The first kindle could play mp3s. (Basically like an ipod shuffle, if I understand correctly.) It was listed as an “experimental” feature.
Is it documented somewhere that the second kindle will definitely not be able to play mp3s?
-Kris
Can anyone find an example of a book that is more expensive on the Kindle than the paper version sold by amazon?
MP3 is listed in the supported formats I’ve seen.
I’ll be buying a 2.0 to play with (and return if it isn’t worth it). I am very intrigued by the Text to Speech function. But turned off by the removal of the SD slot.
It was funny–just a few days before the release of the Kindle 2, I was driving, and thinking to myself “I wish I could just have a machine read my books to me while I was driving…” I didn’t even have the Kindle in mind at the time.
Then, a few days later, voila!
-FrL-
I haven’t seen anything to this effect, but I wonder if anyone knows whether there might happen to be any kind of rudimentary notepad program (simple text editor) on the Kindle or Kindle 2?
That would be awesome.
-FrL-
Actually, yes. Less frequently now than I used to.
As a child in the 70s and 80s, I used to spend the summer in Ensenada, away from my accustomed media (familiar TV, comic strips, friends, school, etc.) I had the beach and ocean, board games, and books.
When we went, we would take several books to read. And we used time-shared houses, in which other occupants would leave tons of books. There was always stuff to read, fortunately. In a situation like that, though (2-3 month vacation) I can definitely see the value of having dozens, thousands, or more books in one device.
In the 90s and 00s, I’ve done shorter vacations (3-12 days) on which I tend to take 4-6 books and read 2-4 books. Most of the reading is on airplanes, trains, and buses, as vacations are normally full of vacation activities. I’m not a very fast reader, though.
Honestly, this entire topic really does fascinate me as I am very interested in being a fantasy writer. I am interested in learning if more money on a digital purchase goes to the author (book, music, article, whatever) than on a physical purchase.
As has been pointed out in several posts, once a book comes out on paperback, the digital price tends to go down commensurately. So, my previous comparisons of $10 on Kindle to a $6-8 book weren’t fair. $6-8 physical to $4-7 on Kindle is more accurate.
In one way it’s the same with music downloads. Personally, I buy .mp3 rather than CD or other format. My girlfriend still buys CD, though. I usually pay less ($6 or $9 for a $9 or much more album), but she feels more secure with having a physical backup. The comparison isn’t quite the same, however, because while she can back up her physical media into digital format (rip them to .mp3, for instance), I can’t backup my physical book media easily to digital media.
I just pre-ordered one. I’d been going back and forth on whether to get an e-book reader ever since the first Kindle came out. I’m fairly poor and shouldn’t spend my money on one, but my father gave me the money for a combined Christmas and birthday present. I was hanging onto it thinking about what other things I could spend the money on, but as soon as I saw the Kindle 2 I was sold.
I vastly prefer reading e-texts to paper. I love the fact that I can easily search an e-text if I forget who a character is or want to reread a description of something. I love that I can look up a word or even search the Internet or Wikipedia for something (assuming I’m reading on y laptop - but the same will be true of my Kindle!) without putting the book down or losing my place. I’m used to reading on a screen and I find paper books are often too bulky or awkward to really curl up with, and hardcover books are too heavy and easily damaged. I actually do more reading of the Dope and Wikipedia than the books I have, for largely these reasons! I saw a Sony Reader in an airport when I traveled in November, and I really liked the eInk display.
The only thing that kept me from buying a Kindle a long time ago was that I live in area that didn’t have access to Amazon’s Whispernet. Even though lot’s of people said that it was no problem downloading books via computer, being able to look up words or ideas as I read (and being able to surf the Internet anywhere - though I gather the Kindle browser is pretty bad) is a big portion of the value of e-texts for me, and I found it hard to justify spending the money on something that I couldn’t use all the features of. But when they announced the Kindle 2, they also expanded Whispernet coverage! I suppose I could have waited and bought a used Kindle 1 for a bargain, and still gotten the benefit of the Whispernet, but the new Kindle looks so awesome and I’ve waited so long, I just had to order one.
I should get it around March 2nd. I’ll be sure to let you all know what I think, if I’m not too busy reading!
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned here is that part of the reason for the expense of the Kindle device is that you also get unlimited whispernet service, which is basically like a cell phone network. You might have gotten your (non-smart) phone for practically nothing, but you’re paying for it by committing yourself to two years of monthly payments. Kindle pricing avoids that.
