kindle2 - some thoughts on ebook reading

[HaemishM]

It does seem like the media completely overlooks the Nook Color in all the tablet discussions, and I don't know if it's because B&N's marketing sucks or what.

The truth points to itself.

[Draegan]

I want an Kindle Fire.

Now plx.

[schad]

I"m interested in seeing a Nook Color vs Kindle Fire comparison.  It does seem like the media completely overlooks the Nook Color in all the tablet discussions, and I don't know if it's because B&N's marketing sucks or what.

[Numtini]

I"m interested in seeing a Nook Color vs Kindle Fire comparison.  It does seem like the media completely overlooks the Nook Color in all the tablet discussions, and I don't know if it's because B&N's marketing sucks or what.

B&N has positioned the Nook as an ereader, not a tablet. They've slowly changed that a little bit, but even now look at the Fire vs. Nook sites. The Fire is all about video, the web, apps, oh and it reads books. The Nook Color is about reading. And there's some apps and the web. AFAIK the only way to get video is to rip something and transfer it where the Fire streams all the amazon video content.

[Tebonas]

No Kindle Fire for Europeans yet? I guess the Content Mafia strikes again.

[schad]

Sadly the fire, like amazon prime itself, is available in the US only.

[Trippy]

Amazon Prime is also available in the UK, Japan, Germany and France.

[HaemishM]

I"m interested in seeing a Nook Color vs Kindle Fire comparison.  It does seem like the media completely overlooks the Nook Color in all the tablet discussions, and I don't know if it's because B&N's marketing sucks or what.

B&N has positioned the Nook as an ereader, not a tablet. They've slowly changed that a little bit, but even now look at the Fire vs. Nook sites. The Fire is all about video, the web, apps, oh and it reads books. The Nook Color is about reading. And there's some apps and the web. AFAIK the only way to get video is to rip something and transfer it where the Fire streams all the amazon video content.

Hell, I didn't even know the damn Nook was anything BUT an e-Reader until I started seeing comparisons between it and the Fire. B&N has done a rotten fucking job of positioning the hardware. Their marketing department should be fired. It's even apparent in their web site. Unlike Amazon, they really have no way for self-pubbed authors like me to promote my eBook on the site - unlike Amazon, who has shittons of communities (some even allow author whoring), all sorts of "If you like this" promos, tags, etc. etc. Their guys really really just don't get marketing in this century.

[Dren]

Was interested in Kindle-Fire until I read it was Wi-Fi only.  Need 3G or no purchase from me. 

[Viin]

Get an iPad.

[Numtini]

Was interested in Kindle-Fire until I read it was Wi-Fi only.  Need 3G or no purchase from me.

The "gimmick" on the Kindle is the ones that have 3G access have no fee associated with it. It's entirely part of the purchase price. You buy it and it simply functions. They can do that because the browser is b/w, the e-ink is slow to respond, and it's generally a lousy browsing experience. It's something you use if you're desperate. So the actual use of the network is minimal. If you make a device who's highlight is streaming amazon prime, obviously there's going to be some bandwidth usage. And they don't want to muddy the waters with some having a monthly subscription and others not.

[Quinton]

I bet they'll do a 3G version for the second generation if things go well.

They're clearly starting with mass market which is super price conscious and not likely to want to pay for a second cell phone bill.

They've trimmed the BOM as much as possible (no expensive 3G radio, camera, extra sensors, excessive memory, or other bells and whistles) to hit their $200 price point (I suspect they're not losing money here, but definitely not making any real profit on the hardware, which is fine given their business model), but made some good tradeoffs -- OMAP4430@1GHz is a nice CPU and should be able to drive a 1024x600 display well -- this thing shouldn't have the horrible performance that a lot of the ultra-cheapo tablets have.

[Zetor]

I've been looking at upgrading my venerable Sony PRS-600, and one of its advantages is that a single one-hour charge is enough for a ~month of casual reading - mostly during a daily 1.5hour commute. How does the kindle3 measure up?

