how much of a market will they be? When Amazon tried introducing the Kindle 2 to college students they found it unsatisfactory as a way to read and refer to text books so that's probably not going to be a huge market.
On the truly disposable side, newspapers and magazines are frothing at the bit to get digital subscriptions on the i
Planning on using an Evo or Droid X instead (Score:2, Interesting)
As an owner of an iPad and a Sony reader I say (Score:3, Informative)
I own both a Sony reader and an iPad. The Sony reader is far better at reading fiction than the iPad. The iPad is great for more technical stuff and magazine like reading.
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Really?? Why? What's the difference between them. Just asking because I've got an iPad and I've been enjoying using it as an e-book reader -- both iBooks and Stanza. Quite a lot actually.
Just curious as to why the experience it better for fiction on the Sony. Because the iPad is better for multi-media kind of stuff, or because the Son
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Why? What's the difference between them.
A pound, or about the same difference as a paperback versus a hardcover. Not an issue for light reading, but big deal for reading sessions that last several hours. Kindle I can hold up naturally for long periods with one hand.
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Really?? Why? What's the difference between them. Just asking because I've got an iPad and I've been enjoying using it as an e-book reader -- both iBooks and Stanza. Quite a lot actually.
I'm not GP, but having used both (tho iPad only briefly), I can try to guess.
First is the weight. Sony Reader, depending on the generation, is either 250g or 285g. Non-3G iPad is 680g. That's 2.5x as much! I've tried to use iPad while holding it in one hand, and it seems that it simply isn't designed to be used that way for considerable periods of time due to its weight - but it's precisely how you read a book! In contrast, PRS can be easily held with one hand, with fingers positioning over any available se
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The Sony reader is far better at reading fiction than the iPad.
That's because the iPad only deals in Truth.
Android apps (Score:2)
I'm waiting for two things: an e-ink reader that has nice contrast (actual BLACK on light grey or preferrably on white-ish), and for e-book reader Android apps for Kindle/Nook/etc ebooks for my new htc EVO 4G.
The last time I had to move, my 120+ boxes of books nearly killed me, and I've filled many more boxes with books since then. *sigh*
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You might try another hobby or social activity besides reading. That'll make moving less strenuous and maybe provide people to help.
Let History repeat itself! (or not) (Score:3)
Yeah, just like how consoles were replaced by those general purpose PCs (and imitators, *cough*). It's gonna happen soon, right?
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Used to have a laptop, G5 Tower, and Mac Mini at home until a little over a year ago when a storm destroyed my house. Now I have a MacMini hooked up the TV that acts a media center, a Wii, and an iPad 3G. And I see a lot more of my friends going Xbox/PS3/Wii and an iPad with a laptop they have from work. I'm to the point where the last thing I want to do when I come home is mess around with computer. I deal with computer shit at work all day and even then I'm down to my iPad3G + docking station.
I don't
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With the new OS 4 you can use a bluetooth keyboard :)
Barnes & Nobel Library (Score:5, Informative)
Reading the details the Nook will allow you to hook up for free to any B&N or AT&T WiFi hotspot. If you're in a B&N bookstore, you can "read" any of the ebooks for free. You can't take them with you if don't buy them. So, you can just come in and kill a few hours drinking over-priced coffee and reading like at a library.
They also have a "lending" function, as long as you use their software. I won't buy DRM books, but for people who don't mind you can "lend" an e-book to a friend for 14 days. Works with the iPod, Android, Mac & PC as well as some other platforms. Oh, and the Nook runs Android.
Got one on order now (Score:2)
You can root it too (Score:2)
We're getting there. (Score:2)
These will be worth buying once they're at $50. And they'll sell billions. I don't really see why Amazon isn't just doing the $50 deal today to take out the market and get people buying ebooks. This is another market that's waiting to be flooded with either overpriced Apple hardware or commodity hardware that can read books from anywhere. If Amazon wants to be "the eBook store" they need to make their reader ubiquitous.
iPad -- and its coming imitators ?? (Score:2)
Ahum. iPad and its coming imitators? Anyone who thinks so has been living under a rock. Days after the release of the iPad I already received advertising e-mails from Chinese manufacturers producing such lookalikes. And indeed mostly Android based, though I have also seen Windows based tablets. Same for the iPhone. That one took a little longer as the actual device outlook was a little less predictable.
