Gadget Wisdom

Amazon is cutting the price of its Kindle 2 to $259, the second drop in the last few months. It is also offering an ‘international’ Kindle for $279, with shipping to begin on October 19th. Books downloaded internationally will cost an extra $1.99. This does free up a gap in the service, namely overseas, and connects Amazon to AT&T over Sprint.

Amazon has said  that Kindle books now represent 48% of total book sales when both Kindle and paper versions are available, up from 35% in May and 13% in February, but no statistics have been revealed on how many units have been sold, but Kindle owners seem to buy a lot of books.

So, with the latest price drop, is it finally time to buy a Kindle? Maybe. But we’d prefer it to hit around $200 before it becomes too tempting to resist, especially with the bulk of new e-book readers coming and Google’s E-Book initiative.

Competition produces innovation. Amazon has said it would not mind selling Kindle books to people with other E-book readers, which would be a smart move for the company. But either way, in another few months, the price will likely be where we want it to be. What do you think?

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• International Kindle ships October 19 to over 100 countries for $279, ‘US’ edition falls to $259 (engadget.com)
• Kindle now $259, available worldwide with wireless delivery (arstechnica.com)

We continue to admire the Kindle, as we emphatically state it is too expensive a toy for us to consider seriously. For those of you wishing to see shots of the Kindle and drool, Engadget has some great closeups.

More interesting is Crunchgear’s 10 Reasons To and Not to Buy a Kindle. Here’s our version of it:

Reasons to Buy a Kindle

1. It’s great for travel.
2. You can email DOC, TXT, and PDF files to your Kindle email address for conversion…but it costs 10 cents.
3. It looks and feels great. It is only grayscale…with 16 shades on the new Kindle 2, but it offers a clear reading surface. We’ve heard color is in the future. Amazon designed a solid piece of hardware overall.
4. Almost any book is available at any time. As more and more publishers offer their content in Ebook form, the amount of books you can’t get is limited to the rare. Even an out-of-print book can be resurrected and offered.
5. It can work in a variety of situations that paperbook books would be cumbersome in.
6. The bookmarking and highlighting systems have been improved for the Kindle 2, but overall they add the ability to mark up your E-book and return to sections the way you might in a real book.
7. The dictionary is now integrated. Also…having a dictionary at all built in to look up terms you don’t know.
8. It is the future. Reading is going in this direction. We doubt paper books will die. But E-books are going to be a major part of the market.

Why NOT to buy a Kindle

1. The Kindle is not conducive to research or reference. Page changing and book style searching are not at the speed/rate you could browse through a book. You can’t flip through and find what you are looking for.
2. It isn’t ready for students…a market that could really use a Kindle. Not only are there price issues, and textbook availability issues and the one mentioned above.
3. The Kindle is thin, and not exactly rugged. Of course, that is what a good case is for.
4. The net connection isn’t available internationally.
5. No expansion slot. The Kindle 2 has no SD slot, or any provision for add-on memory.
6. It is battery operated and most be charged periodically. Books never run out of batteries. The battery also makes it bottom heavy.
7. There is still a value to the printed book.

What are your thoughts? Coming up…more of where to get and use e-books less a Kindle.

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• Amazon Kindle 2 review (engadget.com)
• Amazon’s Kindle 2: The Technologizer Review (technologizer.com)

Engadget released a nice set of pictures of the Kindle 2, the next generation of Amazon’s E-book reader. For alternate coverage, Crunchgear has a nice Kindle 1/2 side-by-side photo comparison.

It has several improvements over its predecessor

• Screen refresh is 20 percent faster
• 7 Times Greater Storage
• 16 Shades of Grey as opposed to 4.
• Thinner

We still can’t justify the $359 cost for the privilege of paying more for books than the printed version. The discount has to ultimately, if not subsidize the cost of the reader, at least justify with value-added service the cost of buying it. For less cost, one could use an old PDA or a cell phone, although the screen would not be as conducive to easy reading. For the same cost, one could go for a netbook.

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• Amazon Kindle 2 announced: $359 on February 24 (engadget.com)
• Amazon’s Kindle 2.0 Event (technologizer.com)
• WSJ: Kindle 2 launching today with Stephen King exclusive (engadget.com)
• Kindle 2.0: Thinner, More Storage…But Is It Enough? (mashable.com)