$399 (and free 2 day shipping) with access to 88,000 books including 100 of the 112 New York Times best sellers. No WiFi here, Amazon's Whispernet service is FREE and based on Sprint's EVDO: "Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so you will never see a monthly wireless bill for shopping the Kindle Store." Whispernet allows Kindle owners to wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, dowload and receive content -- and it works out the box, no setup required. All new release books cost $9.99 as do books found on the NYT best sellers list. Newspaper subscriptions cost $5.99 to $14.99 per month and Kindle Magazines cost between $1.25 and $3.49 per month -- each is available for a free 2 week trial. Oddly, blogs will cost you $0.99 per month to subscribe. All purchased content is stored as a backup on Amazon's site. Running down the specs again: internal storage for 200 titles (more via SD expansion), battery that lasts for days (2 hour recharge), 10.3 ounces, built-in dictionary and Wikipedia, and plenty more. While the reader itself could be mistaken for a Handspring device from the 90s, the service itself certainly makes for a compelling proposition.
RE:Rediff get the whole data
by Shankar on Nov 21, 2007 09:17 PM Permalink
Thanks for the info, Prav. The battery life (with WiFi off) sounds unbelievable. I hope Amzn will stay the course and not entertain the doubters.
RE:Rediff get the whole data
by sushi on Nov 20, 2007 03:51 PM Permalink
I think it's a great start - and definitely outsmarts Sony.
What I'd like however are: (a) A larger screen and stylus / handwriting recognition instead of a key board (b) Support for native PDF files (now you need to convert to Doc and send it to Amazon who sends a converted proprietary file to your device).
That's all I need. And oh yes, the price needs to be lower too. $200 will just about cut it; $100 will be a blockbuster device.
