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Okay, for anyone on my flist who hasn't heard of this yet, Amazon has launched their own digital book/electronic reader. It is known as the Kindle, and you can read something about it here:
Link to Amazon Kindle Page
Okay, so there's the device. There are features listed that I like, things that make me think this is going to be worth owning. (The very high price tag is NOT one of them!)
Here's what I like from the list:
Connectivity. I can buy a book any time, practically anywhere. I don't have to worry about when the stores are open. I don't have to wait for special orders, because the book I want isn't kept in stock. I don't have to worry that my book isn't in stock. I do not need to have a computer to help me download the book. It's all through pervasive networking on EVDO, like my blackberry. Should be more than adequate for book downloads. I do question: If I go away, say to Europe for vacation, and in some fantasy world happen to read everything stored on the device, would I still be able to download a new book? Or maybe I just find out one of my favorite author's books happened to have a release date during my vacation and I want the book, like now, would I be able to get it somewhere beyond the US? Kind of important to know.
Good battery life. With the wireless off, I should be able to get through a few books on a single charge. Not like a real novel obviously, which only requires light, but hey, we're living in a digital world, might as well get with the program. I mean, when was the last time I didn't watch Digital TV (thanks TiVo) listen to digital music (love me the MP3s, ripped from my CDs), or watched a non-digital movie (Yay DVDs.) Okay, that last isn't true, because I just went to the real, honest to goodness Movie theater last week, and saw an actual film, but for the most part, my movie consumption these days is through DVDs, or Cable TV, and that I get digitally. Even my home phone will soon be digital. (Later AT&T thanks for the terrible service, but I won't be overpaying for your lack of ability to serve this customer anymore.)
I played very briefly with a Sony reader, and I though the electronic Ink looked good. Assuming the quality is comparable, it should be cool. But, three minutes of puttering around isn't enough to know how it will stand up to all the important tests. Dim lighting for late night reading. Or on the plane. Bright lighting for poolside or (blech) beach reading. (I'm not a beach person.)
Having access to Wikipedia at all times is particularly cool to me, since I spend far too much time there for research, fun, and well, just because all the time anyway. I'd be able to feed that compulsion whenever/wherever I want.
I think I like the fact that Amazon tracks what you purchase for the Kindle, so if the device goes kaplooie, you can re-download. I hope for free, but I wasn't positive of that. (There might be a minimal transfer charge of like ten cents or something.)
Browsing access. Not sure how this works, but this might be good in a reader, the ability to surf whenever and wherever without needing the laptop, and with a bigger screen than the blackberry.
To me, the big thing though, is having reasonable prices for the ebooks. Prior to this announcement, everything I noticed in terms of ebooks was full price. Might be nice as the publisher, but, to me as the consumer, I am not a big fan of paying $25 for a book that isn't physical. Especially when I can't even loan that out. I don't know where exactly I stand on the whole DRM issue and all that, but I like to be able to loan my father books. Or friends, whom I want to introduce an author to, because I think they'd dig it. If it's not going to look pretty on my shelf, and I can't loan it out, then why am I paying that kind of price? The answer is I won't. (And don't.) So I'd want to pay more in line with a reduced price. So far, scanning the available titles shows me that Amazon is in agreement. The e-books there are priced in line with what I think reasonable. Sure, for a new release, ten bucks to get it right away is a reasonable premium. But three years later, I expect the price to be lower. And that appears so far to be true.
The next test, was finding whose books I could purchase, so I started doing some random searches on authors I would consider purchasing if I were to own a Kindle. Most of whom would be in the SF, F, and H fields. Here's who I could find:
Sarah Monette. Two books.
Steven Barnes. Four books.
William Gibson. Six books
Neal Stephenson. Eight Books
L.E. Modesitt Jr. Sixteen Books
Sean Russell. Two books
Tad Williams One book
Robert Jordan. Three prologues???? (I give this a pass, as I am sure the family has other things on their mind at the moment.)
John Scalzi One book. (Oddly, just The Ghost Brigades, um...not Old Man's War, as I would expect or The Androids Dream)
Cory Doctorow One book
Naomi Novik Four Books (the entire Temeraire series I think.)
Anne McCaffrey Forty Five Books. (I didn't verify they were all actually by her.)
Jim Butcher Seven Books
Holly Black One Book
Joel Rosenberg Two Books
Neil Gaiman Fifteen Books (A noted beta tester who appears to have enjoyed it.)
Octavia Butler Four Books
Jo Walton One Book
Ellen Kushner One Book
Charles Stross Five Books
Gene Wolfe Four Books
George RR Martin Fourteen Books
Others: Charlaine Harris, Stephen King, Scott Lynch, Kim Harrison, Laurel K Hamilton, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Terry Brooks, Terry Pratchet, David Eddings, Jacqueline Carey, Robin Hobb, Maria Snyder....wow. This has a lot more authors, though no where near all the offerings from each author.
Some that were missing that surprised me:
Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Jim Hines, Jeffrey Ford, Ursala LeGuin, Cherie Priest. Some have short stories up and available, but I was surprised that I didn't find their novels.
There are a lot of books, around 3000 titles under SF, and around 1500 under fantasy, (some showing up under both categories) and horror no longer apparently rates its own category. I guess they just shove those books wherever they feel like it. Bleh.
One of the features I was a little disappointed about was magazine subscriptions. While I do like having subscriptions to the physical magazines, because that's cool, I might actually get a few more stories read if I had it all digital and didn't need my laptop to do the reading. IE, it's something I'd consider. What's sad is that NO Fantasy, SF, or Horror magazines are available through this service. Even more, there are only (at the time I write this) eight (8) magazines available for subscription at all. Maybe it doesn't sound cool to others the way it does me. But there's hundreds of Blogs you can subscribe to, I'd have though magazines would want to be available this way too. Perhaps it's just going to take a while to get there.
I'm curious what other people think. Mostly from a consumer aspect, though if you happen to be an author and want to share opinions about the device from that side too, cool. But especially those friends of mine who aren't writers, you book readers you. What do you think? Does something like this meet your needs? Or are you going to give this a heck no, no way no how reaction? I'm real curious. (Opinions, such as: if they could bring down the price tag to $200 I'd go for it are welcome too.)
I think for me the hardest part is this: I can't test drive one. At least with the Sony reader, I can find one in a store somewhere and play around to see what I think. I don't usually buy electronics sight unseen. I'm not that trusting. I'd be more inclined if I got say a 90 day money back guarantee trial from Amazon. Please dear readers (all five of you) share your thoughts too.