News
Kindle gets mixed review
Tim Green Nov 27 2007, 4:28pm
Amazon's Kindle e-book reader is receiving a mixed reception despite selling out on day one.
The ‘revolutionary’ new device went on sale last week in the US and is now unavailable until new stock arrives on December 3rd. It’s certainly stimulated debate, with fans cooing over the user interface and new OTA content distribution method. Against this, there have been many complaints about the price, lack of PDF support and in-built DRM. Overall the gadget has won a rating of 2.5 stars out of five from those who have spent time with it.
To recap: the Kindle costs $399 and holds over 200 titles. New books and magazines can be downloaded to it over the air using Amazon’s Whispernet network, which uses the EV-DO network.
Over 80,000 books are available for around $9.99 as well as subscriptions to magazines and newspapers from Forbes to the New York Times. There’s no charge for accessing Whispernet; the cost is rolled into the fee for buying content. The beginning of a book can be downloaded for free.
Amazon is convinced it has the iPod of reading here. It is, of course, not the first attempt to build a digital reader. Predecessors include the Sony Reader, Cybook V3 and the iRex Iliad. In the UK a start-up called ICUE has struck many deals with publishers to make books available to mobile phones.
