The battle of e-book readers will heat up today when Amazon introduces the third generation of Kindle.
The new reader is lighter, smaller and faster than the current model — and also has a sharper display, longer battery life and twice the storage.
Amazon has added Wi-Fi reception for those who want to use a speedy Internet service to download e-books. This Kindle will keep the free service that uses AT&T’s wireless network to download a book in less than a minute.
The model, which starts shipping on Aug. 27, will be priced at $189, same as the current Kindle.
But Amazon hopes to rattle rivals by offering a version that just uses Wi-Fi for wireless connections and that will sell for $139. That’s about $10 below the least-expensive versions of Barnes & Noble’s Nook and the Sony Reader.
At these prices, “People are going to buy multiple Kindles for the household,” CEO Jeff Bezos told USA TODAY. “Remember: 33 months ago, Kindle was $399.”
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Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey agrees: “Anyone who said ‘I don’t want to get (a Kindle) because they’re too expensive,’ will look at $139, and say, ‘It’s time to become a digital reader.’ ”
Amazon has sold about 4 million Kindles in the U.S. and will top 6 million by year’s end, McQuivey estimates. It has two-thirds of the e-reader market.
Yet, in 2012, multimedia tablet PCs, led by the iPad, will outsell dedicated e-readers, he says.
That’s not all bad for Amazon. Owners of such devices can read e-books from Amazon using its free Kindle app. The U.S. Kindle store has more than 630,000 titles. Still, Bezos is betting that lots of people will still want a dedicated e-reader.
“We will try to make the best reading device possible, so when you really want to read for two hours, you’ll choose a Kindle,” he says.
The latest Kindles, in white or graphite, sport the same 6-inch reading area as the current model even though the bodies are 21% smaller. But the text will look sharper; the contrast on the screen is 50% better.
At 8.7 ounces, the new Kindle is about 15% lighter, too, even though Amazon has doubled the storage so it can hold up to 3,500 books.
Page turns are faster. With wireless settings off, Kindle can go a month without a charge.
The product announcements follow Amazon’s disclosure last week that it now sells more Kindle e-books than hardcovers. Next milestone: paperbacks. “It’s hard to know for sure, but I predict we will surpass paperback sales sometime in the next nine to 12 months,” Bezos says.
Why does the iPad keep coming up in relation to dedicated ereaders? They are attempting to do two entirely different things. No one I know who has an iPad reads books with theirs. From what I can tell they just blow money on one fad app or another, play games while they should be working, or make obnoxious noises in the office. Meanwhile they can’t edit their excel docs and frequently drop email attachments into the ether. I am getting more than a little tired of trying to pretend to be impressed by their latest cat piano app or Star Trek sound effects app. It’s starting to be like that person who shows pictures of their unusually ugly child that you have to say admiring things about.