

The $99 Kindle - GiraffeNecktie
http://www.slate.com/id/2263787/?from=rss

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frossie
I would be stunned and amazed if e-ink readers were NOT $99 this Christmas.

Hell, I bet next (2011) Christmas you'll be able to get them for free (eg. buy
1 Kindle for $100 and get a $100 e-book gift card free). The money's in the
content.

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patio11
I'm thinking the offer is "Amazon Prime gets you free express shipping on all
your orders from Amazon for only $99 a year. Sign up before X and we'll send
you a Kindle absolutely free."

Think of it: Prime increases average customer value through the freaking roof,
since it causes people to move non-Amazon spending to Amazon. Kindle is the
same way. They have complementary value propositions: get what you want
_faster_ and _cheaper_. Prime is a subscription billing service, too, and a
Kindle in active use might as well be.

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petervandijck
Too complicated, just sell the Kindle for 99$. Easy to understand, easy to
gift. Bundling Prime with it makes it harder to gift.

ps: I let me prime subscription expire in the hope that it would make me buy
less stuff on Amazon. No shipping costs really does make it easier to buy.

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samdk
These prices coming down have pretty much guaranteed an ebook reader is the
next thing I'm buying. When they were $300 reading on my computer screen
didn't seem too bad, but for (soon) under $100 I'm sold.

Anyone have any particular recommendations that aren't the Kindle? I avoid
devices that are as locked down as it is. I don't really care about wireless,
I want an e-ink (or comparably easy-on-the-eyes screen), and decent PDF
support would be nice. The Sony Reader Touch and the Nook both interesting,
although there seem to be a ton of other ones out there made by companies I've
never heard of. Any suggestions?

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potatolicious
I'm puzzled that you think the Kindle is locked down - it supports almost all
of the major ebook formats. Only buying Kindle books on Amazon will entail
DRM, supplying your own files is as good as it is on any other e-reader.

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samdk
EPUB isn't exactly a minor omission.

Amazon wants to control the whole experience from content down to the physical
device. They want to do the same thing Apple's done with iOS. They're not
Apple, so they may not succeed, but I'm not going to support them until I'm
reasonably confident that's not the way they're heading. I don't own an
iP{hone,od,ad} either for the same reason.

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Goronmon
It's a fairly minor omission when you can use a tool like calibre to convert
your EPUB files to MOBI.

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bcl
$99 has been my price point for it all along. If the kindle books were cheaper
I'd spend a bit more for the reader -- but at $9 a book (and you can't share
them like you can with a nook) I want a relatively inexpensive reader.

Also note that other publishers do publish books in kindle format, Baen books
for example has their free library which includes every format under the sun.

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petervandijck
I saw the 139 price and thought exactly that: wait till Xmas and get it for
99$ (and throw in some free books perhaps). Perfect.

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c1sc0
Methinks the iPad caused a renaissance for the digital book & Amazon is doing
everything to make sure that their eBook format does not become obsolete.
Amazon has been advertising the Kindle app for the iPad all over the place &
it only makes sense to aggressively reduce the price one the readers. The
money is in the books, not the readers. Or rather, the money is in the
convenience of digital distribution. Apple convinced people to _pay_ for
_convenience_ and Amazon is trying to hitch a ride.

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blocke
I'm still scratching my head over why everyone else seems to support ePub but
Amazon can't be bothered to add it to the Kindle.

It's the reason why I went with the nook.

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lkjhgfhjk
Amazon sell kindle, people only buy books for it from Amazon, Amazon make
money - Bezos buys new holiday island (eg Australia)

Amazon support open format ebooks, people buy kindle then get books everywhere
else - Amazon make no money and Bezos forced to buy Grenada instead.

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CrazedGeek
Amazon does support open formats, just not ePub.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200505520&#recognize)

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Sizlak
Is he saying that Amazon will sell the Kindle at a loss, so they can control
the market where they sell ebooks at a loss? And what, make it up on volume? I
think they'll have to trim down the features on the low end version to get
production costs way down. Maybe get rid of the keyboard.

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loire280
Since we're still in land-grab mode in the ebook business, selling at a loss
might make all kinds of sense.

Once users amass a virtual bookshelf, you've got them locked in pretty hard,
especially if they use the Kindle to read it. If the iPad becomes the e-reader
of choice, lock-in is weaker because you can use all of the major bookstores
on it.

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nimrody
Does the Kindle support complex science books well? I bought one statistics
book and the equations and graphs do not scale with the text.

For fiction I still prefer small paperback books. Easy to swap with friends
and simple to use.

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saturdayplace
At $100, I'm definitely getting one for Christmas. My wife's and my own
miserly tendencies are nearly obliterated at that point.

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sliverstorm
If I'm getting it for someone as a holiday gift, I'd wait.

If I'm buying it for myself, I'd buy it now. $40 price premium to have it 3
months sooner? Seems worth it to me, $40 isn't much of a big deal and you can
do a lot of reading in that time.

