Hi Everybody. Over the past couple of weeks I have been dreaming up ideas about the Kindle 3. The following essay contains the arguments that I finally came up with to convince myself to buy one. It hasn't been delivered yet so I haven't been able to actually put these ideas into practice but I am convinced that this is all feasible.
PS. Please post and criticism or ideas you may have on the following idea.
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How the Kindle 3 Can Mitigate Computing and Internet Cost
By: George (the other one)
Technology wise one thing that I believe will be a good investment is a Kindle 3. Now bear with me. I know at first it appears that the Kindle 3 would be a poor investment because of its reputation for limited scope (ie, its just an e-book reader and nothing else) and the idea that technology will soon make it obsolete classifying it as a depreciating asset. However, there are three reasons to buy a Kindle 3, namely the free Internet, processing power, and portability aspects.
So firstly, the free Internet on the Kindle 3 is a big deal. This is because, well, its free. It is also probably the last time that free cellular Internet will be offered on a hand held device. This is due to the fact that this version of the Kindle will probably be the last version to have a slow enough refresh rate to make watching videos infeasible. Personally I believe that this is the only reason that the Internet is available for free on it and if in the future this proves to be true then having a depreciated technology will be an advantage.
Secondly, I think that the kindle is a good investment because it finally has enough processing speed to be able to handle web applications and it has a web browser that doesn't strip all the formating from websites. Because of this you can now do basically anything that you could have done on a small net book two or three years ago (ie what you could do on an asus 701 or similar with a small processor). This would include word-processing, email, web-browsing, e-books, blogging, ,usic/radio, etc all on a paper-like screen that uses very little battery power.
I can hear your first complaint already. It is a tablet style device that has a small screen and a thumb-driven keyboard. Well, so what. Even though the screen is small it is still 600x800 resolution which is as good as my eee701 and is more than adequate for web-browsing, word-processing, and other net-book functions. As for the lack of a keyboard there is nothing to stop you from soldering in your own keyboard. In fact, the first thing I plan to do when I my kindle 3 finally gets here is to mount it to the inside right of a book and then mount a keyboard to the inside left. This way it should be able to function as both a 600x800 (vertical) e-book reader and an 800x600 (horizontal) net-book.
Now, what if someone went through and programmed a web-page to simulate a desktop environment? Even if it only had the functionality of windows 3.1 the possibilities and utility would still be almost all that normal net-book users would require. The advantages of this would be especially apparent when you realize that the 2gb hard drive is no longer a limitation since your hard drive would be in the cloud (ie. You would store all your files on the Internet like g-mail stores your email on the Internet).
Thirdly, you still have all the functionality and design of the best e-book reader currently available (though if this is all you wanted you could probably just buy a used kindle 1 or 2).
Finally, this is all based on the assumption that the free Internet browsing will stay free but I would say that there is a pretty good chance that it remains that way on the Kindle 3 since they are now marketing it as having free Internet.
How the Kindle 3 Can Mitigate Computing and Internet Cost
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George the other one
- Posts: 52
- Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:55 pm
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Hey George. The Kindle really is a cool gadget--I'm selling my Kindle 2 now that I've replaced it with the Sony PRS-300. I felt smart getting in on the free AT&T 3G, and the browser was functional enough to read the news, the ERE forum and even do emailing through Gmail. It's great to be able to read/surf the web before going to sleep without staring at a backlit screen. However, for me the priority is not to have any cable or internet in my home--that's why I "downgraded" to the wifi-free, 3G-free Sony Reader. My neighbor has unprotected wi-fi, and for this reason I don't even bring my (data-plan-disabled, prepaid) BlackBerry home most nights. This means that 90% of my time at home I have no cable, internet OR phone.
I also keep my DVDs at my office and only load up 0-2 hours of TV/film on my iPod each night (hooks up beautifully to my 32" $30 garage sale TV, and doubles as a great alarm clock, btw). This all has to do with controlling my environment and not indulging my media/internet addiction. So that's my idiosyncratic objection to your plan--it doesn't work in my very particular circumstance.
Another great reason to "downgrade" in this manner: You can borrow e-books from the library; Kindle doesn't offer this. The winning argument for having an e-book reader in the context of ERE is how little space it takes up compared to its (dozens and hundreds of books) content.
