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Originally Posted by ~Kate
Today Target had a Kindle on display here in Kansas. As Ajax above said, it was tethered and had a looped demo running on it. You couldn't work with the OS.
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This is one thing Kobo in Canada did really well. Larger Indigo stores had up to eight units tethered and turned on. There was a very straight-forward "try me" poster with step-by-step instructions for opening a book, turning pages, changing font sizes, selecting another book, etc. Plus, when I was there, an Indigo salesperson -- not a techy geek or smarmy marketing type from head office -- to ask questions of. My rep was a kindly late 50s-ish grandma able to explain the basics.
One the best selling lines was: "last week we ran out of paper copies of XXX best-seller, but you could still instantly order the Kobo version". This coming from a bricks-and-mortar sales-person was impressive. I mean, if I buy this does it mean you lose your job 'cause I never need to shop in person again? Not to mention revealing you can use the Kobo to check out free library books ....
The other thing that struck me -- this was the first or second day the product was on sale -- three of us, around 11 am on Saturday, were in line at the cash, after having heard the spiel and played with the working units. And the average age wasn't 20-something ... I'd guess the collective age of the three of us close to 185! So, for those of us who "knew where we were when John Kennedy was shot", the affordable Kobo has strong appeal.
Kindle ought to take advantage of this kind of full-featured access instead of a canned demo. But perhaps Target (which doesn't operate in Canada so I don't have direct experience with them) isn't set up to answer questions like Indigo can with the Kobo.