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Yesterday, the nets were abuzz over the launch of Kindle, a new ebook from Amazon. The gadget costs $400 and holds about 200 books. Today, electronics geeks have had ample time to test the device, and reports have been pouring in as to whether or not it is worth the significant price tag. The answer seems to be no. You see, the $400 you plunk down for a Kindle, which connects to the internet via a high-speed EVDO connection, is just the beginning. You also have to pay for each book you want to read and for blogs or newspapers, which you must subscribe to. Here's Boing Boing's Joel Johnson on the matter:
The reason, I suspect, for the nickel and diming from Amazon is the always-on EVDO connection. While some of the cost that must be paid to the wireless carrier are surely cooked into the initial price of the Kindle, the costs tacked on to content subscriptions are an attempt to recoup charges Amazon will incur from Sprint over the life of an active device.There's nothing inherently wrong with spreading the cost of the wireless subscription over separate subscriptions...Yet...it puts a financial throttle on the amount of content one can reasonable afford to put on the device.
I'm an edge case, perhaps, but I read several hundred sites a day, with thousands of posts and stories. I could easily spend hundreds of dollars a month to get that content pushed to my Kindle—the same content I get for free today.It's great that Amazon is taking risks, and we do see the possible benefits that such a device would have, but...is anyone else struck with how it seems so far fetched nowadays that people might actually go to a library and take out books for free instead of purchasing them? Anyway, we digress: the Kindle sounds promising, but it's clearly not perfect.
· Amazon Kindle eBook Review (Verdict: Confusing, Expensive...but Promising) [Boing Boing Gadgets]
· Review Paella: 8 Opinions on Amazon’s Kindle E-Book Reader [Gadget Lab]
· Gizmodo Kindle Coverage [Gizmodo]