(The newer devices aren't really what I'm looking for - I have a smartphone and laptop that can do all that. E-readers are for reading books, demmit! /get_off_my_lawn  )

[Quinton]

With wifi off, I seem to get 3-4 weeks of often pretty heavy reading out of my kindle (third generation -- what they now call "kindle keyboard") between charges.  When the low battery warning shows up, I can keep reading for another hour or two, then throw it on the charger (usually just do this overnight but I think it charges to full within 2 hours).

[Sky]

I suspect they're not losing money here

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/28/analyst-amazon-is-likely-losing-50-per-kindle-fire/

If I had the dough, I'd pick up the Fire. Hate getting a first-gen product, but it looks pretty good from where I'm sitting. We'll see if any more grant money comes along for e-reader training materials :)

[naum]

I suspect they're not losing money here

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/28/analyst-amazon-is-likely-losing-50-per-kindle-fire/

If I had the dough, I'd pick up the Fire. Hate getting a first-gen product, but it looks pretty good from where I'm sitting. We'll see if any more grant money comes along for e-reader training materials :)

Even if this is true or even the loss figure higher, it still going to be a net winner in profit for Amazon. Seriously, Amazon just trumped the market with this price (< $200) and they're going to have trouble keeping any in stock as I predict units will fly off the "virtual" shelf. But, Amazon, unlike Apple, isn't making off the hardware (for Apple, iTunes started as a loss leader, a way to pump sales of iPods) -- they've got the largest, by a wide margin, catalog of books and their music and video repository will still be on par with any competitor. Basically, they'll subsidize the hardware especially when it takes the guise of an Amazon Content Delivery Device.

Tap! $9.99. Tap! $13.99. Tap! $9.99. Etc. And so on…

No USB cord required (in your face Steve Jobs!).

And as the device becomes as ubiquitous as Kindle (even besting iPads), developers will flock to Amazon App Store, with Amazon gleefully skimming their 30% take off the top.

Personally, the Kindle Touch is more appealing to me, especially this feature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbzOLua2baw

But at that price point, I imagine Amazon is going to struggle to keep up with demand.

[Tebonas]

Oh, there is a Kindle touch as well I can't get in Europe? I get that with the content-heavy Fire, but why can't they sell this here?

[Numtini]

I guess the Fire doesn't have access to the standard Android Marketplace?

[Quinton]

I guess the Fire doesn't have access to the standard Android Marketplace?

Unclear if it will or not yet.  There is some indication that they'll at least support side-loading of apps, but I haven't seen a definitive statement about that either.

My assumption remains that the ecosystem is more valuable to them if they remain compatible with it and don't aggressively go all walled-garden, but we shall have to see, I suppose.

[naum]

I guess the Fire doesn't have access to the standard Android Marketplace?

Unclear if it will or not yet.  There is some indication that they'll at least support side-loading of apps, but I haven't seen a definitive statement about that either.

My assumption remains that the ecosystem is more valuable to them if they remain compatible with it and don't aggressively go all walled-garden, but we shall have to see, I suppose.

How much you want to wager against a walled-garden setup?

How many times did Amazon/Bezos mention "Android" or "Google" during the big PR announcement?

So much for an "open" (Android is not open, not in a GPL sense, not in an open source model (sorry, releasing source code AFTER is not "open"), and certainly not open as exists in the fragmented nature of android hardware implementations where it is a stew of various versions and bastardized "OS covering" flavors))… …yeah, you can root the devices, just like can be done to the Apple products, but 99% of the customer base are not going to go there.

[Viin]

It shows a marketplace in one of their images:


Anyone hear if any local retailers will have this? I imagine not, but I'd like to see one in my hands before buying ...

[caladein]

I guess the Fire doesn't have access to the standard Android Marketplace?

Unclear if it will or not yet.  There is some indication that they'll at least support side-loading of apps, but I haven't seen a definitive statement about that either.

If it supports side-loading out of the box it's already got a leg up on my Android phone (AT&T ).

