RSSKindle in slow-burn mode 'til 2009
By Angela Gunn | Published November 25, 2008, 7:07 PM
Long, thin and late to the holiday parties: Amazon's plan for the Kindle 2 is apparently to emulate a fashion model and hope for the best.
According to Amazon's site, there are no Kindles to be had for the holidays -- sorry, gift-givers. (And please stop asking why there's an ad running on the front page of the Amazon.com site for a product no one can buy.)
But rumors that low inventories reflected the imminent advent of the next version of the Kindle appear to be sorely mistaken. If the device truly was slated to ship in October, as reported by TechCrunch, it didn't and it won't until after the holidays.
Based solely on early reports, the next Kindle is believed to have lost its SD card slot, though it retains its EV-DO wireless connectivity. Leaked preliminary images indicate that the device is longer and perhaps a touch wider than the previous iteration, and users familiar with the first version may find the placement of the page-turn buttons less annoying, and the keyboard has lost the gap that currently runs down the middle.
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| A screen grab from Amazon.com, November 25, 2008, which appears to show that Kindles are readily available. |
But since you're already waiting, perhaps you'd like to just keep waiting for Kindle's planned "student edition," which will sport a larger screen suitable for textbooks. Or maybe you remember that the last big rush of e-book hardware also coincided with a recession, and you're curious to see if another candidate will come along.
Plastic Logic in September demonstrated a super-slim reader -- an 8.5"x11" screen, but slimmer than a full pad of paper, and touchscreen rather than key-driven. The screen is also slightly flexible, but it's not quite the roll-up OLED ideal just yet. And if you crave an even larger screen, Europeans already have access to the iRex Digital reader, which handles A4- and letter-sized pages.
Amazon was unable to respond to BetaNews' Kindle 2 questions by press time.
Why buy a dedicated device for reading forms when you could buy a unit like the small Asus computer that not only has the full functionality of a computer, but could easily be enabled to read such form data for near the same price?
Who needs yet ANOTHER overpriced limited functionality device to lug around in addition to their computer, cell phone, PDA (boy, they're useful!???), MP3 player and whatever other junk you have?
The capability to read e-docs - fine. Another expensive dedicated device, rather than a converged capability? NO THANKS.
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This is such a narrow minded comment. Convergence is a buzzword. And nearly everything which purports to achieve "convergence", from the iPhone to computers, have failed miserably at that claim. Smart convergence is about only converging things which make sense together, like an mp3 player with a cell phone.
If you haven't given an ebook reader a whirl, don't just shoot your mouth off. An ebook reader is a very different beast from a laptop. While bright shiny screens with millions of pixels are desirable for watching movies on your laptop, it is neither necessary nor desirable for a ebook reader. To be an eBOOK, it needs to read without strain, just like a normal book. I have yet to see any laptop screen which doesn't cause me strain.
I own all the devices you mentioned, and I will never want to use my laptop as my ebook reader and vice versa. A cell phone is way too small to read on, and I don't want to lug a proper book-sized device everywhere as a cell phone.
Think through the functionality and design consideration before making buzzword comments. It shows not only your lack of originality (by repeating what every journalist says), but also your complete lack of understanding of engineering and proper design.
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If you don't mind spending the $$ they are all over ebay.
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That works for me, ladylust -- it's where I picked up my own wonderful e-book reader, the Nuvomedia Rocketbook. (Old school, yes, but the best form factor *ever* -- has an oddly steampunk vibe going. I use it for CC texts and downloads from Project Gutenberg. A beautiful artifact in any case.)
But for Kindle folk, I wonder if those of us who prefer our readers to have easily swappable storage might go the eBay route now anyway, now that we're pretty sure there'll be no SD slot on the new model. I certainly thought about that while I was writing; to be honest I don't find the page-turn buttons to be that annoying on the first version, and I do like at least having the option of swapping out collections...
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