Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos on Monday defended the high price of the company’s new widescreen Kindle e-book reader, and insisted that it does not need more functionality in order to be more attractive to consumers.
Bezos also acknowledged that Amazon considered a cell phone-like plan for the Kindle.
“It’s a myth that multi-purpose devices are always better,” Bezos said at the Wired Business Conference in New York. “I don’t want to read a novel on a mobile phone – the screen display technology is difficult for reading over long periods of time.”
Humans like to do what’s easy, and buying books in 60 seconds fits that bill, he said.
The new Kindle DX, which was introduced last month, boasts a 9.7-inch screen, but also carries a $489 price tag.
That, Bezos insisted, is an “unbelievably low price” for a device that has an internal computer, a display, and a 3G wireless radio.
The only other devices that have that functionality are smartphones, and they are heavily subsidized, he said. Without the subsidies, they too would be close to $500.
“We are being very aggressive with pricing,” Bezos said.
Amazon considered a cell phone pricing plan that would either lock users into a $60/month data plan or require them to buy a certain number of books per month, but Bezos said he preferred to just “tell people the actual cost of the device.”
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