Hasta La Gadget!

Looks like one company’s not ready to let Apple claim the spotlight with tomorrow’s rumored $99 iOS-based Apple TV launch — the Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon has a subscription-based streaming video service in the works. Reportedly focused on older content more easily pried from the iron fist of traditional media (similar to Netflix Watch Instantly and Hulu Plus), the service is aimed at the usual array of internet-connected devices — the Xbox 360 was called out specifically — and one anonymous source told the publication that Amazon intends to get the connected entertainment party started by Yuletide. Mind you, Amazon’s not exactly new to the streaming video game. Remember Unbox? The day the company turned that service into Video on Demand it came with 40,000 programs — a good 11,582 more than today’s Hulu Plus. So, if the rumors are true, we imagine that over two years and many integrated systems later, Amazon might still have a decent leg up.

Amazon planning subscription video service to challenge Netflix and Hulu? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

What a time to be alive! Not so much for the political contention or the artistic, technological, or scientific breakthrough. No friends, when you speak to your grandchildren about what it was like to be alive in the early 21st century, the conversational will almost certainly revolve around that fact that you survived the eBook pricing wars.

Borders today announced that it has dropped the price of its Kobo and Libre e-readers to $129 and $99, down from $149 and $119, respectively.The drops are the latest in what has been a rather hot summer for eBook reader pricing.

Back in June, Barnes & Noble dropped the price of its 3G Nook from $259 to $199. Amazon then marked the Kindle down from $259 to $189. That same week, Borders announced that it would be including $10 in Borders Bucks and a $20 gift card with the purchase of a Kobo, later insisting that its decision was unrelated to drops on the Kindle and Nook.

Amazon, of course, introduced a brand new Kindle in July, pricing the 3G version at $189 and the Wi-Fi-only model at $139.

Most user reviews of the new Kindle 3, especially those with photo spreads, have focused on the newly-available graphite model, but if you really want to see the differences in the hardware, screen quality, and web capabilities in the new model, it may be more useful to put the two white models head-to-head.

That’s just what Andrys Basten did at her blog A Kindle World. They might be the first user photos of the white Kindle 3 online (I haven’t been able to find any earlier ones).

Also, if you pay close attention, there are terrific user tips for Kindle 3 users embodied in these photos. I’ve been really impressed by the new WebKit browser, but found full-sized web sites harder to navigate than their mobile versions. When I saw Basten’s pictures, I said, “Oh, put the NYT in landscape, not portrait! That’s genius!”

There are a few dumb things the Kindle’s web browser can’t do. Clicking on a link that tries to force you to open a new window just gets you a “this web browser does not support multiple windows” message. You can easily edit titles of bookmarks but not URLs. Drop-down menus sometimes just fool the browser altogether.

And to get to the web browser at all, you’ve got to go to the “Experimental” section of the menu, then tinker around in there for a while. (Would you guess to change the orientation from portrait to landscape, you should click the font-size button? I wouldn’t.)

Amazon’s packed plenty of smart features into its web browser, but mostly failed to acknowledge them, Basten told Wired.com. “Amazon’s paying for the Kindle’s 3G access,” she says. They “will be conflicted about [heavy internet use], and it shows.”

But once you get the hang of these little tricks — use mobile URLs in portrait, full URLs in landscape, use the built-in article mode (just like Safari’s Reader/Readability/Instapaper) whenever you can, and start building up your own workarounds — the web browsing capability on the Kindle 3 is really tremendous. Newspapers, blogs, Twitter, Google Reader — it does them all well. It’s not just an e-book reader; it’s an honest-to-goodness reading machine.

All images courtesy of Andrys Basten and A Kindle World.

See Also:

• Amazon Strikes Back at the iPad With New, $140 Kindle
• The Best Gadget Is the One That Gets To Your House
• Why Does the New Kindle Have A Microphone?
• Safari 5’s ‘Reader’ Nudges Web Publishers to App Store
• Amazon Kindle 3 May Be On Its Way
• New, Improved Instapaper for Kindle

Amazon’s third major iteration of its flagship reading device, the Kindle, comes out of the gate looking strong: the new graphite finish (just like its big brother, the Kindle DX) with a slimmer, lighter form factor, plus a bumped refresh rate for its E Ink screen. Best of all, the WiFi only and 3G readers have newly lowered prices (though they’re still not exactly bargain basement level). We’ve spent the past few days putting the tinier Kindle through the paces to see just how much Amazon’s improved it. Though the market is increasingly flooded with cheap readers, the Kindle is arguably still the leading name in the field, and Amazon is already touting the third model as its bestselling ever — even though there are still no sales figures to be had. So, is this the best Kindle ever? Read on to find out.

Continue reading Amazon Kindle review (2010)

Amazon Kindle review (2010) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

You might think it was already dead, but sales for the Barnes & Noble Nook (both B&N-branded hardware and multi-platform software apps) are booming.

The company’s web stores are doing great, too: B&N has a bigger share of the market in digital books (an estimated 20 percent) than it has in physical books.

That’s pretty good considering the Nook’s only been available for nine months, and the company still generates more revenue selling hardcovers and paperbacks than anyone, including Amazon.

Surprised? It’s easy to think about e-reading as a two-horse race, with Amazon’s austere text-centric Kindle facing off against Apple’s “magical” iPad, like PCs vs Macs or Protestants vs Catholics. And it’s true, Barnes & Noble lost money this past quarter, partly because it’s still sorting out its messy relations with its investors.

But Barnes & Noble is for real, and isn’t going anywhere. In the religious analogy, the Nook might be, I don’t know, Judaism, trying to adapt to a newer world while holding onto its traditional community.

Barnes & Noble has consistently gone for a hybrid strategy: providing touch and text, tightly integrating e-sales with its existing stores while also selling the Nook at Best Buy, letting its books be read on the Nook as well as other platforms. B&N’s apps for PC and Mac are arguably best-in-class (bonus points, too, for getting its Mac app out way before Amazon’s). The company is doubling down on (and rebranding) its apps for mobile devices. And it’s drawing on a solid base of neighborhood customer/members and university bookstores. Even as Amazon cuts its prices and diversifies its models to match the Nook, it can’t match Barnes & Noble’s deep reach into the real world.

According to B&N, its members with Nooks have increased their spending by 20%. The company’s building and staffing Nook boutiques in its stores. The idea is that you’ll go buy the Nook in the store, learn how to use it in the store, browse through titles (for free) in the store. And by the way, you might also want to buy some coffee, have lunch, pick up a photo album — all goods with better margins than books.

If the Kindle offers the promise of books anywhere at once and nowhere in particular, the Nook keeps alive the idea that books have a place. And the best place, Barnes & Noble thinks, is in one of its stores.

Photo credit: orb9220/Flickr

Related posts:

• 5 Things That Will Make E-Readers Better in 2010
• Nook Software Update Adds Web Browser, Chess
• Wi-Fi Only Nook For $150 in Best Buy
• 5 Things That Make Us Want Barnes & Noble’s Nook E-Reader