I saw this as an email offer from Amazon this morning. Did they just lose their mind?
Retail is $150 for the latest 4GB Nano. What the hell? If you look in the list below they show a newer model for $134, and then show that 43"% of people are buying the old one at $349. I think not.
I hate to play devil’s advocate. Ok, I am totally lying, I love to play devil’s advocate. I had some real wow moments reading about the Kindle from Amazon and I decided to take a minute to go through the feature points and provide my own unique brand of commentary…
I look forward to hearing your comments, do you think this device is really going to sell well? I just don’t think the market is there.
- Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. This sounds great! Is it waterproof? Is it safe to take into the tub to read?
- Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. Ok, nice one. So I can’t back my books up in case it bombs?
- Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed. This is a good feature, but would it have cost less than $400 without the radio? Can’t we get a $200 LE version that I can hook up to the computer via USB?
- Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
- More than 88,000 books available, including 100 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers. How fast do they get posted? If Harry Potter drops today can I buy it online same day?
- New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise. It’s too much. Paperbacks are about $7 US, at least be competitive.
- Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy. Nice.
- Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly. I can see a use for this, but papers are so yesterday, why not a browser that lets me subscribe to RSS feeds?
- Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly. For who exactly? Cool, but why?
- More than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day. Now we are getting somewhere! But why can’t I choose my own by feeds?
- Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces. Again, is it waterproof? Would you use it in the can? Toss it in a backpack on a hike?
- Holds over 200 titles. Alrighty, I sure hope it has a great navigation system. That’s a lot of titles to sift through.
- Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours. That’s cool, but I gotta ask, what happens if it dies at the end of the last chapter! Oh that would suck.
- Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot. Hot spots are so common, and with a 200 book capacity, why not save users a ton of money and not have to subsidize wireless access. This device could have been much cheaper.
- No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read. Read the previous comment!
- Includes free wireless access to the planet’s most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org. Now that’s sweet.
- Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing. That’s slick, but why email? Why not an online storage kind of thing where you have an interface to upload and manage your documents? Better yet, why not USB for a thumbstick or an SD card slot?
This really is a nice device, and I get it. It just seems like a lot of shortcuts were made and that some technology choices were made for how cool they would be, not how practical. I am not sure an always on cellular radio is the way to go, you are just adding too much cost, making the device too financially unapproachable. USB sync works for iPod and people understand it. It’s the most popular mobile device on the planet. I am not sure I understand the cost benefit for the departure.
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