Category: Kindle

New Lower Priced Kindle

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, Kindle, TechLeave a comment

There is now a lower priced Amazon Kindle at $299.  Now that’s what I’m talking about.  Although it has a 6″ screen, 2 GB HD (1.4 available for user content) and you can see what else it has…

Kindle: Amazon’s 6″ Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

It’s not as big as the latest Kindle and it doesn’t have an SD slot, it’s not in color and it isn’t touchscreen.  But the good news is that it’s coming down in price.  Maybe they are seeing that people just aren’t buying the Kindle because of the gigantic cost.  I mean, $300 is still a lot of money but not compared to $489 for the Kindle DX.

If I bought a Kindle for $299 then I bet you anything in about a year they will have a better one for $199 then a year later a better one for $99.  Well, I don’t know if they will drop that dramatically but I think I’m going to wait for them to come down a bit more before I take that leap.

I would love to buy a bigger screen one for Darrin for the newspaper but unfortunately our local paper is not available for the Kindle.  They are digital but with another company so hopefully when the Kindle goes down in price then our paper will see that it’s getting popular or they are getting a lot of requests then they will finally add their paper to the Kindle.

New Amazon Kindle DX Coming This Summer

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

Amazon has announced their new Kindle DX which will ship this summer.  It’s new features are a 9.7 inch screen that measures 8.5″x11″ so it’s the size of a sheet of paper.  Also when you turn the Kindle DX sideways the screen auto rotates very much like the iPhone.  They have also added more hard drive bringing it to 4GB.

Those are some pretty cool features, except that it still is not in color and it still doesn’t have an SD card slot.  AND the price went up from $359 for the Kindle 1 and 2 to $489 for the Kindle DX.

WOW that’s just too much money to spend on something that’s just going to be outdone in another 6 months or so.  When they have their 4th generation Kindle is that going to go up to $600?  So what do people do with their old ones?  Recycle them?  Ebay them?  Or do they just live with it and feel stupid for wasting their money when they could have waited 6 months?

I’m going to wait.

eBookwise

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, Kindle, Products I LikeLeave a comment

I went to eBay to find how much the Kindle 1 cost used and it’s not that much cheaper.  I did find this though. eBookwise 1150 Reading Device for $135.95 +$10 shipping.  It has a sad 64mb of internal memory but you can add more with SmartMedia Memory Cards, up to 128MB.

Go ahead and read their website from that link above.  I’m thinking that if I am able to save the money for the Kindle 3 by the time it comes out and I still can’t buy it or it still doesn’t have the features I want then to heck with it, I’ll just buy this one.  Or I might just save up for eBookwise e-reader to use as a test e-reader and use it until the kindle goes down in price.  There is no sense in spending money I can’t afford to spend on something I probably won’t be able to use that often.  And if I bought books on this new one I’m almost positive I can transfer them over to Kindle if I do decide to get one of those.  Then I can give the eBookwise to Darrin.

Hehe I’m always giving him my hand me down electronics.

Kindle 2 Arrives Today

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, KindleLeave a comment

The Amazon Kindle 2 arrives early.  Not to me but to those who bought one.  I watched a USA Today review of it and it pretty much touched on a good point.  That it doesn’t have a battery door and no SD card slot.  But other than that it’s pretty good.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj3jXNKu5B4

I would love it if someone who has a Kindle (1 or 2) who has a newspaper subscription could please do a little video demo showing how a newspaper looks on the kindle (turning the pages, if there is a table of contents etc).  I’m really curious about that.

I went to YouTube looking for a demo from regular people and all I got is a demo from Amazon and the review from USA today.  Also interviews from Amazon.

Kindle Pays For Itself

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

I was looking at the Amazon website again (yeah yeah yeah) and I was looking at the reviews for the newspapers just to see if it was worth it.  I saw that for Time magazine people were saying they were disappointed because there were no pictures, just articles.  Well, you need pictures with articles, especially in time magazine.

So I went to the New York Times newspaper and scrolled down to the reviews and the 2nd review from the top this guy said that he was paying $35 a month for his paper but now he pays $14 a month.  So basically the Kindle pays for itself from what amount this guy is saving from getting the digital version of his newspaper.

This person pays $420 a year for his new york times newspaper. He now pays $14 a month instead of $35 so now he pays $168 per year which means he is now saving $252 a year on the newspaper. The kindle doesn’t exactly pay for itself in a year but maybe a year and half.  That’ll work.

I don’t know how much our newspaper is because I don’t pay for it, Darrin pays for it because he is who reads it.  I don’t even read the newspaper.  I asked him how much he pays and he couldn’t recall.  I said is it like $15 a month?  $20 a month?  He said yeah I guess.  Currently our local newspaper is not available for the Kindle but it is available at www.newsstand.com for $10 a month but you have to view that on a PC or a laptop via browser or you can download it and view it through software called iBrowse.  You can also print pages.  If it were available via Kindle then that might be incentive enough for me to buy one so he can read the newspaper but unfortunately it’s not so, oh well.

But it is good to know that the Kindle pays for itself with certain newspapers and magazines.

Kindle Comic Books?

