The Amazon Kindle Review has started a comparison of these two machines. The author hopes the comparison will continue to be filled out in the comments section. While not unbiased, as he admits, it’s still worth reading.
One of the points he makes is one I hadn’t thought of before. Under the advantages of the Sony he says:
ePub support – Lots of people drum this up as a huge advantage. However, opening up the Kindle too much would lead to Amazon not being able to support whispernet i.e. if people start buying their books from other stores.
Is that a valid argument?
As wireless costs come down, I’m not sure that’s going to be as big a factor as it is now. Furthermore if Amazon controls the e-book world, both consumers and publishers could lose leverage. The POD bullying is just a hint of problems to come. From a consumer viewpoint, ePub is definitely the way to go. If nothing else, keep in mind that Sony laudably wants an open wireless network that different stores can use. Methinks the Kindle blog’s bias is showing, lol.
Thanks,
David
The 700 is an awesome machine outside of its screen which is not as crisp as the 505, but still retains the eink flavor and I like it a lot – though some 505 enthusiasts hate it.
Otherwise it’s so fast that you do not believe it’s eink – including the turn page which is almost instantaneous, no annoying lag even for pdf’s, though you still see the flash to black – the sidelights are eerie bluish but work well for me, and the pdf support is the best I’ve seen on any device outside a tablet/laptop/pc.
To my surprise I even can read the 2 drm’ed pdf that I bought as disposables since they were much cheaper than the print books that until now I used to read only on my pc.
I saw it first in the Sony store at Paramus NJ, two weeks ago but they had only the demo since I would have bought it on the spot after seeing how fast it is.
Last Saturday though I went to my Sony store in White Plains, NY played again with it, but to my surprise when I asked when it will be available, they had it so I bought it immediately and since then I’ve been reading a lot on it, both lrf and pdf
I still love my 770 and for fast on the go reads I still use it, but the 700 is as fast and has comparable ergonomics, while the screen is larger and better in regular light, similar at night.
Wow. I’ve never seen such suck-upage in my life with that claim.
Let’s see, maybe AT&T with the iPhone should limit calls only to other iPhones? (Oh, don’t bring up the App Store — Apple is due for its own “bag of pain” with a Restraint of Trade suit at some point! Maybe Amazon needs that too! Under the “Oministration,” such things are now more likely to happen — thank god!)
No.
This is the argument of closed/proprietary types who don’t know how to compete in an open market. It indicates that their pricing is predicated on high margins for content and that the device is probably a loss leader on its own. It’s downright funny coming from Amazon who thrives on arbitrages pricing flaws.
Consider it a complaint from their developers who don’t want to do it. That’s about the only real excuse they might have. That or just pure greed.
Two entirely separate issues are involved here:
a) Multiple store support, and
b) ePub support.
Amazon could get multiple store support just by turning on the DRMed MOBI support already implemented on the Kindle. I don’t think this is likely to happen, but if it did I would expect Amazon to limit Whispernet to Amazon only. I don’t think there is anything wrong with such a “preferred store” strategy, it would be better than the current “exclusive store” approach.
Amazon disparately needs ePub support for technical ebooks. MOBI is not capable enough, and TOPAZ is a poor shadow of ePub. This does not imply openness, since ePub can be protected by MOBI-like DRM (or whatever) and sold as Kindle-only ebooks. Note that Amazon does not currently tell you if an ebook is AZW or TOPAZ, either way it is just a Kindle ebook. I would expect the same if ePub was added as a 3rd format.
No, I don’t believe this is a valid point, is the short answer.
At greater length, I believe the cost of Whispernet is built into each book sale that occurs across that network. So if you bought a book through another ebook-tailer and simply copied it to your Kindle through your PC, it’s a wash – no use of Whispernet and so no cost to defray through a non-existent bounty on the sale.
Where Amazon could get hurt is if folks use the ability to send these books over the Whispernet via their @kindle email address. But this already happens with free books. Or more directly if you use one of the handy Kindle “books” that contains direct links to these books. In either case, a book is being sent to the Kindle over Whispernet without Amazon getting any money for it.
To me, this is a problem that extends to the Experimental Browser as well and I have to believe that either Sprint gets enough from normal Kindle sales that these costs are more than covered. Or Amazon will have to start enforcing that $.10 cost per file transmission and possibly charge for browser use. I doubt either of these things happens before Kindle 2.0 when Amazon might feel it is the best time to shift some of the value equation around.
I’ve been comparing the 2 readers. I did find that the ebooks cost less on Amazon than they do on Sony – at least $1 – $2 less for each ebook.
On the Kindle, I like that you don’t need a computer (or to be near one) to access other books to buy (off of Amazon) and it has Wikipedia access. I also like that it has instant download.
On the PRS-700, I do like that it has a backlight, seems to be smaller and can hold more without a storage card (holds 350 books while the Kindle holds 200). The Sony also has a touch-screen.
I’m sure that at some point, Amazon will have a newer version of Kindle with a backlight and a touch screen.