Amazon fans order three Fires for every E Ink Kindle Kindle buyers want the Fire, Amazon's new colour tablet, more than they want the online retailers revamped E Ink reader, buyer data suggests. Online number cruncher eDataSource said late last week that 95,000 punters signed up for the Fire on the first day Amazon began noting expressions of interest. The company tracks 800, …
.. a considered purchase, and punters really do prefer tablets to e-book readers, or simply a flood of buyers after a cheap tablet, remains to be seen. Holiday season sales are going to be eagerly watched."
Or perhaps option C; many people that wanted an e-book reader will have bought one of the earlier Kindles already, and the new ones aren't different enough to prompt an upgrade purchase. The Fire, on the other hand, *is* radically new, and might be wanted for reasons beyond it simply being "a cheap tablet".
If they are expecting to make a ton of cash on Amazon purchases and books etc through the device they can probably afford to go light on the initial mark-up. Getting a minimum £79/yr out of each punter that forgets to cancel the enhanced subscription after a year worth it alone.
Kindle owners who are very satisfied who also fancy a fondleslab but couldn't justify the $300 -$400 price tag either to themselves or their spouse. I'll be having one when they launch in th uk because I'm happy with my kindle but fancy a nice slab at a decent price (and I missed out on th HP firesale!)
Even if it comes in at £199 it'll still be one of the best contenders out there!
IMO the advent of the tablet has killed the ebook reader in its current form, it may take a while dying but it will die. The best possible outcome would be a merging of the two technologies, the versatility of a tablet with the ease of reading and excellent battery usage of an ereader.
I'd buy that for a dollar!
I love my kindle - it's a viable replacement for a book, in terms of easy-on-the-eye use.
I'm (only?) 29, but I find I hold my cellphone further away from my face when I look at it, compared to years ago, or younger (teens) extended family members. My eyes are knackered after a day on my laptop without my glasses. A fondleslab would just make all that worse.
I don't have a fondleslab because between my laptop and my bb, I don't have the need to play games, browse photos surf the net or do whatever else people who *still use their tablets six months after buying it* do.
The kindle is a *book* replacement, NOT a crap-screene tablet, and it's damn good at what it was designed to do. I don't see them going anywhere.
Have you read a book on an e-ink screen? It is very very good. I struggle to even read a report on a computer screen let alone a novel, and have no intention of trying to on a fondleslab.
Battery life of a month or more on a kindle. You will be a long long time waiting if you want that on a fondleslab.
E ink is so much easier on the eye than LCD, that I think there will be a market for E-readers for some time to come.
Once someone comes up with a combined screen that can do both, or perhaps a double sided tablet with eink on one side and LCD on the other, then the dedicated e-reader may die.
On the other hand, if you just want a device for reading, the eink devices are a lot cheaper....
I would not assume too much based on one set of analysts' guesstimates of the Fire's production costs. I have seen at least two other sets of figures putting it at on or around cost price. My personal gut feeling is that a fifty dollar hit sounds a bit too much - just my *guess*.
Why do useless pointless companies like this 'market research' company exist?? They Monitor 800,000 email in boxes.. presumably by spyware? meaning that their research is flawed, as their sample group is just the idiots who want(?) spyware on their PC's...and is therefore not representative of the overall tech using community.
More importantly why do media companies have to reprint the drivel they produce as 'News'? it's not news, it's a press release! there is a difference.
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