Kindle

[johnriley1uk]

Floowing on from my very weak joke on Facebook about Sue trying to kindle interest in an e-book reader....don't tell her but I have ordered her a 3G Kindle for Christmas. She can read books then wherever she is, be it lunch time at work, in the car (as a passenger!), on holiday...... She can carry up to 3,500 booksin the one device. The 6" display can be read in full sunlight and actually looks very impressive.

Of course the iPad is rather larger! I did suggest I get her an iPad, but we couldn't do that to Mike! Or my bank balance.

[Mike]

I would not have minded. It looks more and more likely that a new ipad v2 will be released in spring so I am content to wait. The kindle is very good for the battery life and has a great screen. Deffo the Market leader in ebook readers but ipad is catching.

Does the kindle actually do anything other than read books?! I don't know but I bet Mum will be really pleased.

[johnriley1uk]

You can download newspapers and magazines as well as books and I think it can surf the web as well.

[Mike]

eBook pricing article saying exactly the same as my Twitter post ages ago!

[johnriley1uk]

Well of course that sort of pricing is nonesense. What e-books really miss though is the pleasure of owning something nice. When I've found rare copies of my Eric Franki Russell books in hardcover it's been a pleasure to buy them, read them and own them. A Kindle version would just not be the same.

Can you imagine a Kindle version of Sherlock Holmes, or would you rather have that great book you bought me that reproduced all the original magazine pages. That was style. The words may be the same, but the experience is totally different.

[Mike]

Amazon releases a 7" colour Kindle powered by the Android tablet OS. Interesting on a number of fronts. Firstly the price point at $199 which is very cheap, second is the size of screen which is a brave choice and third is the fact that the screen resolution is 1024 x 600 which seems to be an odd format.

The one thing that irritates me about the announcement is the fact that the entry level Kindle has a price point of $79 in the US but £89 in the UK. That is a premium of approximtely £40 - why should we pay more for the same device Amazon?!