Re:Amazon's near-$500 price tag kills Kindle DX buzz
by jerf on Wednesday May 06, 2009 @02:03PM
(#596335)
Talking about college students spending $500 for this is radically premature. There's no way that by August that a significant number of universities will be all-digital on the book front, and they aren't going to switch for the spring term, either.
So, the soonest case where any fraction of college students might be Kindle-only is August-ish, 2010. Any guesses on what this will cost by then? Probably ~$200 or less, for something a generation or two more advanced. (Perhaps not color by then, but higher res, I bet.)
And frankly, even in 2010 the colleges that have an all-digital option will still be the exception. I would expect it'd be at least 2012 before a student might reasonably choose this option.
The real question is "will anybody buy it today and subsidize further development?" And the Kindle 1 sales seem to say yes. I don't really know because AFAIK Amazon has not released sales numbers, but they are certainly acting as if these things are selling fast.
Re:Amazon's near-$500 price tag kills Kindle DX buzz
by duncanj on Wednesday May 06, 2009 @03:46PM
(#596587)
It's not all about books. The inclusion of a PDF reader makes this a big deal. In many schools, everything you need to know for a class is in the instructor's PDFs.
So, the soonest case where any fraction of college students might be Kindle-only is August-ish, 2010. Any guesses on what this will cost by then? Probably ~$200 or less, for something a generation or two more advanced. (Perhaps not color by then, but higher res, I bet.)
And frankly, even in 2010 the colleges that have an all-digital option will still be the exception. I would expect it'd be at least 2012 before a student might reasonably choose this option.
The real question is "will anybody buy it today and subsidize further development?" And the Kindle 1 sales seem to say yes. I don't really know because AFAIK Amazon has not released sales numbers, but they are certainly acting as if these things are selling fast.