What if you could give Christmas gifts to yourself but actually be surprised when you open them up? That’s exactly what Darius Kazemi did when he wrote a bot that buys him random crap off of Amazon. And he never has any idea what he’s going to get. More »
What a difference a generation makes. While the original Kindle Fire impressed, there was only one thing that really made it worth considering: it was cheap. Really cheap. But, when we got our hands on the 7-inch, 720p Kindle Fire HD a few months back we had an honest-to-gosh nice device — that happened to be cheap. And what do we have here? Why, it’s a slightly larger version of that very same tablet, but at a significantly higher cost.
It’s the Kindle Fire 8.9, a tick under two inches larger at the diagonal but with a starting price of $299 for 16GB, $100 more than the cheapest 7-inch Fire HD. It goes way up from there, though, with the 32GB LTE version we tested starting at a rather more dear $499. That’s far beyond the threshold of cheap, but does it still make for good value? Join us as we find out.
Gallery: Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 review
Continue reading Amazon Kindle Fire HD review (8.9-inch, 4G LTE)
If you can believe it, it was five years ago today when Amazon launched their first Kindle ereader to the public. Granted, it was a little chunky and covered in all sorts of buttons, but it introduced a new way of reading to the world, and since then, many companies have joined in on the fun to get their slice of the ereader market.
For the past five years, the Kindle has been a staple in the book industry, and each year Amazon has improved on the device to make it better and easier to use for consumers. Putting Amazon’s latest Kindle, the Kindle Paperwhite, next to the original Kindle side-by-side makes you shake your head at the strides that Amazon has made to the ereader throughout the past five years.
The first-ever Kindle featured an 800×600 e-ink display and had 250MB of internal storage, with the option to expand storage with a microSD card (the only Kindle that had a memory card slot). The device sold for $399 and ended up selling out within the first few hours of launch. It wasn’t until April 2008 when stock of the ereader was replenished.
Since then, Amazon has slowly been slimming down its Kindle ereaders and even adding touchscreens in order to eliminate all the buttons for a sleeker design. Last year was the first time Amazon introduced a touchscreen on a Kindle device, called the Kindle Touch. It came with 4GB of storage and retailed for as low as $99.
Amazon Kindle turns 5 today is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Can you imagine a holiday season without Amazon’s e-reader series? The Kindle celebrates its fifth birthday today — a device that, since its debut, has added bigger screens, slimmer builds, and even some damn decent backlighting. Back at the start, Amazon’s first hardware was just a little chunky, covered in buttons, and housed a 6-inch 800 x 600 e-ink display. However, the online bookseller went on to dominate the then-nascent e-reader market, with no shortage of rivals now wanting claim their own slice of the book-loving crowd. Five years goes pretty fast — we just wonder how many still have their DRM-protected Mobipocket e-books to hand.
Filed under: Amazon
Amazon Kindle celebrates five e-inked years originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Nov 2012 07:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Amazon has axed its new $8-per-month Prime subscription plan, which placed the retailer as a more direct competitor to Hulu and Netflix, after just a fortnight. More »
Amazon has axed its monthly Prime program, freezing the $7.99 scheme for discounted shipping and streaming video access, having described it as merely a “test” versus annual membership. Quietly launched just two weeks ago, the scheme was initially seen as an attempt by Amazon to challenge Netflix and Hulu Plus with a month-to-month on-demand media alternative, but the retailer confirmed to AllThingsD that it was no longer accepting new sign-ups.
“We regularly test new options for our customers” a company spokesperson said. “At this time, we’ve completed our test and are no longer signing up new customers for Amazon Prime monthly memberships.”
Prime has been around for some time now, in the US offering shoppers a way to get unlimited two-day shipping for an annual fee of $79. Membership also includes instant streaming from Amazon’s video platform, and access to the Kindle Owners Lending Library for ebook loans.
At $7.99 per month, the monthly Prime membership worked out more expensive than the traditional annual plan. Taken over the course of a year, it amounted to $95.88, or $16.88 more than paying one lump sum; however, it had no minimum term, and as such could have been useful for holiday shopping when online sales increase.
Exactly what Amazon has concluded from its trial test is yet to be revealed, though the company may have been investigating the potential uptake of a streaming-only plan, measuring media access versus shipping physical sales. Those already signed up to the monthly package will be allowed to continue using it.
[via Phandroid]
Amazon axes monthly Prime option is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Amazon announced a partnership with digital media company JibJab on Friday that will introduce free, personalized video gift cards to its customers. This new feature gives you the option to attach pictures to over 50 pre-themed videos, which includes holidays, birthdays and other special occasions. Customers can load up to $2,000 on a video gift card, which can be sent instantly or at a scheduled date and time via email or a Facebook wall post. The cards never expire and recipients can share their videos through Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or email, while keeping the gift’s cash value private. So, if gift cards from the people with the smile on the box rank high on your holiday wish list, get ready to have your inbox hit with a barrage of disco grannies and snowball-throwing elf cat videos.
Continue reading ‘Tis the season: Amazon now offering customizable video gift cards from JibJab
‘Tis the season: Amazon now offering customizable video gift cards from JibJab originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 23:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Amazon’s trial periods must be as quick as its shipping — just days after we first learned that it was testing monthly subscriptions for Amazon Prime, the online retailer has already put a halt to the program. A spokesperson says only that the company has “completed” its testing and has stopped taking sign-ups. We haven’t been told whether or not the test was successful, although it’s not hard to see the math working against Amazon’s experiment when a $79 yearly Prime subscription is unquestionably the better deal. Chalk up the rapid-fire testing to the competitive heat in the streaming video world.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Amazon stops testing monthly Prime subscriptions, leaves the results a mystery originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Netflix isn’t sinking, but it’s certainly not the soaring brand it once was and has endured its fair share of struggles over the last several years. But, if you think Reed Hastings is shaking in his boots over encroaching competition you’d be wrong. The CEO says that Amazon will pose a legitimate threat to its streaming video dominance, but that day is still a long way off. He claims that the Kindle purveyor is losing between $500 million and $1 billion a year as it builds its empire and secures licensing rights. Of course, Hasting’s comments during an interview with Dow Jones are largely speculative; based on the value of deals in which the two have competed directly. Then again, there seemed to be some implicit admission of the costs and struggles associated with competing in the subscription video sphere during its Q3 earnings report. The company lowered its forecast for the next quarter, saying it could lose as much as $490 million.
Filed under: Amazon
Netflix CEO claims Amazon losing up to $1 billion a year in streaming video war originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Kindle Fire 8.9 just showed up on our doorstep. It looks as lovely as we remember it. And instead of banging out a half-baked review in a day or two, we’re giving you our quick impressions of it, and will chime in with a full review later. More »
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