This is the lovely Kindle 2 from Amazon
My wife is a reader. And by a reader I mean she devours books. As an example, for every Harry Potter book released on Friday she would go to the bookstore the following Saturday morning, buy the book and read it…all of it…immediately. I was told to go away and not bother her until she was done. The shorter books she would finish that same weekend but the longer books took her a few extra days. She’s read enough books that if we stacked them up and they fell on me I would be dead. So for her birthday last year I got her a Kindle.
It was expensive but I figured it would pay for itself over time and it had this cool wireless delivery system. For every e-book you buy from Amazon (most of them at a steep discount from their paper cousins) they’ll send it to your Kindle in under a minute for free. You can even send HTML, Word files and PDFs to a special email address you set up and they’ll convert it and send it to your Kindle wirelessly. Amazon says they charge 10 cents per document to do this but she’s sent several short stories this way and never been charged. They also offer a “free” conversion that allows you to download the converted file and sync it to your Kindle using USB but since they’re still not charging for the auto delivery she uses that method instead.
Since then I’ve also bought a Kindle (on the Oprah Winfrey discount last October) and I’ve started reading more. For some back history on me, I’m not a good reader. I’m slow and it frustrates me. I’m much more of an audio visual person. However I have probably read a book a month since I bought mine and that’s up from maybe one every few years. I really like Kindle and it’s brought me quite mornings of reading. No TV, no background noise, no computer, just reading peacefully.
Now for the rant…
I just read another article on a tech blog complaining about the price of the Kindle. They all say that it’s too expensive and it should be subsidized like cellphones. Ok, listen up ’cause I’m only gonna say this once.
Cellphones are cheap because they are subsidized by your wireless carrier roping you into a contract for service. The Kindle is expensive because it is subsidizing the cost of free wireless connectivity.
Have you go that or do I need to say it s-l-o-w for ‘ya?
Think about it. Inside every Kindle is a Sprint wireless data card (the Kindle works on the EVDO network) so every time you turn on the wireless you get an IP address and connectivity to that network. You can even do basic web surfing on the Kindle but it’s not very functional. And the reason it’s not very functional is…say it with me…it’s an e-book reader, not a web browser. Not to mention the fact that the more you surf the web on your Kindle the more Sprint has to carry your data and the more it costs Sprint. Remember the subsidized wireless connection? It was meant to deliver books to you, not look up the latest results of American Idol.
Oh, and while I’m at it. Stop with the “it’s not color” and “it’s not backlit” bullshit. Paper books aren’t backlit, are they? I have a booklight and it works perfectly. And as for color, when was the last time you read fiction, non-fiction, romance, sci-fi, whatever and cared about the details of the pictures. The Kindle isn’t meant as a textbook or a kid’s book.
In closing it’s important to restate, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Just remember you’ve already paid for wireless, because you bought a Kindle. Personally I would have paid $800 for my 16Gig iPhone 3G if the minutes+data+txts were free…wouldn’t you?
