Tag Archives: Kindle

Ask a non-expert: Kindle Fire review

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Ordered a Kindle Fire out of shear curiosity and it arrived yesterday. Here’s my take so far.
PROS:
1. It’s smaller than an iPad making it a pleasure to hold with one hand while navigating with the other.

2. The screen size is just big enough to watch movies on without your eyeballs melting.

3. $199 for a new toy isn’t bad.

4. $75 annual amazon prime membership gives me access to 10k videos (movies, tv shows) and a book library where i can borrow a book a month. (I took out The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins)

5. The controls are mostly intuitive; tap, double tap, spread, swipe, etc…

6. It has adobe air and adobe flash player

7. You can toggle the browser display between Desktop mode and Mobile mode and the websites you visit will reflect that setting.

CONS:
1. You need a WiFi connection at all times to do anything worth doing (aside from reading a book you downloaded)

2. The memory is a measly 6.54 gig so don’t think you can just download everything and sidestep the WiFi need.

3. You need an $75 annual amazon prime membership to access the videos and books.

4. No camera

5. One browser issue, see screenshot below.

6. Navigation not as intuitive as an iPhone or iPad. My 3yo uses those with ease, but the kindle he fumbled around with. Me, i couldn’t find the sound setting (it’s buried under the settings gear icon in the upper right hand corner of the window)

7. I really don’t want to buy two of everything apple apps and amazon apps! blegh…

Overall, I’m still enjoying the device. I’m reading a book and got to watch Girl with the dragon tattoo so i’m happy with that. BUT you need a WiFi connection and an amazon prime account to make this worth your while. Amazon should have sold this for $274 bundled with amazon prime.


BlackBerry for scale.

Houston we have a problem.

Who’s buying Amazon Kindles or any eReader for that matter?

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Way back in November 2008 I wrote a brief article The Kindle Needs a Bellows about the disconnect between the number of Kindle users and the push from newspapers to move their content onto such devices.

It’s now January 2010, a little over a year later, and I still don’t know anyone who has purchased an Amazon Kindle or any eReader for that matter.  So what’s the fuss? The big news at (consumer electronics show) CES this year was eReaders and Tablets, but aside from the push from magazine and newspaper publishers… where is the consumer demand?  Are eReaders nothing more than Thneeds, a veiled attempt at “going green”, or am I missing something here?

Do you own an eReader? Why?  How old are you?

Hearst eReader Fallout

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Hearst’s E-Reader: The Last Stand of a Doomed Industry -Gawker

Dear media companies: Please stop trying to innovate. You’re lousy at it.  Hearst‘s supposed “Kindle killer,” an electronic reader for magazines, is just the latest in a series of debacles from the moribund print-media business.

Hearst Media Magazine Company Planning Their Very Own E-Book Reader -Gizmodo

If high costs of producing paper goods are hurting the media, I’m not sure it makes sense to get into the game of something more expensive to read from today — when such a device already exists from Amazon — even if it saves them a few bucks tomorrow. Oh yeah, and magazines are better in color (on LCD or paper).

Cosmo Publisher Plans an E-Reader of its Own -Wired

For Hearst, here’s one way to think about the problem. Can the company convince nail salons, probably the biggest subscribers to its Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire magazines, to buy e-readers instead of print subscriptions?

Hearst to launch wireless e-reader, potentially revolutionize print media -Engadget

I can wait for the future, when I will carry my cell phone, a netbook, a kindle for books, a hearst media reader for that companies articles and a newscorp media reader for the other articles I will need, that wont be available on the web.  its gonna be great! pffft. -from commenter Sim

Hearst developing e-reader, charging for e-news -Cnet News

“Our cost base is significantly out of line with the revenue available in our business today,” Hearst’s Swartz concluded, as he noted other advertising initiatives, such as partnering on advertising with real-estate site Zillow and Yahoo, and raising prices for print subscriptions and mobile-phone access to its content. “It is equally inescapable that during good times, our industry developed business practices that were, at best, inefficient.”

Hearst to Begin Charging for Digital News -WSJ.com

A top executive at Hearst, which publishes 16 newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said the company is mulling how much of its online offerings to keep free, while reserving some content exclusively for people who pay.

It seems that no one thinks this is a good idea except Hearst, which leads me to believe that something big is happening behind the scenes.  Perhaps the cost of paper is about to skyrocket?  I heard this scenario late last year, at an NYU sustainability discussion, where their is little to no domestically produced paper (paper and pulp mills moved out of the country a few years ago), compound this situation with the fact that the Obama administration is moving forward with their carbon cap and trade plan, making “dirty” industries and their products prohibitively expensive.   What follows is a situation where the only paper that will be plentiful is expensive eco-friendly paper for notebooks and direct mailers.

With no signs that our depressed economy is turning around, perhaps the publishers are using this as an excuse to think long-term to expand into eReaders?  Am I giving them too much credit for this move?  Does Hearst really think that a proprietary reader will be better medium than a printed magazine?  Personally I’m not sold on the idea of proprietary hardware as a business model for publishers.  I think they need to focus on content creation and let the hardware makers fight over how to best display it.