The big difference starts of course with price (about half), choice (hundreds - in different sizes and co
Re:e readers are insanely overpriced (Score:5, Informative)
Re:e readers are insanely overpriced (Score:4, Informative)
e-Ink is more expensive than you think (I don't have a definitive price, but according to this link [engadget.com] the cost to Amazon for the e-Ink display on the Kindle is $60 by itself).
GP is still fundamentally correct - e-Ink displays are overpriced. The reason why that is the case is that there is a single company - E Ink Corporation [wikipedia.org] - holding key patents on technology, and maintaining monopoly on production.
Then again, what is "overpriced"? I paid $300 for a Sony PRS-505 two years ago, and, given the amount of use the device has got over that time period - more than any other gadget I own, with the exception of cellphone - consider it money well spent.
So, YMMV - largely depending on what you read, and how much. For people who read fiction a lot (as in, 1 book per week or more), I'd highly recommend one.
A YEAR AGO (Score:2)
Those prices were from over a year ago. They should be a fraction of that price now.
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There are things where an ebook reader is inferior to real books.
Can you share books with your friends? Can you sell the books (or give some of them for free)? If you have two kids, can they read two different books you bought for your ebook?
There are things the eBook Readers do better than paper books - but not all of them.
How much would it cost you to buy one book? $$ versus $$$
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So the purchases more than make up for the 3G downloading.
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I think what he is talking about is taking FedEx or UPS out of the map. Amazon usually offers free shipping on orders over $25. I'm in Canada so its around $40. Anyways, I remember because there's a lot more stuff on Amazon.com (partner resellers etc), that people would find $0.99 items or less when their order was nudging on the free shipping price. That second item will cost Amazon more than its worth FWIW.
A fair amount of bandwidth is gobbled up just browsing the Amazon website. Amazon has to upkeep thei
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When everyone says free, they are generally talking about the marginal cost.
The marginal cost of an ebook is practically $0.00. The marginal cost of a $8 paperback is at least $2 (materials and physical movement of the book.)
Taking a popular book as an example:
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
paperback $7.99
kindle $9.99
So the marginal cost per book goes down and the price goes up. It's easy to see where customers think they're getting gouged when they're paying more for a cheaper copy that is more restrictiv
Re:e readers are insanely overpriced (Score:4, Insightful)
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The real rip-off, though, is in the fact that you are paying all that just for the right to purchase a bunch of fancy bitstreams, generally for at least as much as the paperback equivalent, sometimes more, from somebody's proprietary storefront.
You can easily ignore the stores. Which eInk-based reader on the market today doesn't read books in open (as in, non-DRM'ed with a spec) file formats?
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It does. In fact, you can root it, at which point you can get [nookdevs.com]APKs [nookdevs.com] loaded onto it (though, so far, it is still a hack minefield all in all).
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You only got one of your android facts right. In your quest to find out which one it is I'm sure you will learn much.
Re:What makes Android tablets "coming"? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Android will be better next year!"
In my opinion Android is better _this_ year.
For phones: My girlfriend updated her iPhone 3GS to the new OS last night. I see that she now has a phone that still can't compare to my HTC Desire with Android 2.1. (2.2 upgrade due within 2 weeks)
For tablets: I don't want a locked-down tablet like the iPad. There are some sucky Android tablets out now, yes, but inevitably there will be some very good ones. And even if they aren't as pretty and slick as the iPad, they will be _better_ than the iPad because, whichever one I choose, it will be my device to do whatever I want with.
I'm surprised that anyone would currently think Android needs to catch up with iOS. Android is far ahead. It's just that a lot of Android devices lack the "shiny factor" of the iDevices.
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But does she think that way? Does she know exactly what version the operating system her phone is running? Do you keep telling her about how awesome your phone is and she just shrugs it off?
Besides, why the fuck should she care exactly what version her operating system is? Who really gives a shit?
