New Kindle with WiFi announced

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by Skydog

I have both the white and graphite and find I prefer the graphite. It is not black, it is graphite - a dark grey with keys labeled in a light gold color. Very attractive. The darker bezel makes the display background seem even lighter (and the difference with the new Pearl e-ink is quite noticeable). There is also no bright reflection from the graphite bezel when in the sunlight.

Many people have applied skins to their white Kindles to create the same result. Now it is not necessary.

Originally Posted by krish

It is easy to click the screen pictures & see the difference between graphite vs white models in the below 3G model page.
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireles...=sa_menu_kdp33

Feel of contrast to the eyes is way better in graphite compared to white.

Thanks for the info guys. I can't really tell the difference in screen contrast when comparing the pictures but I'll take your word that it makes a difference in person. I've heard it said numerous times before, as well. It's good to know it's not straight black. Maybe I'll try it out if I decide to upgrade my Kindle yet again. I'm still kind of holding onto hope that the Notion Ink Adam will show up before the end of the year, though.

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by afa

That's strange.

Checking on Amazon.com, it says that the Kindle store is still not available in Saudi (or UAE, for that matter). What's the point of having Whispernet if you can't actually buy any content?

I couldn't understand it at first either. The guy typed in his Amazon email account and password and 5 minutes later all his details were downloaded from Amazon. He actually bought the Kindle DX though a friend, so the Kindle was pre-loaded with other account information when it arrived.
Then last night he turned it on and downloaded Sherlock Holmes book (freebie)! Now he's waiting for the end of the week to see whether there are any charges on his Amazon account for Whispernet (billed weekly apparently). According to his contacts with Amazon it should be free of charge.
I'm waiting for him to go ahead and actually buy something now, but he wants to see whether there are any Whispernet charges first before trying that.

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Thanks for the info guys. I can't really tell the difference in screen contrast when comparing the pictures but I'll take your word that it makes a difference in person. I've heard it said numerous times before, as well. It's good to know it's not straight black. Maybe I'll try it out if I decide to upgrade my Kindle yet again. I'm still kind of holding onto hope that the Notion Ink Adam will show up before the end of the year, though.

I can testify that Kindle DX Perl screen a lot better contrast than Sony PRS-300.
I was reading in the the meeting room at work the other day during a presentation with lights off. You can still read it in semi-darkness without an external light source.
And yes, it was an interesting presentation

[suecsi]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Looks like it is significantly smaller, more than the sizes lead you to believe.

...

It definitely feels smaller and lighter in the hand - I was part of the video review for the UK that'll probably get posted late August. I also liked the smaller page forward/back buttons and the pad instead of a joystick - it is more like some mobile phones in that way. Some folks might not like the merging of the numbers and letters on the keyboard (like the DX) though. Side by side with my Kindle 2 I did feel it had better contrast but I have the font hack on my K2 so it was harder to tell.

I think the wi-fi is a great idea as I could browse to my Calibre server at home!

[charleski]

Originally Posted by Fbone

According to the USA Today interview with Jeff Bezos the kindles won't have epub support because they are moving too fast tech-wise and can't wait for 3rd party standards to catch up.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/20...zon29_VA_N.htm

Haha, that's a joke.

Q: Why doesn't Amazon support the popular "e-pub" standard used by your competitors and many libraries?

A: We are innovating so rapidly that having our own standard allows us to incorporate new things at a very rapid rate. For example: Whispersync (which uses wireless connections to sync your place in a book across devices) and changing font sizes.

The sync mechanism has absolutely nothing to do with the ebook format. All Whispersync's features would work just as well on epub as mobi. Every epub reader has the ability to change font sizes just as well as the Kindle can with mobi books. ePub might have its problems, but it's still far ahead of the dated and clunky mobi format.

Bezos needs to start treating the public with some respect and stop spinning the truth. The Kindle is mobi-only because he wants to lock people in to the Amazon ecosystem.

[clintbradford]

>> ... I pre-ordered the Graphite WiFi model to go with its big brother ...

Even this happy Kobo owner just ordered one ...

Long live Kobo!

Clint, K6LCS
http://www.clintbradford.com

[tmarks11]

wow, Amazon finally managed to get the ugly out of the Kindle. That is a nice lookign design; especially with 70% less bezel.

At $139, that is almost an impulse buy... in fact, I almost "impulse bought", until I saw the 27 Aug delivery date. After my vacation, after school starts (I teach, not learn); I guess I can wait a few months and see what I feel then. Anotehr kindle based reader around the house would be nice. My reading on my ipad is constantly interrupted by the 8yo and 4yo "my turn" requests.

I am very sure that they wouldn't try to steal the kindle reader from me. And at $140, if my wife did, I could always get another.

Originally Posted by charleski

Bezos needs to start treating the public with some respect and stop spinning the truth. The Kindle is mobi-only because he wants to lock people in to the Amazon ecosystem.

Amazon is smart. I always shop the amazon ebook store first because of the convenience factor. If the epub format could be easily pushed to a kindle reader, then I would have no motivation to shop there vs B&N or elsewhere. They might rope in a few more customers who are hard-core epub compatible reader types, but I strongly suspect that they would lose more ebook sales then they would gain.

Why does the retailer with the largest ebook sales have to match the format of retailers who are all tied for a very distant third place? That doesn't make good fiscal sense.

[Crowl]

A cunning move for them would be to add support to drm-free ePub, it would make it more appealing for existing ebook owners to switch to kindle then without the potential for them to lose sales to most other stores.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Crowl

A cunning move for them would be to add support to drm-free ePub, it would make it more appealing for existing ebook owners to switch to kindle then without the potential for them to lose sales to most other stores.

