Color Kindle thoughts....

[NavyDad6]

Yes, color E-ink is available now, at least according to the NYT article last week.

No, Amazon will not comment on its plans on releasing a Color Kindle. In fact, they go so far as to say it is not even a thought at this point.

Why?

It is NOVEMBER... If Amazon were to show the slightest interest in developing a Color Kindle for release, it would KILL their expected Christmas sales of the Kindle 3.

I would bet, that right now, there is a Color Kindle (I christen it the CK ) already developed. Amazon will probably announce it next Spring after the technology is mature and more importantly... profitable.

Remember, they are in business to make money, not to keep every salivating, rabid Kindle fan happy. I am describing myself by the way.

Just my 2 cents.

[bZkindle]

I've never really understood the big desire for color. (okay, charts and graphs I can see).
I for one am quite happy with black and white.
I do hope amazon doesn't cave to LCD in any case.

[NavyDad6]

Magazines subscriptions...

Graphic Novels...

Newspapers...

Textbooks...

Right now, the Kindle is great for fiction readers but when you get to some non-fiction there are problems.

For instance, I bought Stephen Hawking's A Brief Moment in Time because you need the pictures to understand the theories.

My point is that the Kindle is great at displaying most books electronically, but not ALL.

[TheKindleWorm]

For me personally, I'm happy without having a colour device at this point in time. Most of the items I read don't even have any images - so it's all about the text.

If more publishers took the time to fill their Amazon cookbooks, for example, with gorgeous colour photos - then perhaps I'd feel that a colour display might be pretty nice. But you're lucky if you get any images at all. I feel that most publishers are just plain lazy when it comes to producing books for the Kindle (and other ereading devices)

Colour would also be nice if we could view Kindle content via book covers. That would be a bonus.

I'm sure Amazon have got a number of colour prototypes in the works and possibly we'll see a colour device next autumn - but whether that's an e-ink device remains to be seen.

[Barty]

Amazon may have a holographic ereader in their labs for all we know. I'm sure they're looking at everything that is out there.

But, so far amazon appears to have shied away from anything that compromises the best reading experience for readers -- no LCD, no touch screen -- so I expect they won't embrace color until it's ready, which means not this year. If I had to bet, I'd put money on them coming out with nothing new til next summer and making a modest price drop, like $15 or $20, to goose Xmas sales.

[CyberpunkDad]

I have a feeling that when a color reader comes out by Amazon it will have a negative effect on ebook pricing. Color is going to increase production costs quit a bit. It's also going to increase document sizes and have an effect on whispernet etc. Lastly there is the issue of all the books currently in eink format. Publishers are going to pass that update cost on. And Mazon needs to be ready to have a plan for the masses that suddenly want all of their existing b&w versions colorized.

It's a great opportunity for Amazon. Akin really to Lucas selling and reselling better and better versions of star wars only to turn around and do the same thing again on new media.

[JeremyR]

I dunno, to me the main business in books is novels and non-fiction, non-reference books (like political books or biographies or whatever).

That doesn't need color. And really, most stuff that need color, also need a larger form factor. Magazines, textbooks, even comics are going to be less than ideal on a small e-reader.

But if you have a DX size color e-reader, that's going to be very expensive. I mean, the DX is what, $400? Add color and you'd likely be more than an iPad, much less an Android tablet.

And on the flip side, since you don't really read such things for hours like you do reading books, I'm not sure how important e-ink is.

So I think Amazon might consider the NookColor tablet route. Especially as they have an Android store in the works, apparently.

[blackcat555]

A Chinese company, Hanvon will sell an ereader with a color display using technology from E Ink in March 2011

It is not expensive, US$440 for 9.68inch display

I believe a Color Kindle will be coming soon

http://www.slashgear.com/hanvon-colo...fi3g-08112757/

[WS64]

Originally Posted by NavyDad6

No, Amazon will not comment on its plans on releasing a Color Kindle. In fact, they go so far as to say it is not even a thought at this point.

Why?

It is NOVEMBER... If Amazon were to show the slightest interest in developing a Color Kindle for release, it would KILL their expected Christmas sales of the Kindle 3.

I don't think so.

Right now Amazon does not deliver to outside USA anymore (no idea about Canada).
In Europe (except England, different deal there, but amazon.co.uk does not deliver Kindles to outside UK) it is impossible to get a Kindle 3 right now. Amazon says it takes 2 months => Too late for Christmas.

Amazon does not even have enough K3s available to make Christmas sales in Europe, so I guess they an announced color Kindle would not make any difference here.

[enkov]

If you want a color device - go for an iPad. Nothing beat IPS matrix for a color quality.

LG has some kind of good color eInk samples but nothing about the prices yet.

Also, adding three or four color filters to the B&W eInk will lower the resolution and contrast. So it will go for a tricks as overdrives, combinations of pixels and so on. No, thanks. We will want to MEMS and other e-Ink-like technologies to be improved more and to have an affordable price. There are many, many e-Ink-like (paper like) technologies in the labs yet but only eInk Vizplex/Pearl was on mass production.