Why no SD cards?

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by TuxGirl

I honestly think that amazon removed a lot of these features to make things more simple for their typical customer. I've spent many many many hours helping people on the kindle forum and kindle help forum on amazon. From what I've seen there and with people I know in person, the majority of users barely know how to do the most basic of functions on their kindles. More options would honestly confuse them. Honestly, plenty of people don't even understand what WiFi is and how it works. They haven't the slightest idea what an SD card is...

While this may be true that older people or atechnical ones do not know about an SDcard, but this is not a reason to strip it out. In fact, the presence of an SDcard slot does not incur more functions to the eReader, I mean to complicate the things. In all devices I have, the SDcard is "transparent" to the user (for instance, the origin of books and music is irrelevant for my eReader and music players, respectively).

And of course, the basic laws of marketing allow the designer to split the "only one" into two categories, for idiots and for geniuses. It's not even need to do separate factories for those two products, simply program the robots not to solder the slot and its logic. An additional line in the firmware (IF SD_slot = 0 THEN SKIP_SD_CARD) won't require a big intellectual investment either.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by mr_nihilism

Just my guess but I suspect people do want more customization from their Kindle, but for many the Kindle pretty much represents the only game in town. I don't think the Kindle would be what it is with it's limited customization if there was another company threatening their lunch money.

Amazon offers what it does because it can.

I think it is more that they offer what they do because they know that the things they leave out are not actually high enough priorities to enough people to make it worth Amazon's time adding them.

The combination of the best single ecosystem for books, hardware that covers the most important features reliably and good quality customer support means that most people are happy with what they offer.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When Amazon first brought out the Kindle, there were other Readers out there and Amazon had to try to do something to be different or at least not worse. Amazon came out with 3G, the Keyboard, speakers for sound without needing a headphone so you could listen to audiobooks or MP3. It also had an SD card slot.

Now that there isn't such competition in the US other than Kobo, & B&N. Amazon doesn't feel the need to stand out all that much (IMHO).

You could say that they don't feel the need to stand out, but the other way to look at things might be that they have focused on the main purpose of a kindle, ensuring that they have the most important features to enhance its primary purpose of reading books (especially those from amazon) while still being able to hit particular pricepoints.

Things like 3g and the keyboard enhanced the reading (or buying) experience so got improved in subsequent versions, audio and sd cards did not so they were left for other readers or tablets instead.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

But if all you want is a single function, totally non-flexible gadget, and are happy with the "walled garden" approach, then the Kindle is perfect.

It is interesting the bias people can indicate with their choices of phrases just contrast 'totally non-flexible' with the equally applicable 'focused' in that above sentence and it totally changes the tone.

Personally, I have a number of phones and tablets that are more flexible, but as long as I am wearing a jacket with a suitable pocket I am always going to be carrying my ereader with me as it is the best option by far for me when it comes to reading books.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, I do think the H2O is the biggest competition to the Kindle Voyage. I hope the H2O does really well as maybe that would give Amazon the idea that people want more features and customization options.

Interestingly, the Kindle provides much better exporting of annotations than the Kobo (at least from what I've read).

But yeah, better margin control and custom fonts is a no-brainer.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

While this may be true that older people or atechnical ones do not know about an SDcard, but this is not a reason to strip it out. In fact, the presence of an SDcard slot does not incur more functions to the eReader, I mean to complicate the things. In all devices I have, the SDcard is "transparent" to the user (for instance, the origin of books and music is irrelevant for my eReader and music players, respectively).

And of course, the basic laws of marketing allow the designer to split the "only one" into two categories, for idiots and for geniuses. It's not even need to do separate factories for those two products, simply program the robots not to solder the slot and its logic. An additional line in the firmware (IF SD_slot = 0 THEN SKIP_SD_CARD) won't require a big intellectual investment either.

I think the phrase "strip it out" implies a fundamental misunderstanding of Amazon's approach to the Kindle, because the phrasing itself sets the expectation that an SD card slot is an intrinsic component of any reader. You can't strip something out if it's not already there.

Amazon didn't buy or build a ton of readers and take the card slots out of them. They simply chose not to include a card slot in the Kindle 2 and succeeding generations.

They didn't strip it out; they simply chose to use the cloud to replace the aspects of its functionality Amazon thought most important.

Amazon didn't want to spend the money adding hardware they didn't think was necessary.

It was a choice not to add, not a decision to remove.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

It was a choice not to add, not a decision to remove.

It was a decision to remove as Amazon originally did have an SD card slot. Same with audio and TTS.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Not space, but accessibility.
Think for once what would happen to your nicest ever eReader you had when it will develop a memory fault. Like a scientist with Alzheimer, it's an irreplaceable loss.
When an SD card get broken, another one could be fit in. The books should have been archived properly on another storage medium.

I don't think that's a valid concern. There are thousands of potential single-points of failure in a reader, and total loss of use of the internal flash memory is not especially high among them. Adding an SD slot just adds ANOTHER possible component to fail, and since it's mechanical and exposed and manipulated by humans, it's probably more likely to fail in the device's lifetime than any solid-state component inside.

Having an SD slot is nice if it's something you want. It's meaningless, and perhaps even a negative in some circumstances, if you don't.
Having reader choices with and without the option is good. It's certainly no crime to design one without one.

ApK

p.s. In my personal experience, the micro USB jack is the most likely component to fail....

[Rizla]

If the North American market was packed with a variety of e-ink brands, then no one would mind that Amazon only produce a dumbed-down e-reader device. The problem is there is no diversity. Amazon has pushed out all competition by subsidizing its devices with content sales.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

If the North American market was packed with a variety of e-ink brands, then no one would mind that Amazon only produce a dumbed-down e-reader device. The problem is there is no diversity. Amazon has pushed out all competition by subsidizing its devices with content sales.

But Amazon isn't the only game in town. I buy most of my books at Amazon, but my main reading device is currently my Onyx T68 Lynx. Nobody's forced to read on a Kindle if it doesn't meet their needs.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But Amazon isn't the only game in town. I buy most of my books at Amazon, but my main reading device is currently my Onyx T68 Lynx.

You also do not live in USA ;-)
Amazon did drive some competitors, that I will not name here, out of market in USA.

Fortunately, they did not kill the innovation, like we discussed in the other thread. Kindle Voyage seems to be quite innovative.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

You also do not live in USA ;-)

Irrelevant. I bought my T68 online, just as anyone in the US could do, if they chose to do so.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It was a decision to remove as Amazon originally did have an SD card slot. Same with audio and TTS.

No, it was simply a decision not to add that was decided differently the second time the issue came up.

You persist in assuming that a fundamental aspect of being a Kindle is that it have either an SD slot or audio; neither is true.

Just because something happened once, does not mean it is required to happen again.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Irrelevant. I bought my T68 online, just as anyone in the US could do, if they chose to do so.

Isn't it even sold on amazon.com?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Crowl

Isn't it even sold on amazon.com?

I believe it is, yes. It's certainly sold on amazon.co.uk