Kindle 2 & DX: Our Earthday Award Winner
04/22/09 09:06
As many of us know, Amazon.com introduced its Kindle 2 (and coming soon, the larger Kindle DX) recently to a great press fanfare. The Kindle 2 is, in our opinion, the first real contender for a replacement for the hundreds of millions of tons per year of of trees, paper, glue (and energy) we deforest, manufacture and ship around the planet in the form of books, magazines & newspapers.
Why might Kindle actually do that?
Several reasons. First, the “just the right size” Kindle 2 has a no-glare, sunlight readable eInk display that shows grayscale graphics with great resolution for most true reading activities. The display’s ultra-low power allows Kindle to run for two weeks without charging.
Second, the bookstore is inside the book and it’s instant. Amazon has over 260,000 Kindle books, newspapers, periodicals and blogs. You can browse for, find and download a book directly on your Kindle instantly anywhere there is (Sprint) cellular reception. No waiting, no wires, no syncing, no driving, no out-of-stock, no shipping.
Third: Most books cost less than half what their print equivalents cost on Amazon because there is nothing physical to make or distribute. Kindle can also view around 20,000 free books from the Gutenberg Project’s public domain library from ManyBooks that can be downloaded directly to the Kindle using its built-in browser. (Select the .MOBI file format.)
Fourth: by installing a cheap SD memory card, Kindle becomes not only a collection of up to 200 books, but your entire library of up to 1,500 books.
Kindle isn’t perfect yet. It’s not color and it can get books wirelessly only in the United States (elsewhere you must download books to your PC or Mac and sync. them to your Kindle.) But this will change with coming models.
So goodbye paper, hello trees. Goodbye driving and waiting, hello reading now. Goodbye high book prices. Goodbye lugging heavy books around, hello having your entire library in your bag. That makes Kindle a winner to us.
But why haven’t any efficiency or green blogs picked up on Kindle’s enormous potential positive impact? I can only speculate that we tend to love paper for its tangibility and connection with history. Perhaps we love books and paper more than ever because of the pervasive but oddly ephemeral nature of electronics. Reading paper is our only chance to get away from “the screen.”
But I equally suspect that as eBooks become better (most importantly color display such as the eagerly awaited PixelQi), an “iPod of eBooks” will emerge and, as with CDs and DVDs, we’ll no longer “miss our real books.” Who knows, will Apple introduce a candidate for our 2010 Earthday Award winner?
Second, the bookstore is inside the book and it’s instant. Amazon has over 260,000 Kindle books, newspapers, periodicals and blogs. You can browse for, find and download a book directly on your Kindle instantly anywhere there is (Sprint) cellular reception. No waiting, no wires, no syncing, no driving, no out-of-stock, no shipping.
Third: Most books cost less than half what their print equivalents cost on Amazon because there is nothing physical to make or distribute. Kindle can also view around 20,000 free books from the Gutenberg Project’s public domain library from ManyBooks that can be downloaded directly to the Kindle using its built-in browser. (Select the .MOBI file format.)
Fourth: by installing a cheap SD memory card, Kindle becomes not only a collection of up to 200 books, but your entire library of up to 1,500 books.
Kindle isn’t perfect yet. It’s not color and it can get books wirelessly only in the United States (elsewhere you must download books to your PC or Mac and sync. them to your Kindle.) But this will change with coming models.
So goodbye paper, hello trees. Goodbye driving and waiting, hello reading now. Goodbye high book prices. Goodbye lugging heavy books around, hello having your entire library in your bag. That makes Kindle a winner to us.
But why haven’t any efficiency or green blogs picked up on Kindle’s enormous potential positive impact? I can only speculate that we tend to love paper for its tangibility and connection with history. Perhaps we love books and paper more than ever because of the pervasive but oddly ephemeral nature of electronics. Reading paper is our only chance to get away from “the screen.”
But I equally suspect that as eBooks become better (most importantly color display such as the eagerly awaited PixelQi), an “iPod of eBooks” will emerge and, as with CDs and DVDs, we’ll no longer “miss our real books.” Who knows, will Apple introduce a candidate for our 2010 Earthday Award winner?
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