The Kindle 2

Rating:

Okay, usually I get pretty excited by anything electronic  If it plugs in, has a red LED, requires a mess of cords… basically if it turns on, it turns me on.  But I cannot… can’t… wrap my mind around Amazon’s Kindle.  Haven’t heard about it?  It’s basically a hand held way to read words that form a story… you know, a book, only it’s an electric book.  On February 9th, Amazon officially announced the Kindle 2, an update to their original Kindle, which has 2 gig of memory (up from 256 Mb), wifi, and a built in keyboard.  Still, does the world really need an electronic way to read a book?  Let’s find out.

If you’re in the market for one of these devices (Sony has a similar product), the display is the thing.  You don’t want to be up all night reading a Harlequin novel, only to have your eyes wrinkle out of their sockets from staring at a screen.  (I don’t do that, by the way… I mean, not often… only a little…  maybe I just like the pictures on the cover… I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a shirtless knight that looks like Fabio…)  Fortunately, the technology that drives the display, aptly named E-ink, closely resembles a printed page and is very easy to look at for long periods of time with no eye strain (like Fabio, I suppose).  The display itself is 6 inches (like Fabio), with a resolution of 800×600, with 167 ppi.  The on board memory can hold an average of 1,500 books; of course, that number will drop if you add any MP3s for listening while you read.

Still, why the hell would anyone want to carry 1,500 books with them… AT ONCE?  Who here honestly thinks that the Kindle will be to books what the Ipod is to music?  Imagine going to a swingin’ party and someone wants a snappy mix of Chaucer, Shel Silverstein, and Dr. Phil?  Not likely.  When I read a book, I read it, finish it, then start another one.  Okay, you could download magazines or newspapers to flip to when you tire of reading a book, but who wants to read MAD Magazine on a six inch, black and white screen?  Oh, I didn’t mention that, did I?  Black and white screen, friends.  You could also use all that memory for surfing the web via the built in wifi, but Christ, do we need one more damn thing to surf the web?  I have a desktop, laptop, phone, Ipod Touch, GPS, vacuum cleaner, and size 11 Florsheim that already do that…  why would I want to do it on a black and white screen?

How about the price factor?  I did a little research, and this kills me.  Let’s assume that if you are going to… Kindle… your books, you aren’t interested in collecting hard covers.  You want to read a book in it’s most economical form… good old use and lose paperback.  Now, add to that the “new” factor: like when DVDs were new, we are only choosing from a current library of titles available for our format.  Amazon weighs that number in at 230,000 titles.  Great, let’s do some comparison shopping shall we?

STUART WOODS – “Shoot Him If He Runs”
Paperback: $9.99
Kindle: $7.99
You save: $2.00

ANN COULTER (crazy woman) “If Democrats Had Brains…”
Paperback: $11.16
Kindle: $10.04
You save: $1.12

JAMES PATTERSON “Cross Country”
Paperback: $10.19
Kindle: $11.99
You save:  You don’t save anything stupid…  you lose $1.80!!!

Okay, so how much does a Kindle 2 cost?  Drum roll…  You can preorder a Kindle 2 from Amazon for the unbelievable price of $359.  So, just to drive my point home, a little more math.  I did a little more cost comparison on a dozen randomly selected titles, from fiction to non fiction, and found that the average savings from buying a Kindle Ebook over a paperback comes out to one dollar and twenty three cents.  So, in order to break even on your Kindle 2, you will need to purchase 292 Ebooks.

Finally, and I think the biggest chink in Kindle’s armour, is the battery.  Yes, I am sure the battery lasts a long time, but do you really need one more excuse not to finish reading your “Kindle for Dummies Ebook?”  Gee, I was gonna read it, but I hafta charge my Kindle…  Sheesh.