RSSAmazon Kindle selling on eBay for over $1,000
By Nate Mook | Published December 17, 2007, 12:57 PM
Those wishing to receive an Amazon Kindle book reader before Christmas are resorting to auction site eBay, and paying a 200 percent premium in the process.
Despite mediocre reviews from well-known technology pundits Walt Mossberg and David Pogue, consumers are eager to get their hands on the new device. The $399 Kindle has sold out from Amazon, and the company has stopped giving estimated ship dates.
"Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is sold out. Because orders are prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis, please ORDER NOW to reserve your place in line. Your Kindle will not arrive by December 24th," Amazon's site reads.
Electronic book readers are not new, but Amazon thinks it has found the secret to success: a library of ebooks that can be downloaded over the Kindle's built in EV-DO network. Amazon currently offers 90,000 books, including 101 of 112 current bestsellers. Electronic books cost $9.99 from the company.
Although it's been available for over a year, Sony's Reader has seen a far more muted response. Its ebooks are more expensive, however, and Sony doesn't have the same breadth of content available from Amazon. To compensate, Sony included support for a large number of file types, but consumers largely haven't noticed.
To Amazon's credit, the biggest complaint about the Kindle is its design, which some have likened to a device from the 1990s. The Wall Street Journal's Mossberg said Amazon "has a lot to learn about designing electronic devices."
But while the iPod's sexiness may have helped cement its place in the national consciousness, an electronic book reader is only competing against real books, and future generations of the Kindle will surely improve its design. Amazon has opted to initially focus on functionality, which appears to have been a good choice based on demand.
eBay auctions of the Kindle range between $600 to over $1,000. One sale even reached $1,500 before bidding ended, nearly four times the $399 retail price.
Aside from limited availability, buyers from outside the United States are likely driving the Kindle's price up, as they are not able to buy it directly from Amazon. However, prices will surely fall once more Kindle owners try to make a quick buck selling their device, just as many did with the Apple iPhone over the summer.
Good grief look at that thing, it's ginormous!
I've read some reviews and it's definately a poorly designed product. Controls are clumsy and confusing, there is a delay and the screen goes black every time you turn a page, did I already mention that it was a huge, clunky beast? Not to mention the books come in yet another proprietary protected format that no other software or book viewer can read. Want to buy and view ebooks from someone other than Amazon? Too bad but you'd deserve it for buying this stupid thing.
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|I love the 'me too's" who have to have everything first regardless of cost just to be seen with the hot items.
You know these tools who are paying $1000 for this thing will be at the coffee lounge at Borders the next day with people ooohing and aaaahing over the stupid reader.
People are such predictable lemmings.
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|Wow.. to think I thought its normal price was too much!
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|You can read books on your regular 'dumb' cell phone. http://www.booksinmyphone.com has hundreds of free titles ready to install straight to your phone, or via your PC. For novels at least the reading experience is fine. great even when you consider that without carrying a single extra thing you can can have a library with you always.
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|Thanks a lot for this link! :)
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|You can read books on your regular 'dumb' cell phone. http://www.booksinmyphone.com has hundreds of free titles ready to install straight to your phone, or via your PC. For novels at least the reading experience is fine. great even when you consider that without carrying a single extra thing you can can have a library with you always.
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|You can't seriously suggest people could read an entire book on something that small? It would wreck your eyesight over any length of time.
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|Whattya expect, after the iPhone's success???
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|Stupid sheep. In a few months ebay will be flooded with these and you won't be able to give one away. These book readers have been around for years. Hell, they could have spent a lot less on a nice PDA that not only reads books but does a lot of other stuff too.
This thing looks like a piece of crap anyway. Monochrome screen, what is this 1995?
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|Not defending the price but you are clueless: It's electronic paper, which has entirely different characteristics (esp power drain and readability). This thing is connected to a cell phone network 24/7 for free (rolled into purchase price I guess) and takes some advantage of this link.
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|I do know how to read; I'm well aware of what e-ink displays are and what features it has. Is it that much better than the older readers that I should run out and pay $399 for one? Hell no, it isn't. "Sure it's big and clunky and sort of looks like a fax machine from the 80s, but it's connected to a cell phone network! Now I can pay more for Amazon's proprietary DRM'd ebooks, hooray!"
You sound very much like the type of techno-yuppie that runs out and buys overpriced junk like this though. People are not buying these because they use "electronic paper" or cell phone networks, they do it because they want to show off to everyone and look "trendy". See also...the ipod.
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|But I thought it was more trendy to be illiterate.
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|Idiots with too much money are awesome. Makes me wish I had a nifty useless gizmo to hold their interests and run all the way to the bank with. At least it stimulates the economy I guess.
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|WOW.
I felt it was senseless at 399.
It's a statement on our society at a grand or more.
not a good statement either.
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|This is for people who want something smaller than a pc or laptop for what these things are going for a UMPC would be a better deal.
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|Who in their right mind would pay that kind of money for a reader? Might as well buy a whole computer, right?
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|who'd a thunk.
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