I also keep my DVDs at my office and only load up 0-2 hours of TV/film on my iPod each night (hooks up beautifully to my 32" $30 garage sale TV, and doubles as a great alarm clock, btw). This all has to do with controlling my environment and not indulging my media/internet addiction. So that's my idiosyncratic objection to your plan--it doesn't work in my very particular circumstance.
Another great reason to "downgrade" in this manner: You can borrow e-books from the library; Kindle doesn't offer this. The winning argument for having an e-book reader in the context of ERE is how little space it takes up compared to its (dozens and hundreds of books) content.
I quit on Kindle's recently, so I have nothing nice to write about them:
1. The internet is NOT free, it is bundled into the price of the gadget and the books you buy. It is a loss leader strategy. Kindle makes a killing bundling "free internet" because most people buy way more books due to accessibility.
2. Almost all tablets/laptops/netbooks are going the "bundling" route. All of them will have "free internet" (and other apps like email) in the very near future. In fact, even the chipset makers are getting into the game and offering chips/modules with services bundled in.
3. EInk screens are bad. I went through several Kindles (I make consumer electronics for a living and get to expense them), and have finally given up on all EInk based gadgets. It seems the longest you can get out of them is 1 year before you put too much pressure on the display accidentally and "ink-blot" it to a level where it is unreadable.
4. I'm really excited for the future of tablets outside of Kindle. Check out pixelqi - they are doing some radical stuff in the LCD space, founded by the former CTO of the one laptop, one child project. I'm very excited to see some new gadgets come out with these screens later this year. I'm intrigued to see what comes out of Google with ChromeOS and the tablet line-up carrying it. I am optimistic there will be better "internet" devices than the Kindle in 6-12 months... at the same price point.
5. The Kindle form factor makes it a GOOD book reading device (not great since you can't flip multi pages ala a real book). But it is a bad internet device due to no touch and vertical display.
6. My spending on books/media skyrocketed when I had the Kindle. Its hard not to buy books when you own it, its just so easy...
And now after 2 years of e-reading and then going back to about 6 months of books/library, I'm going to say that I'll stick with books/library probably from here on out.
1. The internet is NOT free, it is bundled into the price of the gadget and the books you buy. It is a loss leader strategy. Kindle makes a killing bundling "free internet" because most people buy way more books due to accessibility.
2. Almost all tablets/laptops/netbooks are going the "bundling" route. All of them will have "free internet" (and other apps like email) in the very near future. In fact, even the chipset makers are getting into the game and offering chips/modules with services bundled in.
3. EInk screens are bad. I went through several Kindles (I make consumer electronics for a living and get to expense them), and have finally given up on all EInk based gadgets. It seems the longest you can get out of them is 1 year before you put too much pressure on the display accidentally and "ink-blot" it to a level where it is unreadable.
4. I'm really excited for the future of tablets outside of Kindle. Check out pixelqi - they are doing some radical stuff in the LCD space, founded by the former CTO of the one laptop, one child project. I'm very excited to see some new gadgets come out with these screens later this year. I'm intrigued to see what comes out of Google with ChromeOS and the tablet line-up carrying it. I am optimistic there will be better "internet" devices than the Kindle in 6-12 months... at the same price point.
5. The Kindle form factor makes it a GOOD book reading device (not great since you can't flip multi pages ala a real book). But it is a bad internet device due to no touch and vertical display.
6. My spending on books/media skyrocketed when I had the Kindle. Its hard not to buy books when you own it, its just so easy...
And now after 2 years of e-reading and then going back to about 6 months of books/library, I'm going to say that I'll stick with books/library probably from here on out.
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George the other one
- Posts: 52
- Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 11:55 pm
- Contact:
@ Zev. I admit, probably let the Internet control too much of my time. You do have a point there. Instant access to the Internet from anywhere could be more of a curse than a blessing.
@ Jacob. It would be nice if I had pinouts for a usb-style hookup or something but I'm not counting on it. However, from what I have seen on of photos of the kindle 2 it looks like I could just go solder wires on a 1:1 connection basis to the mother board. That is the current idea at least. It will take a while, but the plan is to just go slow and steady. The wires might make it a little bulky but since the keyboard is going to be mounted netbook-style I don't see this as an issue.
