In the heated foot race toward the paperless society, there's bound to be stumbles, and the question today is whether Amazon has stumbled with its new Kindle, a larger version of the electronic reading device it introduced a year and a half ago, this one for reading textbooks and newspapers.
While the new device, the Kindle DX, is getting lots of press, as one might expect, doubts abound over its price--$489--and just what advantages it offers beyond its larger screen, which measure 9.7 inches, twice the size of previous models.
Its advantages for Amazon are obvious, as a device through which it can market its growing catalogue of digital books, and at a time when sales of traditional printed books are slowing.
And that's in addition to sales of the device itself, which the online retailer is aiming at college students and commuters and just about everyone else but the tech crowd.
Amazon sees the Kindle DX, due out this summer, as the reading device of the average consumer.
Its advantages for consumers are less clear.
One problem with the new Kindle, as with the old Kindle, is its single purpose.
At a time when mobile devices are gaining more and more capabilities, from talking to typing to surfing and taking pictures, the Kindle seems a step backward indeed. It just displays text, in black and white yet.
The advantage of the new Kindle is that does it better. Its larger page makes for easier reading of books but also newspapers and reports. It also displays PDFs.
It's thin, a third of an inch or so, and can hold some 3,500 books. On the downside, it's twice as heavy as the previous model, the Kindle 2, at 535 grams. That's just over a pound.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos seemed almost apologetic talking with reporters yesterday as the new Kindle was rolled out, defending the $489 pricetag, noting that there was no way it could be brought in any cheaper, and that it's actually a sophisticated piece of technology.
Bezos has reason to be anxious about the public reception of the latest Kindle. After a year or so with the field to itself, it's about to face competition, and soon, from competing reading devices, one from Apple, which has been so successful with its iPod and the iPhone, which all but define the notion of portability.
To hold that lead Amazon has struck deals with colleges, newspapers and book publishers to get the Kindle DX in the hands of consumers at reduced rates.
But these deals all seem tenuous.
The real test of the new Kindle will not come this summer when it rolls out but next year when its competitors come to market.
The challenge for them will be to deliver a device that's light, suitable for book reading, but also has a slew of other functions the Kindle doesn't have, in effect a super-light laptop, far lighter than anything out there now.