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

I wonder if someone can respond to this.  I’m very curious about Comic Books being available on the Kindle 2.  I know that some comic books are full size like magazines so you have a larger page and if it’s shrunk down for the kindle will it be harder to read.  Or perhaps if it is available for the Kindle, will you only get 1 box at a time,  What about the bigger boxes that take up the whole page of the comic book?  That will definitely be harder to read.  Maybe it would have a zoom?  Or does the Kindle 2 have zoom?

I think it would be a cool idea to have comic books available on your Kindle.  If someone googles Comic Book with the word Kindle please respond to this if you find this post and let me know what you think.  Is this going to be available?  Would you like it to become available or is it just better to have them in paper form for their value in the future?

Just so that I don’t look like a complete moron, I went to Amazon and searched for comic books and found this Serenity, Vol. 1: Those Left Behind [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback).  I see that it’s not available for Kindle so I clicked the “I’d like to read this on Kindle” link.  Yeah, I know, I don’t have a kindle yet but I’ve been clicking that for a lot of books just so they do become available.  At some point I’d like to get one, some day.  But that Serenity book says paperback but it is a comic book.

I looked up Spiderman comic books and they all say paperback and they all have the “I’d like to read this on Kindle” link.

Author’s Guide To Sue Amazon

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

I’m obsessed with the Kindle 2.  I can’t stop googling it lol.

I found this article about how the authors guild is suing Amazon because of the text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2.  Because they sell books plus they sell books on tape so by having a text-to-speech feature available, they are giving away the audio book version for free with the sale of e-books.  But that is so not true because nothing can compare to the emotion in the voice of a person reading a book on a tape or cd.  It’s totally not the same because text-to-speech sounds robotic.  There is no emotion.  We will see what happens.  I mean, what’s preventing people from using text-to-speech on their PC to listen to e-books?  They aren’t suing Microsoft.

Kindle Blog

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, KindleLeave a comment

I was looking at Kindle the other day and as I was there I saw that you can read people’s blogs on the kindle.  I thought that you could just go to either their website or there was a think where you tell them who you subscribe to but apparently it’s not like that.

If you want to read a blog their blog site has to be registered through Kindle and you have to pay for it.  Well, I don’t want to charge people to read my ramblings.  Although the money would be nice but why charge people when they can read it for free here through my website either on the PC or through a mobile phone like the iPhone or iPod or even PSP.

If they make it so that I don’t have to charge people at all then I will add it to Kindle but I honestly don’t know anyone who even has a Kindle.  I would like to publish my blog though because I currently have 0 readers.  So frankly, nobody is going to read this.  Hell, I don’t even read my own blog.  I just blog it.  I do read it after I’ve posted it to see if there are any corrections needed or I go back.  Anyway lol I was rambling.  I would like to get it on Kindle but not as a pay blog.

My Last Kindle Obsessed Post… Maybe

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, KindleLeave a comment

Ok, 1 last thing about the Kindle.  I know I mentioned in my first Kindle post about how you can email your text files to your Kindle but as I read more about it I find out more stuff.

It’s not just text files.  It’s also pdf files so if you have a manual in pdf format then you will have it on your Kindle.  Sometimes if you buy like a DVD player or a printer or whatever, I’m pulling at straws here, you can go to that manufacturer’s website and download the manual in pdf format.  Well, who wants to sit and read the manual on the computer?  Especially if the hardware you need to read about is in the other room.  Say it’s your tv’s manual or your washer and dryer.  You can just download that and send it to your Kindle and it converts it to Kindle format so you can read it.

I’m not sure if the Kindle puts your e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers in categories or not, I think it would be a good idea though because if you get e-newspapers you will want them to be stores in there in folders.  Like say you get the LA times and the NY times.  Well, you don’t want them to be in the same area as everything else like your books.  If you get the newspaper and magazines on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis then the list will be too long so if you want to search for the book you are reading you have to scroll through the list of stuff.

Ok getting back to what I was talking about with sending text and pdf files to your kindle.  You can also download free e-books and send them to your kindle.  Oh and I read you can send pictures too.  Now, I’m not too sure about pictures with black and white technology.  I think I would much rather enjoy my pictures in color so that would certainly be something I would want to have but somewhere down the line when it has color.  Right now I have all of my photo albums cropped to widescreen 3×5 for my PSP and the pictures are pretty small so when I go to show them off it’s still a good size to look at but you know, it’s still small.  But at least I can carry all of my pictures.  But you can’t see them in the sunlight on my PSP.

Oh that reminds me.  You can read your kindle out in the sunlight and it shows up just like a regular book thanks to e-ink.  The screen isn’t shiny either so there is no glare from the screen.  If you are using a cell phone or pda or something as an e-book you have to cover it with your hands to be able to see it outside in the sunlight.  Well, the Kindle with e-ink allows you to actually see what you are reading.  And since it doesn’t have a tv type of screen you can’t see it in the dark but the new Kindle 2 has lights around the page I think on both sides.  Or maybe that was another e-book, I don’t remember now, I’m getting them confused.  I did see a Kindle light that clips to the kindle but it was made for the Kindle 1.

Ok, I can’t make any promises that I won’t obsess any more about this.  I’ve pretty much touched on everything that I can think of but who knows, maybe tomorrow I might read about something that I didn’t know and obsess about that.  Maybe my obsession will have so much text that you will have to convert it all into pdf format and it will be so long that it will be your next e-book or e-novel.  Maybe I’ll shut up about it.  Who knows.