Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Eschwartz, the title of this thread is "Why No SD", not "why the Kindle is superior as it is". Many of us, include myself, have given reasons why they think an SD chip is a preferred part of their e-reader (liseuse).
Amazon wants to be the Model T of e-readers. Minimal features at a low price. Grab the mass market. That's fine, if that's what you want. If it's not, you find other, smaller providers. They cost more, but you get what you want. My concern is that the Kindle will drive out all the other niche players out of the business.
A non-ereader example is music players. There is not a single player in the market available new, that handles both external storage and has a user replaceable battery. (if I'm wrong, please let me know, as I want one...) There used to be, back 5+ years ago, but most of them didn't have any external storage, or were limited to 2 GB chips (FAT 16). So I buy Sansa Clips and throw them away if the battery fails... And I don't worry about the time it takes to load a 64 GB chip, I just pop it out and stick it into the replacement.
So many of us here are extolling the advantage of SD chips. (A standard, user replaceable battery is just as important.) I'm still running a 1st gen e-ink reader because it has all the features I want, and I'm not trapped in a "walled garden". That's my taste. YMMV.
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And the title of my rant can be "why I think SD cards in an ereader are the most worthless feature ever, and why the devices that define themselves by that, rather than by actual features, will REMAIN niche players (which is not good for long-term survivability)". Because I remain resolutely unconvinced by any argument that involves the words (stated or unstated) "~1MB ebooks" and "2 GB storage isn't enough
for my personal needs".
No, no, NO. Even taking into account the all-powerful "personal needs"... there is simply no way anyone needs to bump up their onboard storage FROM 1,500 books to
32,000+. When do you plan on reading all those, and why is it impossible to get to a computer anytime in the intervening
two decades???
I was not the person who brought up niche players in a thread about, as you so rightly pointed out, the
Kindle not having an SD card.
Until, pitching in
at around halfway through (so far) some genius of the galaxy got us started on the current round of idiocy whereby your ereader is supposed to double as your MP3 player, in which case the below argument would apply here too... but I am strongly of the opinion that anyone who treats their ereader as a primary MP3 player is mentally deficient,
so....
Music players are obviously different. A voracious consumer of ebooks can still store over a years worth of books on hardly any storage, a voracious consumer of pretty much any other media needs expandable storage to last out the week (or a really good day of movies).
User-replaceable batteries are an interesting and totally different topic, and I do think it would be awesome if more devices had them, as it would make any given device last a lot longer without requiring sending it into the manufacturer etc...