[RhyssaFireheart]

Well, according to this from Mashable, it's Amazon's version of the Android Marketplace, not the actual Android Marketplace.  Supposedly that means Amazon will be vetting all apps allowed to make sure they run on the Fire, versus being made to work with Android.

It also mentions that the Fire is using 2.3 which isn't "approved" for tablets, but what difference would that make in the long run?

[naum]

Yes, that SS is Amazon Appstore for "Android".

Amazon/Bezos were asked (will scour for a link, too busy right now) about other book formats like ePub (limitations of AZW/MOBI/PRC will become much more apparent to color Kindle Fire readers) and the response was "we're open to a conversation about it".

It might sound like Sony v. Betamax all over, but the ePub file format is far superior for image (and heavy use of tables, charts, diagrams, even programming code) laden books -- publishers like O'Reilly don't even offer Kindle versions of many books and those titles I have purchased on Kindle, I have been displeased with. Reading an epub version (on iBooks or other eReaders) is a much better experience.

Also, while Apple iPad steam will take a hit, and Google might be chaffed at Amazon trumping (though it seems to me they really don't care as long as you continue to ping Google with your "Silk" browser and they can keep showing you some ads), the big winner might be multi-mobile-platform app bundling toolkits like Corona or PhoneGap. Write your app, programming in Lua and these "wrapper" APIs, and auto-port to each (iOS, Mac, Android, Amazon) appstore.

[Sky]

Most of the stuff the library is offering is epub, with a few pdfs. They'll have to support epub at some point, or suffer for it.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Most of the stuff the library is offering is epub, with a few pdfs. They'll have to support epub at some point, or suffer for it.

This above is one reason that I've hesitated to look into e-books more deeply - the format.  I've got a Kindle app on my phone but how popular is that compared to any other format that can be used on different devices?  It sounds as if epub is more common and Amazon will just have to give in, but right now, if you get a Fire you're stuck with the Amazon format until they decide to change it.  It's not as if I couldn't get another app to read e-books for my phone if I needed to, or if I had a more "generic" Android tablet I could have both/multiple e-book formats.  But the Fire wouldn't give that option unless someone rooted it (which might not take long the way those modders seem to work).

And yet, the Nook Color still seems more appealing to me for some reason.  It might be the design.  The pics of the Fire make it look really blockish to me.

[HaemishM]

You can get e-Reader apps for your Android phone that read ePub's. Aldiko is the one I use.

[Quinton]

How much you want to wager against a walled-garden setup?

How many times did Amazon/Bezos mention "Android" or "Google" during the big PR announcement?

So much for an "open" (Android is not open, not in a GPL sense, not in an open source model (sorry, releasing source code AFTER is not "open"), and certainly not open as exists in the fragmented nature of android hardware implementations where it is a stew of various versions and bastardized "OS covering" flavors))… …yeah, you can root the devices, just like can be done to the Apple products, but 99% of the customer base are not going to go there.

I'm actually pretty confident that while Amazon will focus on their curated app store as the primary experience, they're not likely to completely close up the platform to iOS / PSP / DS levels of walled-garden-ness.  I may be wrong, who knows, but I'd wager a decent chunk of change that you will be able to install apps from other sources than their store.

No, Android is open in the Apache2 sense, the code is there for you to use and build products with, no strings attached -- thus products like Kindle Fire, Nook, and other things that we never thought of and had no involvement in.  A huge success as far as open platforms, really.

The Nexus One, Nexus S, and Xoom all support unlockable bootloaders, intentionally allowing users to flash custom modified OS builds -- this has been true of all the lead devices since Nexus One where we started the trend.  A number of OEMs are starting to do similar things on their own variant builds as well.  Not a perfect world, but nice to have a way to flash your custom build without having to take advantage of a security exploit ("jailbreaking", "rooting", etc) to do it.

Of course for the vast majority of Android devices (AT&T has been a straggler here, but they've recently changed their tune on this, in part due to Amazon's market!) you can install software from non-Market sources, which is also a more open environment than having a single entity (be that the OS vendor, the OEM, or the carrier) having exclusive control over what apps you can install on your hardware without jumping through hoops that as you point out, most consumers won't be bothered to do.

