At first, I was intrigued by the Amazon announcement of their new e-book reader Kindle. Then I didn’t follow much of the coverage since I don’t live in the U.S. and knew I wouldn’t have access to this new gadget. But Joe Wikert’s question, “How do you feel about paying $9.99 for an ebook?” made me think about Kindle a little more.
The price of books
Here in Buenos Aires English-language books are hard to come by. There are two bookstores in this very large city that specializes in English books, neither is anything near a Border’s in collection size (far from it, actually). Of the two bookstores I almost always go to the one that sells used books, partly because they have a very good literary selection. At the used bookstore in Buenos Aires I usually pay around $25- $35 pesos for a book. That’s about $7.94 - $11.11 given current exchange rates.
Given the limitations of buying books in English I would gladly pay $9.99 for an e-book. Indeed, I would be thrilled for the ability to purchase a wide variety of books that could be placed on a portable e-book reader at that price.
Reading digitally
Before moving to Buenos Aires I rarely read anything on the screen, almost always printing out everything I downloaded. Now, I tend not to print very much and over the last few years have gotten very used to reading on a screen. Having made that hurdle, I’m just waiting for a quality e-book reader to come along. Perhaps Kindle is it. I think it is getting very close and surely it’s just a matter of time before e-book readers become as common as portable audio players.
International use of the Kindle e-book reader
International use is where an e-book reader becomes a necessity. And I’m not talking about Canada, Australia, or the UK but places where books in English are not so easy to come across.
So, I thought, hmmm, maybe I should really consider getting a Kindle even with its current flaws. But the wireless device only works in the U.S. You can’t use the wireless downloads outside the U.S. I can live without wireless downloads if content could be transferred via USB from a PC. From reviewing the Amazon forums on Kindle, this question of international usage has come up a few times. Currently, Kindle only functions on the Sprint EVDO data network, which cuts out most of the world.
Yet, I’m certain these data access issues will become less restrictive in future versions of Kindle or with whatever new e-book device is next to appear. So, I keep waiting for that e-book reader, which for me down here at the end of the world, is a necessity.
And a word about product design
Obviously, I’ve not seen Kindle in person but the photo of Kindle makes it look like a cheap, plastic toy made for children ages 5 - 8. That becomes especially obvious when I pulled up the Amazon home page last night that displayed Kindle just above the Nintendo DS, which looks lovely.
I think that you are overlooking the ease of use of ebook readers, I bought the Sony PRS 500 without understanding the implications of the restrictive DRM system. I could not buy ebooks to use in Australia, nor from Baghdad where I am currently working, English language books are less readily available here obviously. However I perservered and bought the Bookeen ebook reader and have had absolutely no troble buying and downloading all sorts of books from fiction, biography history etc, at between USD 9 to USD 20. I suggest you look outside the American continent for what you want. You may be surprised. Incidentally the Booken was delivered from France to Australia, then forwarded from there to Baghdad in less than three weeks and still only cost less than 350.
Ease of use and free sofware, what more could you want
Cheers
Hi, Thanks for the suggestion about the Bookeen reader. I’ll look into it.
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