By building the service into the cost of the device, once you own the Kindle it is completely functional on its own for the life of the product, even if you don’t have a computer at all or, heck, even if you become homeless - as long as you can find somewhere to plug it in once in a while, and you are doing your wandering within the whispernet range.
Even if you can’t afford to buy new books, you can still read the ones stored on the Kindle, and Amazon does indeed offer some Kindle books for free (I’ve never checked how many, but I know I’ve seen them). And if you had a computer before you ended up on the hypothetical street, there are a number of free downloadable applications which allow you access other libraries of free books, which you can then download directly to the Kindle, using the whispernet. All this without worrying about going over your “minutes” or maxing out your data plan. To me, that’s a better deal than your $200 video game console.
The Kindle device probably would have been cheaper if Amazon had gone the TiVo route and added a monthly service fee, but I much prefer paying it all out at once than adding yet another monthly bill to the pile.
Too late for the edit…
It might be nice to have the option to get a lower-cost device without the whispernet capability, for those who don’t live within range, are happy simply downloading everything on their computers and transferring via USB, and aren’t that interested in looking things up in Wikipedia, but I personally think the convenience is worth it. YMMV.
Also a big big big big plus for me is that the New Yorker is now available on Kindle! I can’t wait to stop getting those dead trees delivered to my house!
You can look up words without the Whispernet. The dictionary is built-in, not remote.
The browser is indeed horrible. Useless, IMO. I looked at it once or twice while I was on vacation in Whispernet territory, and it was unusable.
Be careful on the Whispernet coverage. My area is now supposedly in the Whispernet range (though it’s the low-speed, not the high-speed range). Apparently nobody mentioned that to my Kindle, though, because it still gets no coverage.
I love mine. But then again, I live overseas and so having a bucket full of US book in my pocket is way cool. Having the New York Times each morning is very addictive.
But how many expat Americans are there? We are a very small market.
I am alarmed by the general level of buzz on this. The Kindle did more than OK as a debut product, but the announcement of Kindle 2.0 got very little coverage on the Net. I really want this sort of thing to work out.
My plan would be for Amazon to sell the books, but to license the software to all comers. Sony or Apple or someone could make a kick-butt device.
I don’t see how this invalidates their argument. If they pay $7 for a paperback, they can loan it to friends or resell it. You’ve said some kindle paperbacks cost 100% of that price, and they lose the ability to do either of those things with it.
So? I rarely loan or sell books in my collection. I’d much rather be able to seach for words and look things up while reading. The e-texts are worth more to me than than the dead-tree copies. For some people, they’re worth exactly the same. For you, they’re worth less. Amazon charges what they charge, and people can decide whether to buy them or not. What’s the argument?
Just want to point out that Sony has already made a Reader. I have one and I love it! The Sony Reader supports a lot of formats - BBeB Book, TXT, RTF, Adobe® PDF, Microsoft® Word, MP3 and unsecured AAC files. It can also display images - JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP!
Is the Sony reader using eInk? For me that is a huge plus of the Kindle.
Yes it does. Like I said, I got to see one at an airport in November where they had a woman giving demonstrations. I actually ran to a different concorse between flights just to see it. I was very impressed with it. It really is very nice and easy to read.
My 70-year old mother has a Kindle (I got it for her for a gift) which she uses all the time. She found a cool use of one feature. She reads a lot of long, involved historical novels with many characters. She showed me how whenever a new character is introduced, she makes an electronic note in the Kindle indicating who this character is (e.g. “Lord Nesmith is the son of Duke High-and-Mighty.”) Then if that character comes back into the plot some hundreds of pages later, she can look up her notes to see who he was and where he was introduced.
Ed
The Borders chain of book/music/movie stores around my area (San Jose, CA) actually sells the Sony readers in store, and usually have an operational unit on display. If you have any of their stores within easy reach, you may want to go see if they have one. That way you’d get a chance to see the Sony mode and eInk technology in general.
The Sony Reader I have (505) and the first Kindle share the same screen. The high-end Reader (the 700) and the new Kindle both still use the eInk screens, but the Sony has a touchscreen version and the Kindle now has 16 levels of gray.
I never denied that Kindle downloads are less flexible in some respects. Some people (like me) feel this is outweighed by the advantages - i.e. being able to buy the book instantly from anywhere, the fact that each additional book requires zero physical space in your bag or on your bookshelf, text search, etc.
Also, I believe you can share a Kindle book with family members by registering multiple Kindle devices under the same Amazon account.