You would think I would know better than to be an early adopter by now. Early adopters are people who buy things — usually electronic gadgets — the minute they are released. The upside to being an early adopter is that, well, you get to play with technology before other people. The downsides, however, are many.
Early adopters are often treated as beta testers. The first people to buy gadgets are usually the first people to find its flaws, flaws that are often fixed later in the product’s life. That leaves the people who ponied up money early on with an unsellable, inferior product. (Don’t forget that products tend to drop in price the longer they remain on the market; the people buying next year’s version will get a better product for less money!)
The Kindle 2 went on sale the last week of February, 2009. I had mine in my hands and had already posted a review by the first week of March. This week (the first week of May), Amazon has announced a “bigger, better Kindle.”
Thanks a lot, Amazon.
The new model — the Kindle DX — fixes two complaints most owners of the Kindle and Kindle 2 have. First, the unit is bigger. Physically it’s about the size of a standard spiral notebook, thickness and all. No more reading eBooks on a 3×5 screen; the screen on the Kindle DX measures 9.7 inches diagonally. The second complain many Kindle/Kindle 2 owners was that converted files (such as PDF files) often didn’t display correctly. The Kindle DX displays PDF files natively. Good for them … bad for me.
Amazon snuck a few surprises in their announcement as well, both good and bad. The Kindle DX will feature a rotating screen to make some content easier to read. Despite earlier rumors of a touch screen, the Kindle DX features regular, run-of-the-mill buttons.
The biggest surprise of all is that the Kindle DX will list for $489. Amazon customers (including myself) went nuts over the Kindle 2’s retail price of $359, so I can’t wait to see what they say about a new unit, three months later, that’s $130 more. Then again, the general consensus is that the DX isn’t intended for us. Amazon is in talks with several newspapers and colleges about getting newspapers, magazines and college textbooks delivered to the DX. At $489 plus media costs, it’s already been reported that getting the New York Times for a year electronically will cost more than it would to just have the paper edition delivered to your front door.
That sounds like a case of gouging early adopters, if you ask me.
This is why I’ve really gotten over my urgent need to be right on the bleeding edge – I’m getting a little too old and cranky to be the guy who has to work out the bugs.
I’d like to get one myself, but the asking price of the Kindle 2 at $359 seems rather incredulous to me.
What gets my goat even more is that you can buy a digital copy of a book for $10 from Amazon or you can buy a tangible paperback copy for $4 from Amazon.
I was always under the impression that digital distribution should be cheaper; y’know…no materials or labor involved whatsoever….
It’s not an upgrade. It’s a different animal all together is how I see it. My Kindle2 is for reading books, it’s great at that. It’s small enough to slip into my bag or carry around without too much trouble, it’s also light – like 10 oz.
The DX is freaking huge. It is designed more for the magazine reader, newspaper reader, the textbook reader – students. It’s also heavier – 19 oz I believe?
I have absolutely no use for something large or heavy. I’m happy with K2 :)
Heh, I heard about the rotating screen and was glad I don’t have that either. I have the Amazon cover and lay down to read. I “tent” the cover so that I can rest my hand on the top (side) and still read – because it’s laying on it’s side. With the rotating screen, it would rotate my text and really piss me off. The other downside is that the buttons aren’t on both sides of the screen.