Kindle DX
- Thread starter ivan2
- Start date
boomhower
Diamond Member
- Sep 13, 2007
- 7,228
- 19
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Like others have said to expensive. I would rather have a $400 netbook and read the paper online. I would have to hold one but I am doubting the durability of these things over the course of a college students school year. Early reports are saying amazon is taking 70% of the newspaper subscription fees right off the top, ouch. It remains to be seem how these will be adopted by text book companies.
My simple question is why not drop 3G and use wifi. Then they do not have to pay for the bandwidth so they can lower the prices back to more realistic levels. College students all have wifi. Most other buyers are going to pretty tech informed and could connect the device to a wifi network. I just think its an easy place to save money.
My simple question is why not drop 3G and use wifi. Then they do not have to pay for the bandwidth so they can lower the prices back to more realistic levels. College students all have wifi. Most other buyers are going to pretty tech informed and could connect the device to a wifi network. I just think its an easy place to save money.
jonesthewine
Senior member
- Dec 30, 2003
- 689
- 0
- 76
I don't think that the college student demographic is the target audience with the kindle - more affluent upper middle class and beyond seems to me the target, and 3G means "connect anytime, anywhere" , which to me is one of the biggest selling points. On the beach, in a car while someone else is driving, etc...
IMHO, the problem with using this thing for school is that:
1. I didn't take my books to class as a general rule. When I did, like for comp-lit, they tended to be pretty light.
2. If the book prices don't go down, and there is very little indication they will, I've just added another $500 to my college textbook bill.
3. You can't sell your books back. While I never sold books related to my majors (this turned out to be smart!), I certainly sold most of the ones from electives.
The only sane reason I see for buying it for college is limited shelf space in your dorm room, and is it really so limited you can't store 5-10 books? The Kindle DX doesn't solve a problem, and it charges you a fair bit for not solving it.
1. I didn't take my books to class as a general rule. When I did, like for comp-lit, they tended to be pretty light.
2. If the book prices don't go down, and there is very little indication they will, I've just added another $500 to my college textbook bill.
3. You can't sell your books back. While I never sold books related to my majors (this turned out to be smart!), I certainly sold most of the ones from electives.
The only sane reason I see for buying it for college is limited shelf space in your dorm room, and is it really so limited you can't store 5-10 books? The Kindle DX doesn't solve a problem, and it charges you a fair bit for not solving it.
gorcorps
aka Brandon
- Jul 18, 2004
- 30,739
- 454
- 126
Why would the DX appeal to college kids more? The only way it would is if they could store their textbooks on it, but without a full color screen a lot of textbooks would be useless. At that price and what it does I don't think college is their demographic at all. If it is, they fucked up something awful.
Bateluer
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2001
- 27,730
- 8
- 0
Which will keep its adoption limited.
They don't have to get it to 50 dollars, sell the Kindle 2 for 149 and everyone would have one. They thing only costs 185 to manufacture to begin with, which will improve with yields. The money will easily be made up with book, magazine, and newspaper sales.
Is it really unlimited 3G access? I thought it was only for their website and a couple of other sites.
Deeko
Lifer
- Jun 16, 2000
- 30,213
- 12
- 81
There is a browser on it. You can at least attempt to go to ANY website. However, it is an "experimental" feature, which basically means if your favorite website doesn't load properly, they aren't on the hook to fix it. And Bateluer, again...the 3G internet access is what's causing that price difference. Were it to only cost $185 for the hardware (I have no idea), that does not recoup the R&D costs OR the cost of unlimited 3G access. Sprint doesn't give that away for free.
I don't think Amazon needs everyone on the planet to own a Kindle tomorrow, just like Apple didn't need everyone on the planet to own the original iPod in 2001. As Kindle DX has shown, a wider array of models that appeal to different crowds will arise as time goes on.
I don't think Amazon needs everyone on the planet to own a Kindle tomorrow, just like Apple didn't need everyone on the planet to own the original iPod in 2001. As Kindle DX has shown, a wider array of models that appeal to different crowds will arise as time goes on.
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