The problem being that most drm-free ePubs around are also available as drm-free Mobipocket.

Anyone with ePub that they've removed the DRM from will also be savvy enough to convert to Mobipocket format if they want to switch to Kindle.

For the average punter with DRMed ePubs, providing drm-free ePub support would do no good at all.

[Scarpad]

Am I crazy? I just bought a Nook,. which I like, and I just Preordered a Wifi Graphite Kindle. I figured I'll find the one I like best and sell the other. My only Complaint on the Nook is that I just can't find a comfortable way to hold it. It's a Tad Heavy too. The Kindle looks Lighter and a bit easier to hold. I guess we'll see.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by tmarks11

Why does the retailer with the largest ebook sales have to match the format of retailers who are all tied for a very distant third place? That doesn't make good fiscal sense.

Well sure, it makes perfect business sense. But trying to pretend they've locked their product to their own, proprietary format for reasons of functionality is just insulting their customers.

[fumanchu314159]

Originally Posted by charleski

But trying to pretend they've locked their product to their own, proprietary format for reasons of functionality is just insulting their customers.

You are probably right, but I do wonder if they might use their control over their own format to enable some of their little extras, such as comments, syncing reading location between devices, shared highlighting, etc. Perhaps this can all easily be done with ePub, but I have had my own experiences with trying to add unforeseen features to software while being constrained by existing standards and there are plenty of times you need some tiny change in the standard or else you just can't quite pull it off like you want to. Sometimes the problems are not at all obvious until you are mired deep in the details.

On the other hand, I do think it would be helpful for Amazon to be totally up front about the fact that they are not in the reader business but in the book business. They have no interest (I assume) in putting Sony, etc. out of the reader business as long as Amazon can be the one everyone buys books from. Thus Amazon's development of Kindle-4-XYZ reader software for a wide range of devices. Razors for free! Need some blades??

[AFK_Matrix]

I am very interested in the Kindle now it looks decent and the screen seems to have a great contrast, thats what I love about my Sony PRS-505.

But I have a few reservations about the books available to buy on Amazon as I only really read Sci Fi books. I assume I can take my epub books and use Calibre to convert them for use on the Kindle? But could I also go and buy books from Mobipocket and then read these on the Kindle?

Can I go anywhere else for books that I can use on the Kindle or am I stuck with the Amazone shop?

[Quake1028]

I'll stick with my $120 K2 for now, but at sometime in the future, maybe after a price drop, I will upgrade to the 3G K3 for the screen improvements.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Mr. Dalliard

Is Amazon dumping this to kill off competition, or are its competitors simply overcharging?

Anyway, extremely tempting, but my heart is set on 1 9+" reader.
Perhaps I should just get one anyway, to tide me over.

Neither.
It is a matter of overhead, supply chain logistics, and sheer volume economics.

Fixed costs (design, testing, software development, customer support, advertising, etc) get spread over a larger sales volume so that what makes up 20% of the cost when you're selling 100,000 units makes up 2% when you sell a million. This helps Amazon (and B&N, reportedly) in two ways; in setting their price and in buying components. It is easy for them to ask for and get volume discounts because component builders get to offset *their* fix costs across a large guaranteed volume.

Add in that Amazon owns major chunks of the IP that goes into Kindle, which other vendors have to pay for (ahem, ADOBE DRM support) and that they own massive datacenters that generate income off IT services so the back-end of Whispersync comes practically for free.

Finally, they can generate satisfactory revenue at lower profit margins; loss-leader pricing doesn't actually require the vendor to *lose* money. All it means is they settle for less profit.

Amazon could generate US$5-10 million in profit off Kindle if they sold the hardware with just a 1% profit margin, whereas a vendor moving 100000 units would need a 10% margin to generate the same net income. Smaller vendors, moving say 25,000 units a year, could need as much as a 40% margin to get that high. And depending on their overhead and up-front start-up investment to *get* into the game they may very well *need* to generate millions a year in net to justify staying in the business.

eBook readers are no different than any emerging product category; you start with a few pioneers who establish the product category, this draws interest from competing entreneurs who look for ways to get a piece of the emerging market and establish themselves in the game. Some succeed, some fail. Eventualy the category itself succeeds or fails. If it succeeds it tends to go through a boom phase where the demand for the product explodes and the economics of the business change, this in turn drives a wave of consolidation so that where there were once dozens of aspiring players that were treading water under the original small-scale economics only a handful survive the transition to the newer economies of scale. This, in turn, drives a further wave of consolidation (or two or three) until you end up (eventually) with a mature market with a handful of established reputable players. This has happened before (over and over, in fact; in calculators in the 70's; in PCs in the 80's, in MP3 players in the late 90s, and HDTVs right now) it *will* happen again (I'm thinking webpads and tablets).

What is unusual about ebook readers is the apparent speed with which the economics have changed since B&N entered the game. It's not unheard of; competitive markets evolve faster than closed, regulated, protectionist markets. But still, in barely 9 months, the category volume break-even point has moved from tens of thousands to at least hundreds of thousands, possibly into the millions (depending on who else bows out in the next few months).

I think pretty much everybody around here can name the candidates at risk, no? And the scary thing is that Sony, expected to move a million or so units in 2010, can be plausibly projected as a casualty of the economic reset. And if Sony can't compete...

Things are moving way faster than previously expected. If I had to guess its partly because the iPad puts an upper limit on what a "premium" reader can reasonably charge, partly because of the anticipated wave of low-cost webpads headed our way, and partly that the biggest players Amazon and B&N *can* prosper with single-digit profit margins.

The future of eink readers is small and cheap; nobody can debate this. The future of reader *looks* to be in big and efficient. Expect more casualties among the small regional vendors, especially the late arrivals.