Amazon kindle 2 now $189

Disappointed that no DX drop
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Ditto.

I want a larger screen and/or higher resolution for my text books, but this is a good sign. There are some larger e-readers on the horizon to compete against the DX and PRS-900.

But geez... Nook doesn't open word documents? There must be a way to get around that...
 
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Wow, I just bought one for $259 three weeks ago. Sent them an email to see if my account would be credited.
 
Wow, I just bought one for $259 three weeks ago. Sent them an email to see if my account would be credited.

If not, you can probably buy this one, then get a return (just a button press away on amazon.com) and send in the brand new you receive.
 
Can you borrow eBooks for eReaders as if you were checking out books from a library? If so, I would totally consider one.
 
Can you borrow eBooks for eReaders as if you were checking out books from a library? If so, I would totally consider one.

On the Nook you can borrow books from your local library because it supports the ePub format (There is also some free books on google books)

On kindle you can't. The biggest reason I got a nook over a kindle is because is way more open format wise and ePub is great. I would go with the wifi nook for $149 over a kindle.
 
I'm intrigued by the WiFi Nook. With the 3G/WiFi Nook, do you have to get mobile broadband service?
 
I'm intrigued by the WiFi Nook. With the 3G/WiFi Nook, do you have to get mobile broadband service?

No its free, the 3g is kind of pointless imo though because if you know you are going to be out of wifi range for a while (That barely ever happens these days haha) you could just download a few books.
 
I paid $259 for mine a little over a year ago. I thought that was worth it just so I could take a library anywhere I went. for $189, I don't understand why any middle class person would do without one. I love mine. Currently, I have 30 books on it, and its not even 5% full.
 
I paid $259 for mine a little over a year ago. I thought that was worth it just so I could take a library anywhere I went. for $189, I don't understand why any middle class person would do without one. I love mine. Currently, I have 30 books on it, and its not even 5% full.

Middle class?
 
Its nice the readers are getting more affordable but I'm gonna hold out for the actual ebooks themselves to get more affordable before I start shelling out. Most of em' seem to cost only a little less than the paperback versions right now, should be closer to a couple of bucks at the most IMO.
 
Its nice the readers are getting more affordable but I'm gonna hold out for the actual ebooks themselves to get more affordable before I start shelling out. Most of em' seem to cost only a little less than the paperback versions right now, should be closer to a couple of bucks at the most IMO.

I tend to agree; I find very few ebooks cheaper than I can buy paper books, and by a significant margin. DRM between sellers (Amazon, B&N, etc.) and between hardware devices is just a big mess.

Right now, the sellers (Amazon, B&N, Apple?, etc.) are more interested in locking you into their store/drm/prices via their very own "closed down" ereaders (Kindle, Nook, etc.) than they are into providing a good ereader/ebook experience. There have been expensive horror stories where people have lost their book collections due to arbitrary drm/hardware decisions made by these companies who only care about selling their books, and more books, as many times as possible, and at the highest price that consumers will tolerate.

My guess is that within another 4 - 6 months we'll see "open" android tablets of many types and designs that will be much better as ereaders, but that will also have extra features, like "real" browsers and the ability to install useful android apps. Unfortunately, greedy, paranoid, and "old style" publishers may even wreck this possibility...........Music has come so far, unfortunately, books/publishers have a ways to go.
 
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My guess is that within another 4 - 6 months we'll see "open" android tablets of many types and designs that will be much better as ereaders, but that will also have extra features, like "real" browsers and the ability to install useful android apps.

I think that's optimistic. For one thing, you really need a dual-screen device with both an e-ink and a TFT (or AMOLED) screen to do all that, and no one in the market has the vested interest to sink a lot of development money into it other than Amazon and B & N. So far all we've seen on the dual-screen front are oddball prototypes from smaller companies. That isn't going to shake up the market.
 
I read an article a while back where someone had made a screen with a TN that had some kind of reflective layer between the panel and the backlight. That allowed it to run with no backlight in black and white anywhere you had sufficient ambient light. It basically made it like eink, and supposedly had similar power consumption. It also allowed for much better refresh rates.
 
