Post #3

During Thanksgiving of 2007, Amazon released their Kindle. While ereaders had been around for a while, this was a big step forward both in terms of use and book availability. It was likened to the first iPod.

Then Amazon released the Kindle 2, which featured "upgrades" that slimmed down the body, streamlined the keyboard, made the page turn buttons smaller and stronger, sped up the page turning process and got rid of the expandable memory, supposedly in favor of getting the body as slim as possible.

But the Kindle has some problems too. Mainly that it's a little pricey. The price has dropped significantly since its release, but it's always been a bit high and there's also a big threat of them acting in a very Big Brother fashion.

They can reach into your device and take what you bought if it doesn't seem legitimate or make changes to your library without you knowing it. It would be like if someone went into your house and started marking out words in your books o taking them altogether because they were borrowed from a friend.

A student was using the Kindle and its handy note taking feature in a college class only to have Amazon pull the book off of his system and now he has no book for the class and is pissed. Amazon manned up though and said they're sorry and gave him back his notes but without the text nearby, the notes are practically useless. They also said they would never do something like this again.

They also offer services that other ereaders are offering but Amazon is wanting to charge you for the service and the others aren't.

Since the Kindle has been released, I'm sure many people in the industry are thinking that this is the iPod of books and they want to get in on a lower floor. Look at what happened with Apple. No one else wanted to support MP3 formats and the iPod became the king of MP3 players and now you can ask someone if they have an iPod and they'll say yes and caveat it with "well, it's a Sansa." "Ipod" has become synonymous with MP3 player, much like Kleenex has become synonymous with tissues.

Because of this we have good looking competition from Sony and Barnes & Noble.

Honestly, for me the “benefits” of buying the Nook from Barnes & Noble or the Amazon Kindle just don’t work for me. I will never use text to speech, especially when it sounds like a robot. I can barely make it through automated phone recordings so how can I expect myself to make it through Brave New World? This is not an actor or the author reading the book, this is a machine reading it. Not cool to me.

Also, why on EARTH would I want MP3 features on my reader? It is NOT a computer, why should it be treated like one?

I don’t really understand pictures on readers either, but would rather have the reader to have that capability because it probably means that it could handle illustrations in books.

The dictionary. Whenever I didn’t know a word, my parents made me look it up in the big heavy dictionary. The work put forth in finding it helped me remember the word and its definition. I thank my parents for this because I’m pretty sure it’s what has helped the most with my vocabulary. The Sony does not have an instant dictionary where the Nook and Kindle does but again, the work of finding the word will help you remember what it means.

I also don’t need a web browser on my reader. I just don’t. The reason it’s there in the first place on the Nook and Kindle is because they want you to be able to buy books from them and since you have access to that, they have access to you.

I’m not TOO worried about Big Brother but stay the heck away from my devices.

All the perks of the Kindle and the Nook are probably not going to be applicable to me. I probably won’t be hanging out with other Nook users who have their reader on them and happen to want to lend me a book of theirs for 14 days. I’m not interested in paying way too much for newspapers and abbreviated magazines either.

But the Sony, ah, the Sony. What a great looking reader. It does not offer expandable memory, but honestly, since I’m not going to be paying for a NY Times subscription, and have no interest in MP3s or pictures, how am I going to fill up any level of memory when a normal book is 2mb? And when I finish, am I going to hold on to it or am I going to get it off of my device and into the folder that has all of my other finished books in it? I want my device as clean as possible so I can see which books I have that I’m in the middle of and which books I have that I still need to read.

The price is decent too. At 200 bucks I can get the reader, have access to Google Books which is all but a book dealer themselves now, AND Sony’s bookstore which might cause some healthy competition. Sony’s shop offers books in series at a discounted price too when they’re in bundles. Prices are comparable to Amazon’s shop (B&N is still pricey even in electronic form) too.

It doesn’t have text to speech nor a web browser, nor pictures, nor lending, nor any of that other stuff. It’s just a solid reader with the ability to get books from multiple sources (when Amazon and B&N realize that they should be offering an inexpensive device that can go to different sources they’ll sell more) and at a decent price point too. You can’t beat it, honestly. Not at the price.

I plan on getting it because it doesn’t have all that fluff that, while cool, I’ll never use. AND it doesn’t connect via internet and no one cares what I have on my device.

Take the hint, Amazon and B&N!