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1. dimmer

   Mac Enthusiast

   Joined: Feb 2006

   +5
   02/06, 08:17pm | report spam | close reply

   Better

   Certainly an improvement, but still seems to fail in some areas: why not, for example, make the keyboard more of a fold out or flip out type? Why not make the keys more usable?
   
   Still, nice to see Amazon continue to develop the product.

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1. Rolando_jose

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jan 2006

   +4
   02/06, 11:42pm | report spam | close reply

   Same price?

   How come they didn't change the price? a reduction in price would have convince a lot of people to buy it, me included.

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1. MacDan2004

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Dec 2004

   +4
   02/06, 11:42pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Readin'

   I read books on my iPhone (ebook). Why the need for a keyboard for reading? What else does the Kindle do? Why is it so huge! Thin, yes, but HUGE.

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1. nhmlco

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Mar 2007

   +5
   02/07, 04:26am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Drop the keyboard

   They need to drop the keyboard. I want a smaller book reader like the Sony, not an oversized Blackberry,

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1. testudo

   Forum Regular

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   02/07, 09:20am | report spam | close reply

   Re: Readin'

   Well, some people actually like to be able to see more than a couple of sentences at a time, so you're not always scrolling.
   
   And the keyboard, if I'm not mistaken, is to search and buy books wirelessly, as well as for taking notes and such.
   
   
   

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1. testudo

   Forum Regular

   Joined: Aug 2001

   -3
   02/07, 09:23am | report spam | close reply

   Re: Same price?

   How come they didn't change the price? a reduction in price would have convince a lot of people to buy it, me included.
   
   Well, they added a bunch of features and improved it. Why would they drop the price?
   
   Maybe they're following Apple and the iPhone and computers. Keep adding features, keep the price the same. They're not going after the low-end of the market. They want to stay in the high-end.

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1. hkremer

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jul 2005

   +9
   02/07, 09:42am | report spam | close reply

   Love/Hate mine

   I have had a kindle since they were first launched, and love it, even though it is terribly designed. This one doesn't look much better. I enthusiastically agree with the posters about the keyboard. I use it, but rarely, and it takes up a huge amount of space. I love it because I can read in bed and not have to hold it or turn pages. However, I can only read novels on it. Using it as a reference book is impossible because it is so not feasible because it is so slow to turn pages, bookmark, hilite, anything but the basics. It really needs a super speedy touch screen and the ability to hilite with a stylus. Glad they got rid of the huge "paddles" on the sides as I am constantly turning pages inadvertently. Not sure if I'll upgrade. Was hoping for a more thorough redesign.

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1. Constable Odo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2007

   -5
   02/07, 03:38pm | report spam | close reply

   It looks like...

   AN OVERSIZE IPHONE!!... And is about as half as much useful as one. Just kidding. I never used a Kindle, but I don't want something with a greyscale display in this day and age. I think it's eReaders are nice concept and I'll be happy to see what Apple can do with something similar. Oh, that's right, Steve Jobs says that nobody reads anymore. End of story.

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1. rtbarry

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   +2
   02/07, 04:40pm | report spam | close reply

   testy...

   apple dropped the price. multiple times. as they added new features. where you been?

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1. cmdahler

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jan 2005

   -2
   02/07, 07:07pm | report spam | close reply

   Yet another failure...

   This is what happens when subquality design engineers are further hampered by having to answer to the marketing department on every decision. I'm an avid book reader and I would buy something like this if it were designed well in spite of my iPod Touch. The iPod is a painful way to read a book, after all, but it works well enough that a dedicated eReader would have to be stunning to entice me to purchase it. The Kindle isn't stunning, it's stupid, just like the Sony reader, hampered by too many limitations and pure marketing foolishness. If Apple were to turn their designers loose on an idea like this, it would probably just wind up looking like an oversized iPod Touch, and it would have full web functionality, a gorgeous color screen, play music, store pictures, play movies... um, wait, what am I describing here? Does sort of make one think, doesn't it? Come on, Apple, I'd drop a grand on a 4"x6" iPod Touch with full OS X functionality in a freaking heartbeat, and such a beast would absolutely render these goofy Sony and Amazon readers obsolete in about 10 minutes after product launch.