I paid $259 for mine a little over a year ago. I thought that was worth it just so I could take a library anywhere I went. for $189, I don't understand why any middle class person would do without one. I love mine. Currently, I have 30 books on it, and its not even 5% full.

I could probably think of a few reasons.
 
I have loads and loads of books/guides in pdf format, how good is the kindle with pdf?
 
I tend to agree; I find very few ebooks cheaper than I can buy paper books, and by a significant margin. DRM between sellers (Amazon, B&N, etc.) and between hardware devices is just a big mess.

Right now, the sellers (Amazon, B&N, Apple?, etc.) are more interested in locking you into their store/drm/prices via their very own "closed down" ereaders (Kindle, Nook, etc.) than they are into providing a good ereader/ebook experience. There have been expensive horror stories where people have lost their book collections due to arbitrary drm/hardware decisions made by these companies who only care about selling their books, and more books, as many times as possible, and at the highest price that consumers will tolerate.

My guess is that within another 4 - 6 months we'll see "open" android tablets of many types and designs that will be much better as ereaders, but that will also have extra features, like "real" browsers and the ability to install useful android apps. Unfortunately, greedy, paranoid, and "old style" publishers may even wreak this possibility...........Music has come so far, unfortunately, books/publishers have a ways to go.

the first 2 paragraphs in your post are exactly why I have not bought an Ebook reader in spite of wanting one for years. Nothing really replaces the feel of good book paper in your hands. Only problem with books is they get worn over time, but then again any electronic gizmo will wear out over time as well.

But then again, why an ebook reader when you can get an iPad or a portable netbook?
 
Typical. :rolleyes: I buy a Sony Reader PRS-600 for $199 and now the price drops on other e-readers start to happen.

That doesn't ruin my day; I love my new reader and it's native support for ePUB, PDFs, RTFs, TXTs, etc. I also reversed its touch functionality so now it feels closer to turning the pages of a paperback. :cool:
 
The 3G is nice when I am somewhere w/ no wifi, like my place of employment. No lending on the Kindle like on the Nook but you can have up to 6 Kindles on one account and the books you buy are good on all of them. I'm not sure if it's the same on the Nook.

The Nook supporting ePub is a big deal but I already owned the Kindle and the ebook titles are going up in price. Amazon tried to hold the line on this at $9.99 but the other readers have been signing on with the 12.99 to 14.99 prices and it looks like Amazon decided to leave it up to the consumers if we want to pay it. I'm glad they did because it was getting irritating with titles disappearing and reappearing when I went to look for them.

Kindle will read pdf and you can upload docs to your Kindle email to have them converted to the readable format. Then it's a few cents to download via whispernet or you can plug it into your pc to copy it to the device. The Kindle-for-PC program is available if you want to read at your computer. What the Nook does in regards to those last two I do not know.

Now that my wife and I have put over 220 books on our Kindles we will have to wait and see if there will be a way to migrate them to a new device at some point if we decide to change what e-reader we use.
 
But then again, why an ebook reader when you can get an iPad or a portable netbook?

This has been said ad nauseum, but: if you want a device that's do-it-all, then yes, you should get a netbook (I wouldn't even go for ipad in the do-it-all case, since it, well, doesn't). If you want a device to do nothing but READ BOOKS on, then ereaders (Not just the kindle) are vastly superior for reading.

Don't believe me? Take your ipad out in the sun and try reading on it.
 
This has been said ad nauseum, but: if you want a device that's do-it-all, then yes, you should get a netbook (I wouldn't even go for ipad in the do-it-all case, since it, well, doesn't). If you want a device to do nothing but READ BOOKS on, then ereaders (Not just the kindle) are vastly superior for reading.

Don't believe me? Take your ipad out in the sun and try reading on it.

This is true, but I read 80% of the time in the evening, or in bed before sleeping, where there is not a lot of light, and sometimes, like when camping, not any light. Too bad most these ereaders don't have built-in backlights for those occasions. I like the battery life of the ereaders too.
 
