Amazon.com has produced what, hopefully, will become the future of print. Yes the Kindle is a great step forward in the publishing industry and I want to see widespread
adaptation of the platform. Sadly there is a few problems with the Kindle that might prevent it from catching on.
- Its expensive, the base model costs $359 with the large screen DX costing $489
- It is only in black and white. No beautiful illustrations along with your book.
- The screen size is restrictive, although the DX model helps solve this.
- There is no web browser.
Let me expand on that last point. The Kindle can access the
Internet on Sprints 3G network to download books or view
Wikipedia. Amazon calls this the
Whispernet and its free, which is a great start. But how many things do we already carry with us? A laptop, phone, music player, and now an e-reader. The real problem is the price compared to
usability. For the price of the base reader you can buy a
netbook that can access the Internet anywhere, which is more useful.
Maybe the next Kindle will get it right. I would buy a Kindle DX IF it had a touchscreen, OLED display, full web browser, anywhere Internet access, and organization tools (calender, rolodex, etc.) Until then I'll wait. But I'm not trying to say how horrible Amazon.com is or how bad this product is. I hope it takes off and from that the product evolves into something truly extraordinary.
No comments:
Post a Comment