Come Monday, it’ll be all right. That’s when Amazon’s e-book reader (tentatively called "Kindle") will be announced at the W Hotel in New York.
It’ll supposedly cost $399, which means those of us who read casually will be stuck with paper books for another however-many years until an affordable feature-rich e-book reader gets released.
The reader will be able to download books directly from Amazon via a Wi-Fi connection and "Amazon has reportedly signed into a deal with Sprint for EVDO access." The EVDO angle is interesting. If you have to pay a monthly charge to use the EVDO, it’s not going to be used all that much. However if Amazon foots the bill for the connection (since it’ll be used to purchase stuff), it could make for an intriguing feature.
Danm thats ugly! Hope this isn’t the one Amazon is going to sell…
Yeah, me too. It’s gotta be a prototype. Either that or Amazon’s going for the people-who-like-to-read-but-also-need-shields crowd.
I fear that this one will just be another forgettable device when Apple rolls out its new generation of Newton (based on iPhones with larger screen) in the next few years.
Another key point is that the online ebook store is completely irrelevant.
For ebook readers to take off, it requires that users at home must first have a practical way to easily convert printed books into PDFs (just like they could easily convert audio CDs to MP3s). They now have a way to do so by just using digital cameras and some home-made v-shaped cradle to image the book pages (or just buy BookSnap from our company).