Too little too late from Amazon in my opinion. If this was the price of the Kindle 2 initially, or at least a year or more ago I would have gone in for one. Now that the iPad is out that is basically a Kindle (arguably better from a functionality standpoint, although does lack Amazon's book selection) I just can't justify owning a Kindle at all. And before anyone says that the "ePaper" on the Kindle makes it so much better than the iPad, I disagree. For ME the iPad is fine for reading books, and I get all the other uses from the iPad not just books. I get that if you only want books, books, books then go for the Kindle BUT with the iPad I no longer need to bring multiple devices with me traveling or just out and about for the day. That's a huge plus for me right there.
 
Too little too late from Amazon in my opinion. If this was the price of the Kindle 2 initially, or at least a year or more ago I would have gone in for one. Now that the iPad is out that is basically a Kindle (arguably better from a functionality standpoint, although does lack Amazon's book selection) I just can't justify owning a Kindle at all. And before anyone says that the "ePaper" on the Kindle makes it so much better than the iPad, I disagree. For ME the iPad is fine for reading books, and I get all the other uses from the iPad not just books. I get that if you only want books, books, books then go for the Kindle BUT with the iPad I no longer need to bring multiple devices with me traveling or just out and about for the day. That's a huge plus for me right there.

The price points of the e-readers vs. the iPad are also vastly different. With these price drops you can basically buy an e-reader for everyone in the family, or you can buy an iPad. My dad just got a Nook for Father's Day, and after using it for a bit, I was very impressed. The e-ink screen is FAR superior for reading for extended periods of time...much less strain on the eyes.

Hmm, I wonder if B&N will give my mom the price difference since she just bought the damn thing last weekend.
 
This is sounding like a ATI vs Nvidia thread. ;)

The Kindle is fantastic for non techies and someone who just wants to read books.

I bought my wife a Kindle for X-Mas because she would complain she was always out of stuff to read. She loves it. That from someone who is a total tech fail. I've bought her many electronic gadgets over the years and this is the first one she actually uses. That's because is very user friendly.

Me I still want real books.
 
This has been said ad nauseum, but: if you want a device that's do-it-all, then yes, you should get a netbook (I wouldn't even go for ipad in the do-it-all case, since it, well, doesn't). If you want a device to do nothing but READ BOOKS on, then ereaders (Not just the kindle) are vastly superior for reading.

Don't believe me? Take your ipad out in the sun and try reading on it.

Yes.

I just got a nook on Sunday. Then the price dropped on Monday to $199 and $149 for the upcoming wi-fi nook (I got a refund from B&N).

Amazon followed the price drop on the Kindle 2 later the same day.

I went with the Nook and I'm not sorry. Nook does epub and a few other formats. It's totally friendly to more than just the B&N store that way. Nice open source Andoid underneath. And it has a miniSD slot. Good IMO over the Kindle...the kind of things I hate Apple for not doing.

I had a few Kindle books by the way. You can strip the DRM with certain..ahem...tools and convert them to epub with Calibre, which is a very cool ebook library tool. That way you can buy from whichever is cheaper. You can convert un-DRM'd epub to Kindle-friendly mobipocket format from what I understand for the Kindle.

The eyestrain on the Nook is NIL. I read a whole book on it on Sunday/Monday night and felt zero eyestrain - much different than an LCD or a CRT. It took me about 5 minutes and it totally felt just like a book.

Highly recommended if you like to read a lot. Get an e-reader. That deal on the refurb Kindle is hot, even though I prefer the Nook. If you like to watch movies and do web surfing on a touch device get the giant ipod touch...err...ipad. For reading, the e-ink is fantastic.
 
Yea the e-ink is the major thing for me. I couldn't read for extended periods of time on an ipad it starts to hurt your eyes. E ink feels exactly like reading a book.
 
Calibre, which is a very cool ebook library tool.