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1. cmdahler

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jan 2005

   0
   02/07, 07:08pm | report spam | close reply

   Yet another failure...

   This is what happens when sub-quality design engineers are further hampered by having to answer to the marketing department on every decision. I'm an avid book reader and I would buy something like this if it were designed well in spite of my iPod Touch. The iPod is a painful way to read a book, after all, but it works well enough that a dedicated eReader would have to be stunning to entice me to purchase it. The Kindle isn't stunning, it's stupid, just like the Sony reader, hampered by too many limitations and pure marketing foolishness. If Apple were to turn their designers loose on an idea like this, it would probably just wind up looking like an oversized iPod Touch, and it would have full web functionality, a gorgeous color screen, play music, store pictures, play movies... um, wait, what am I describing here? Does sort of make one think, doesn't it? Come on, Apple, I'd drop a grand on a 4"x6" iPod Touch with full OS X functionality in a freaking heartbeat, and such a beast would absolutely render these goofy Sony and Amazon readers obsolete in about 10 minutes after product launch.

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1. dimmer

   Mac Enthusiast

   Joined: Feb 2006

   +3
   02/07, 07:10pm | report spam | close reply

   Keyboard

   If they had a touch screen, the keyboard could be virtualized onto that.
   
   The greyscale display works well for text, but of course it limits usability of anything that uses those new fangled picture things. Is there even a concept version of a color digital ink thing at this point?

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1. testudo

   Forum Regular

   Joined: Aug 2001

   -4
   02/08, 09:04am | report spam | close reply

   Re: testy

   apple dropped the price. multiple times. as they added new features. where you been?
   
   Well, I can see you won't need a kindle, since reading and comprehension aren't top of your list of abilities.
   
   I didn't mention the iPod, now did I. I mentioned the iPhone (which dropped in price ONLY because of a new deal with how Apple gets paid) and macs, which almost never go down in price (the plastic macbook is the exception to this). Apple would rather add features and keep those prices high, high, high, so they can stay in their upper-crust market (just like what Tim Cook (?) said on the conf. call about the iPhone, and what everyone here repeats anytime someone says "Hey, can we get a sub $1500 mini-tower?).

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1. DarleenMB

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Feb 2009

   +3
   02/08, 09:54am | report spam | close reply

   What's the point?

   I already have a Kindle. And btw, not everyone on the planet has an iPhone. Much as I'd like that since we own a few shares of Apple. also, once past the age of, oh say 40?, it's nice to be able to change the text size a bit.
   
   and my Kindle already will handle audiobooks and music although for me that's beside the point since I own 4 iPods. I don't like the new keyboard layout. I like the old one. As to what it's used for ... it's useful if you live where you can access the Whispernet and search online and buy books directly from Amazon. Or as someone else pointed out, you can make notes on what you're reading.
   
   Personally I use mine 90% of the time for fiction. No more staggering piles of paperbacks all over our home office floor, or the bedroom.
   
   I love my Kindle. Just the way it is. The only improvement I would like to see would be a backlight. Maybe then hubby would stop bellyaching about what I paid for it.

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1. starwarrior

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Mar 2006

   +1
   02/08, 10:06am | report spam | close reply

   Here comes new hardware

   All of this buzz from Google and Amazon about ebooks. They know something from Apple is coming. As soon as Apple's quarterly financials show needed income to meet quarter's guidance we will see new hardware announcements. Exciting times. Hardware announcements so much more effective than backdating stock options.

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1. testudo

   Forum Regular

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   02/08, 05:37pm | report spam | close reply

   Re: Here comes new

   Right.... Apple, the follower. That's what they're called.
   
   And don't know how to break it to a lot of people, but Apple will surely tell you, so I'll do it here. Books are dying. People don't want to read. They'll listen. But too many people are too busy to waste their time reading.
   
   The market is small not because Apple isn't in it, or because ereaders are c***, it's because the book market in general is just going downhill...