
Amazon is set to give us Kindle
, just in time for the holidays it would seem.
It certainly looks impressive:
There is no monthly fee, you don’t pay for the cellular connection, and you get content straight to the device. What’s the catch? Well, the only one that I can see is that it uses the older EDGE cellular technology for downloads. But they claim that you can get an entire novel in about a minute, so I don’t see how that’s too big of a problem – especially since, again, they’re paying for it.
Time will tell, but I think that it’s an interesting platform that bears watching. The ability to download the first chapter (or a few chapters) from a book to preview it before you decide to buy it is a good hook – as are the free two-week previews available for the newspapers and magazines that are offered.
The ability to email a file – Microsoft Word, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files – for 0.10¢ is interesting, but could prove costly. As would the monthly 0.99¢ subscription to your favorite blog (if supported). Of course, if you spend a lot of time on a train or travelling, then this might be worth the monthly cost, especially given the projected lifespan and recharge time of the device.
It’s a closed device, so that limits the ability to put your own content on it – but given enough time, the hackers of the world will start to have their way with it. If Amazon is smart, they’ll let the hackers play with it and not try to break whatever they do – selling more devices after someone opens it up might let them sell more books/subscriptions (where they really make their money on the devices). I can’t say that I’ll be the first to get one, but if they come down in price a bit, and perhaps add some interesting features – either from Amazon or via hacking – the I can say that I’d be interested enough to consider getting one of my own (unless someone wants to lend me one to try out……)



