Comments on: $489 is price of the Kindle DX, with the 9.7-inch screen: Summer shipment, but preorders possible today

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:27:48 +0000

@Steve: If, as others have suggested, the cost gets wrapped into tuition–and the colleges get to fight with the publishers over book costs–students can get over the loss of that payback (really just a bit less of a loss) at the end of the year.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:32:18 +0000

Unless the textbooks for this are drastically discounted, this won’t be used for text books much. There is a huge market for used text books and students can often get 50%-60% back from their books.

By: Michael Pastore

Michael Pastore — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:41:07 +0000

@Steve and @David:

That ugly sentence is intentional.

That’s the newest form of copyright protection on the Kindle DX. Documents read on anything but the DX are grammatically scrambled.

Using Amazon’s new and patented obfuscator technology.

And for $ 10 per document (under 1 megabyte) we can upload our own murky sentences and have them converted (using Amazon’s anti-obfuscator technology) to the clear prose displayed by Amazon’s publicity staff.

By: Felix Torres

Felix Torres — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:50:45 +0000

Robert Nagle: The $489 price is real; they are *selling* them at that price now. Delivery is set for summer but the price is locked-in. Bodes well for the other coming 10″ devices.

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:50:39 +0000

LOL, Steve. Delighted I reproduced the news release so everyone could get in on the fun.

David

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:18:35 +0000

“Kindle reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink…”

Who writes this stuff?!?

By: Michael Pastore

Michael Pastore — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:18:06 +0000

Could there be a “netbook” that has the same electronic paper display as the Kindle and Sony Reader?

If yes, we could have the best of all possible ebook reading worlds.

By: Brad

Brad — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:01:19 +0000

I can see this really helping college students. But publishers would really have to bring down the price of e-textbooks to justify the $489 price.

As for newspaper reading: Why would I pay a subscription fee for something I can read for free on my iPhone? I don’t think the Kindle DX will “save” the newspaper business.

Anxiously waiting your analysis David & Paul!

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:48:20 +0000

Good observations, Robert–especially on price pressures.

It was already obvious, alas, that native ePub wasn’t on Amazon’s agenda. Let’s hope Jeff B and crew come around.

Thanks,
David

By: Robert Nagle

Robert Nagle — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:26:25 +0000

I have to wonder whether $489 is a “wishful thinking” price or a stable price (i.e., what we will see in Dec 2009). The form factor will satisfy many who complained about the smaller form factor of previous devices and reduce the problems associated with resizing PDFs.

This might apply price pressure on Kindle 2 and increase competitor’s desire to bring prices down even further.

Another good thing about this development is that textbook publishers and newspaper publishers will have an incentive to produce content for something with a larger screen. (No announcement about epub support–that would have been nice).