Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, which was launched last November, appears to be undergoing what might be called a soft relaunch with the help of the Guardian. Apparently, nobody likes the expensive, horrible-looking gadget but it’s rated as Bloody Great by, er, Amazon.
According to the paper’s report from the US BookExpo trade fair, Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos devoted his keynote address to talking up the item. Funny that. Is the Kindle really “on everyone’s lips” or is it simply on the lips of Jeffrey Bezos?
The Kindle (I keep having the inexplicable and possibly borderline dyslexic urge to type “Kimble” but I’ll try to resist) was launched last year and, as far as can be ascertained, nobody likes it and hardly anyone has bought it. Actual sales figures are not reported (although estimates of 50,000 unit sales are floating around), so we have no idea if Amazon has shifted hundreds, thousands or millions, only that sales are, in some fashion or other, going up. Oh, and that you can only get one in the USA.
Publishers are apparently adding thousands of titles to their e-book roster. More fool them. The Kindle is totally pointless. It costs $359 (£178), which is more than a hundred dollars more than an iPod. But whereas you might actually want to carry around many hundreds of albums to dip into depending on your mood, who the hell wants to do that with books?
You can, of course, use the Kindle to read blogs, online newspapers and Wikipedia. Or you could use your mobile phone or laptop for the exact same purpose. D’oh!
Talk about trying to reinvent the wheel. A book is light, looks nice, feels good and, except for the occasional longer trip, it’s not especially likely that you are going to want to haul more than one around at a time. And a book doesn’t run out of batteries. So, really, why?
The only real reason you might want one is if it looked nice and had a cool interface like an iPod Photo. Unfortunately, however, the Kindle resembles a cross between Major Morgan and a pimped HP 12C Finance Calculator. And not in a good way.
Amazon still has no plans to introduce the Kindle in the UK and the price has recently been dropped by $40 in the US. Which perhaps tells you everything you need to know about the so-called e-book revolution.
Are you in America? Are you entirely and definitely not on the payroll of Amazon or its agents? Do you own a Kindle? Can you tell me what’s so fucking good about it? Then why not leave a comment?
The Conversation {1 comments}
I read a book online once, as I couldn’t find it anywhere else. Eventually, and with much middle-class angst I simply printed out the second half, as reading it on screen was so uncomfortable.
Until there’s an ebook reader with a 1000=hour battery lifespan as thin as a sheet of paper with masses of functionality it’s a complete waste of time. I mean, really.
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