[Quinton]

Back to Kindle.... 

I am weak and ordered the new non-touch Kindle.  I like it a lot.  It's another incremental respin of the basic form-factor with improvements over the third gen (now called "Kindle Keyboard") similar to third gen's improvements over second:
- display is the same size, but refreshes a bit more quickly
- no more keyboard. new keyboard button brings up a soft keyboard driven by the dpad. serviceable if you only use this to occasionally go-to-location or whatnot.
- the lefthand and righthand next/previous page buttons are similar to the third gen. easy to hit but not too easy
- overall device is slightly lighter and a little smaller. it's now very compact.

[NowhereMan]

So it isn't the most pressing thing since I'm a filthy Euro that isn't good enough for the Fire but what is the reading experience like with a full colour tablet type screen? One of the appealing things about kindles for me is that I haven't got a bright screen to stare into for hours at a time if I'm reading (which is one of the biggest issues with using the kindle app on my phone, even more so than screen size). The other question I've got is what are the alternatives to Kindle like? I means supply side rather than handset, one of the attractions of Amazon is how easy it is to get the books and I've loaded up with most of the decent classics they offer for free but for the majority of books that I want to read they don't seem to have a kindle version. Are there other equally easy to use sites with better selections? Is it a pain in the ass loading up books from them? Can I grab a decent handset that can do kindle format stuff as well just in case Amazon win the format wars and everyone else just starts going through them?

I may be overthinking it way too much and it might be easier to just get one of the newer gen kindles in the next couple of months. I really want to get one for my dad as his reading habits consist of powering through trashy crime and thriller novels in a day or two, which means he's got a constantly growing pile of paperbacks that he has to throw out or give away every few months to stop from having shelves and desks just covered in books he isn't going to read again. Unfortunately he doesn't like the idea of an e-reader and so will likely never actually try one or spend 30 seconds looking at one, not instantly understand how to do everything and stick it in a drawer somewhere.

[Quinton]

I find the e-ink devices massively easier on the eyes than LCD or OLED devices.  I like that I can have the Kindle app installed on my phone so if I'm suddenly stuck waiting (doctor's office or something) I can grab a book and read, but otherwise it's all about the e-ink devices for me.  For magazine content (more colorful) or reference materials (lots of jumping around, so refresh time is important), tablets (like Fire) seem likely to win out over e-readers.  Also for video or game content.

Selection-wise I have not explored other offerings extensively since I've been pretty happy with Amazon.  It is frustrating to run into content that's just not available, but I haven't seen any indication of another service with a larger content library as far as books go. 

[Numtini]

Most of the stuff the library is offering is epub, with a few pdfs. They'll have to support epub at some point, or suffer for it.

Kindle rolled out to Overdrive a few weeks ago and virtually every epub title at our local library and at the Boston public library immediately had a kindle version.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah, simple fact is if most users are on Kindle then I think it's far more likely Library/library service providers are going to cut a deal to get Kindle versions of books to stary relevant themselves rather than Amazon desperately wanting to push a much more open format on their existing customers. The VHS/Betamax comparison is a valid one but in this case the proprietary version is the one that's managed market penetration. The number limitation on library copies I totally get though, it's obviously an entirely artificial limitation given the format but it's also the only way to prevent library Kindle version from being simple a way of reading books for free whenever you want. Having to deal with queues for half way popular books will mean people will still have a reason for buying them other than maybe wanting to read them some time later when they don't have internet access.

Also will you still get fined for not 'returning' your copy past a certain date?

[Reg]

With my library the book just goes "poof" on its due date.

[rattran]

I don't think I've ever really needed the keyboard on my Kindle DX in a couple years of heavy reading use. I think I typed a few web addresses when I was testing out the browser, but that was it. I'm obviously not one of amazon's better Kindle customers though, I've never bought a non-free kindle book from them.