It is a hell of a lot more than the "shin
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Yes, but the price for that is that now Google does what it wants with all your data you happily give to them with Android. At least Apple wants just my money and offers good
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Yes, but the price for that is that now Google does what it wants with all your data you happily give to them with Android. At least Apple wants just my money and offers good products for it. Google offers you shiny glass beads if you give your digital soul away. What a deal.
Ah! I see where the problem is. You're actually under the mistaken belief that Google tries to lock you into their services, or tries to prevent any competitor from having apps in its Markets. That's just plain wrong on all accounts, but I understand why an iPhone/Apple user would make that kind of mistake.
The last time I checked, you guys were not even allowed to choose what calendar provider you had. Apple had to be your default calendar provider, no matter how many key features were missing for you. Is
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I think you're full of it, because iOS 4 wasn't available until today. But, on the odd chance that you aren't trolling, what specific features in iOS 4 are missing that you have in Android 2.1?
Re:What makes Android tablets "coming"? (Score:5, Informative)
That's why it only sells on the closed networks in the US.
Which closed network? T-Mobile? AT&T? Verizon? Sprint? MetroPCS? Is there even a single actual network that doesn't sell Android phones anymore? Go ahead. I dare you. Name a single one. Or did you mean Android only sold on all the networks of the US (therefore implying that all the networks in the US are closed)? Because, I can tell you. I'm currently in the UK right now, and there isn't a single shop in the UK that doesn't have Android devices on sale right now and that aren't selling like hot cakes. And sure, the iPhone is still very popular in the UK right now, but at the sales counter where it counts, it's getting assaulted by several very good Android phones that are all selling just as well as the iPhone. It's not fair fight anymore. One phone against 39 phones, several of which are actually far superior to the new iPhone.
That's why 75% of Android devices run v1.6.
No, it's more like 50% of the Android devices are running v2.1. I can cite my source [android.com]. Can you even cite yours?
Being able to port desktop C apps over rather than rewrite in Java only becomes even more important.
Please repeat after me: The C and C++ apps of the Android NDK do not run on the Dalvik VM. The C and C++ apps of the Android NDK do not run on the Dalvik VM. Please repeat this [cnet.com] one hundred times.
and the next thing you know "Android will be better next year!"
If anyone is saying that, and repeating it ad nausea um, you're the only one. I've corrected your strawman argument plus several of your other factual errors in your other threads. But you don't even seem to even read my responses, or even care about citing your sources.
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And the bag of parts on an iPad approaches the retail price point. There is no room under there. A big display and battery is a big display and battery. An iPad 3G 16GB is $629 retail and Nexus One 4G with 1/4 the screen size and 30% of the battery volume is $649 retail.
I won't even bother with the rest of this post, but this stupidity just stands out so much that it's impossible to ignore. Historically, you paid - and still pay - more money for similar performance in smaller size. That's because smaller size with the same CPU power, same screen resolution etc is much harder to do. This is especially true of the screen - for comparison, it is 250dpi on N1 vs 130dpi on iPad. Feel the difference.
At some point the curve flattens, and from there, bigger size simply means juici
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Re:It does not matter... (Score:4, Interesting)
A 6" 600x800 screen, as seen in most readers, is simply not high-res enough to read most PDFs in fit-page-to-screen mode - and you can't really go for anything else, as scrolling is very painful with such low screen refresh rates, and PDFs don't reflow. You need something bigger, like Kindle DX, or, better yed, iLiad. iPad also does better largely due to high-resolution (well, and the fact that it can actually scroll them reasonably well).
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I assume you haven't heard about ManyBooks.net, where you can find thousands of books you will never need to reflow, because you can download them in the exact format your device makes the best of. Or read it online as a web page. Your choice.
I just went there, and it seems to be mostly fiction. Note that I was specifically talking about technical literature in my post. For fiction, there are many places to buy books in proper formats.
I assume you haven't heard about all the tools (Calibre, chm2pdf...) that allow you to change in seconds the format of most of books to suit your device.
Calibre is great, but it doesn't help you with PDFs. Once again: you need to reflow them to fit the screen, and the format is not properly reflowable by design (because it requires absolutely positioned and sized text runs).
I assume you assume that Adobe garbage about PDF being the right format for e-books
No, I don't. I'd gladly buy technical books in e.g. ePub, or even HTML - problem is, practic