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Take our poll: Should I buy a Kindle?
August 21, 2008 | 11:12 am
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By David Rothman
$399 was far too much to pay for a DRM-hobbled Kindle. Even the $359 wasn’t cheap enough. But now the price after a credit card deal is just $259, through September 8.
Should I go ahead immediately, despite the DRM—especially since many TeleBlog readers love their K machines anyway, and since I want to serve them with tips and other posts?
Or should I not, because we already have Kindle news from expert contributors such as Paul Biba and Joe Wikert, and because new models might come later this year?
Read comments from Paul, Todd Jones and Alexander Crawford. Then take our poll. The results so far are 21 percent opposed, 6 percent in favor of a future purchase, 45 percent wanting me to buy now, and 27 percent "I couldn’t care less."
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Comments:
I bought a Sony with the 50$ cc offer and I ended by giving it away to relatives overseas – as I did the wonderful Ebookwise which is still the best dedicated e-reader ever from many points of view – since while the screen and the machine were beautiful, it was way too slow for my taste.
The Kindle seems faster but I am not going to pay 259$ – as a big Amazon user I had the cc for a long time – 2001,2?? since I got 30$ when opened and I got lots of gift certificates from Amazon based on earned points – though of course my wife can get one if I wanted the Kindle at that price – but for me it’s just not worth since I would not buy any e-book from Amazon unless I would be sure Mobi-dedrm works which is unclear, so wireless all the time is useless and the size factor is too big for me.
When it gets to 50-100$, I will see…
Until then 770 – fav and iTouch – backup are excellent
Your ulterior motive is that you want to see what your novel looks like on it. Fess up!
What happened to your Sony Reader? I forget.
I would not… as Liviu mentioned, the Mobi de-DRM was a big factor in my decision, and I ended up getting a Cybook (which, btw, I’m extremely happy with). Also, I worry about Amazon’s monopoly on the market. So no Kindle for me, and I’m quite glad about that.
@Mike: Twilight Times and I won’t let you buy The Solomon Scandals unless you SWEAR A BLOOD OATH to do ALL your e-reading in ePub!
– Thanks. David
I would say no because of the DRM and proprietary format limitations.
This price break is the best indication yet that Amazon will indeed be coming out with Kindle v2 very very soon. That’s great news for all us ebooks junkies and wannabe-junkies!
My advice is: if you can afford the device, do not worry about DRM. the Kindle is the #1 ebook device, so your coverage of ebookdom will be vastly helped with familiarity and use of the device.
Like you, I hate the idea of DRM and dislike how Amazon has been muscling the publishers of late. I also shudder at the very notion that the only way to get content onto a Kindle is via one commercial source, who can, at any moment, have a corporate change of heart and drop all support. (Or is there a way to put content onto SD cards and get it onto Kindles that way? I forget.)
On the whole, though, I advise you to wait, and see what Kindle2 brings. There will likely be some overlap during which period you will still be able to get a discounted Kindle, and have also a choice of a full-price Kindle2.
You know what monopolists love to do: it just might be the case that Kindle2 would support file formats that Kindle1 does not, and that these new formats take over. Also, we can dream and hope that Kindle2 would support open standards and loosen up a little.
We can dream, after all.
@David: I the only blood oath I have sworn is to the death of print!