Amazon's $399 folly book reader
That's the cost of the company's Kindle, a gadget with an 800 x 600 E Ink screen. Apparently the company has been working on the device since 2004. It's priced at $100 more than Sony's E Ink-based reader, which has received rave reviews, and, like every electronic book-reading predecessor, has failed to set the world alight. Kindle, however, has a built-in Wi-Fi 3G connection - just what you always wanted from a book.
Kindling
The Kindle weighs 284g (10oz) and Amazon claims the battery lasts 30 hours per charge.
Why Amazon embarked on this folly isn't clear from a hagiographic feature by Newsweek's Steven "Collective Intelligence" Levy - whose brain must have fallen out in the course of his genuflecting before Amazon boss and amateur spaceman Jeff Bezos.
Levy doesn't mention the long history of ebook failures - Gemstar/Rocket, anyone? - nor does he give any justification for the title: "Reinventing the book". Levy raves about the "killer user interface" - does it kill humans? Or flies? - without explaining why. In addition to delivering digital books, Amazon also hopes to drive print subscriptions from the major publishers: Time Warner and the New York Times are partners for the launch, just as they've been partners for every e-book reader launch we can remember.
review taken from reghardware.co.uk
