Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Introducing: Kindle! Amazon's New WiFi Reader

Is this the new face of the digital reader revolution?


Uh...I certainly hope not, because it's sort of butt ugly. :P

Honestly, I would have been *Wowwed!* by this type of device back in 1992, but since then, the look and feel of hand-held devices has sort of moved on from the plastic Soviet Issue/Bad Radio Shack walkie talkie era hasn't it? I mean, did the design department at Amazon not learn anything from how the iPod's aesthetic superiority kicked the Zune's ass?

Seriously, it looks like a cross between a Texas Instruments calculator from 1982 and a Mattel Merlin..



But I know what you're saying..."Jim! How can you condemn such a neat device on just looks alone..."

Good point! Let's evaluate the price: $400.

Wow. For about the same price, I can get a cheap laptop that has wireless access, can read books and comics AND I can install games and programs on it as well.

And currently the votes by reviewers is running 74 5 Star reviews versus 146 1 Star reviews
Hm..maybe Amazon will have a better time winning me over as time goes by and new models of the Kindle come out. (Does anyone but me get an awkward *book burning* vibe from that name?)

In the meantime, I eagerly await Amazon's next awesome product - The Radio Hat!


On the Flipside:

Marvel corrected the double charge for my purchase of one month of the Digital Comics Unlimited. :)

3 comments:

Richard said...

You get one thousand geek cred points for the Merlin reference.

There's a particularly thorough dissection of the Kindle's odd design choices here. Not just the retro part, but the parts that are functionless and arbitrary, and how simple it would have been to make something vastly better.

Jim Shelley said...

Thank you RAB, you always have the best links! - Jim

Adam Binney said...

Amazon new wifi readers and the different and attractive cartoons are also great for all of the people of the communities. The dissertation writing are also great for all of the communities members.

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