THIS. I discovered Calibre after reading some Amazon reviews on the Sony readers; Let me just say that the bloated, pile-of-festering-dog-shit software Sony bundles with their readers cannot hold a candle to this amazing app. Despite the lack of a built-in storefront, Calibre comes with a built-in document converter for most, non-DRM e-reader formats; a tool for downloading RSS feeds; a method that uses Google and isbndb for fetching metadata for a book just by searching its title, author, and/or ISBN number; and an e-reader compatibility list which also includes the Kindle, the Nook, even the iPad. Anybody with an e-reader and a computer should have no excuse for not trying this program out.


Oh BTW, did I mention that it's open-source, too? ;)
 
Too little too late from Amazon in my opinion. If this was the price of the Kindle 2 initially, or at least a year or more ago I would have gone in for one. Now that the iPad is out that is basically a Kindle (arguably better from a functionality standpoint, although does lack Amazon's book selection) I just can't justify owning a Kindle at all. And before anyone says that the "ePaper" on the Kindle makes it so much better than the iPad, I disagree. For ME the iPad is fine for reading books, and I get all the other uses from the iPad not just books. I get that if you only want books, books, books then go for the Kindle BUT with the iPad I no longer need to bring multiple devices with me traveling or just out and about for the day. That's a huge plus for me right there.
I see what you are saying and I can see many that don't have a netbook or ereader already maybe making a choice to check out the iPad. I think Apple is banking on that segment. I had a chance to play with one for a minute and it's cool.

However, the there are many out there that LOVE the fact that the Kindle is a simple book reader only with the e-ink display....visit the forums sometime. My wife just loves hers and she could care less about listening to music, surfing the web, or even updating the firmware on the thing. I think the current price is great and it would have really been a hit if they did it around the end of last year. The original price of $400 was a bit insane to me.

The $829 price is a bit insane to me as well for the iPad with 64 GB, WiFi, & 3G. Then $14.99 or $25.00 for wireless service? Come on...get real! The guy that already has a Netbook and cheap 3G service might say no thank you to the iPad and pick up a Kindle for $189 to complete his multi media arsenal. Just think....if he already has:

ACER Aspire One netbook (160 GB, 1.66 Ghz, 1024 MB RAM, WiFi WIN 7) - $250
Nokia Nuron 5230 smartphone (Ovi Maps, FM, Music player, 2 mp camera, etc) - $119 from Costco Prepaid
T-Mobile unlimited WebToGo 3G service - $10/Month
then add:
Kindle 2 (Free whispernet) - $189
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So we have a fairly capable PC, book reader, smart phone, music player, GPS, 3G web service (can tether to PC), FM radio, etc for: $558 + $10/month 3G service
A $271 savings + $15/month or $360/2 yrs savings = $631 TOTAL savings over 2 yrs with the above devices over the $829 iPad with $25/month 3G service.

The Acer netbook is about the same size as the iPad when it is closed....just a little thicker.

iPad-------------9.56" x 7.47"x 0.5" - 1.6 lbs
Aspire One---10.2" x 7.3" x 0.99” - 2.8 lbs
Kindle-----------8.0" x 5.3" x 0.36" - 0.64 lbs

It would be nothing to slip a Kindle in your netbook carry bag and we always carry a cell phone....so while it is nice to have an all-in-one like the iPad......for much less money one can do a lot more with multiple devices. Looking at the cost of ownership above.....Myself I would rather have the netbook, Kindle, and cell phone. At $829 the iPad cost too much, does too little, and is too late IMO. But I know they had to do it because that is the direction the industry might be heading....the all-in-one concept is getting better. The music players and cameras(5-12 megapixel on better devices) on our cell phones are getting better for example. These are just stepping stones for what is to come.
 
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The real problem for me is that I have a library account. I can't justify spending $200 on hardware and then actually start paying for books. I pay local taxes and getting to read any book I want (either from the library or inter-library loan) is a benefit of doing so.

My library has some ebooks available, but until I can "check out" most things on an ereader from my library for me, real paper will be unbeatable!
 
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