@dpmorel.
(1)Yes, I know that the internet is bundled in the price and that it is not free. However, considering that internet costs about 30 to 50 dollars a month around here I am considering this a moot point.
(2)I have not heard anything about internet being included for free for netbooks. Do you have any links to press releases about this? That would definately make this whole project moot.
(3)I hadn't heard about the eink screen problems either. Maybe I'll consider putting a false protective screen over the top to prevent direct pressure on the screen.
(4)I have checked out pixelqi. I agree that their screens are awesome and that they will probubally replace eink screens just because they have both the front-lit reflective factor and have a good refresh rate. However, this is actually the reason that I was assuming that free would be going away.
(5)I do not get what you are getting at about the internet not having vertical scrolling. I was unfer the impression that it had a d-pad style mouse. I'll check out some videos tomorrow though. This could definitely be a drawback but I think you could probably program a web application to over come this (unless keypress javascripting is severely crippled).
(6)I actually do not plan on buying many ebooks. Just my favorites and those I plan on keeping in the cloud to read instead of on the kindle proper (the whole desktop in the clouds idea).
@ Jacob. It would be nice if I had pinouts for a usb-style hookup or something but I'm not counting on it. However, from what I have seen on of photos of the kindle 2 it looks like I could just go solder wires on a 1:1 connection basis to the mother board. That is the current idea at least. It will take a while, but the plan is to just go slow and steady. The wires might make it a little bulky but since the keyboard is going to be mounted netbook-style I don't see this as an issue.
@dpmorel.
(1)Yes, I know that the internet is bundled in the price and that it is not free. However, considering that internet costs about 30 to 50 dollars a month around here I am considering this a moot point.
(2)I have not heard anything about internet being included for free for netbooks. Do you have any links to press releases about this? That would definately make this whole project moot.
(3)I hadn't heard about the eink screen problems either. Maybe I'll consider putting a false protective screen over the top to prevent direct pressure on the screen.
(4)I have checked out pixelqi. I agree that their screens are awesome and that they will probubally replace eink screens just because they have both the front-lit reflective factor and have a good refresh rate. However, this is actually the reason that I was assuming that free would be going away.
(5)I do not get what you are getting at about the internet not having vertical scrolling. I was unfer the impression that it had a d-pad style mouse. I'll check out some videos tomorrow though. This could definitely be a drawback but I think you could probably program a web application to over come this (unless keypress javascripting is severely crippled).
(6)I actually do not plan on buying many ebooks. Just my favorites and those I plan on keeping in the cloud to read instead of on the kindle proper (the whole desktop in the clouds idea).
I'm pretty sure I remember reading that only the old Kindles will be on the free internet. I think it would be an exercise in frustration myself... Browsing on the Nook, which is much, much better than the Kindle, is not exactly enjoyable.
I've been using my PRS-505 for over 2 years and have probably had 250,000 page turns. Still looks new.
Calibre has solved most of Kindles DMR problems, but even so I think the Nook and the Sony are just better readers (but no internet).
Color e-ink is supposed to be out by the end of 2010, also new Nooks. I'm happy to wait and see what comes out... Who knows, maybe they'll finally come up with an ereader that can compete with the 505/300.
I've been using my PRS-505 for over 2 years and have probably had 250,000 page turns. Still looks new.
Calibre has solved most of Kindles DMR problems, but even so I think the Nook and the Sony are just better readers (but no internet).
Color e-ink is supposed to be out by the end of 2010, also new Nooks. I'm happy to wait and see what comes out... Who knows, maybe they'll finally come up with an ereader that can compete with the 505/300.
Funny, honestly you are right, the Kindle 3 is probably actually the best tablet available for its money right now, and the internet strategy has some real merit to it.
I bought the Archos and several other sub $200 Android tablets and they were garbage... not even usable. Outside of that you have the iPad which is $400+, so you can't really justify the costs.
I bought the Archos and several other sub $200 Android tablets and they were garbage... not even usable. Outside of that you have the iPad which is $400+, so you can't really justify the costs.