Posted 10/25/08 at 05:11:34 PM by Justin Kerr

Though I’m willing to bet the Maximum PC core demographic differs somewhat from that of the Oprah Winfrey show, oddly she has done something worth mentioning. The TV celebrity took the opportunity on Friday to do some heavy plugging of the Amazon Kindle.  Oprah claims the gifted Kindle she received this summer “has changed her life”. Some might down play the significance of this endorsement, but the popularity of Oprah’s book club is often enough to catapult relatively obscure titles all the way to the New York Times Bestseller list seemingly overnight.  Heck, new studies have shown even a simple nod from the celebrity will be enough to net Barack Obama an additional one million votes. Winfrey who was joined by Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos described the gadget as “pricy” but “environmentally friendly”.  The endorsement does come with a fringe benefit however. A $50 price break is offered when using the promotional code OPRAHWINFREY during checkout. So if you’ve been waiting for a price drop before you pick up a Kindle this brings the device down to a modest $309.00 USD until November 1st 2008.

So while I’m willing to bet Oprah isn’t the primary reason our readers will pick up a Kindle, has anyone else made the switch from paperbacks? Let us know what you think of the Kindle.

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Posted 10/06/08 at 09:48:39 AM by Paul Lilly

Speculation regarding Amazon's Kindle 2.0 has been spreading since at least July, but it appears we might finally know exactly what the redesigned eBook reader will look like. The spy shots come courtesy of BoyGeniusReport.com, which shows a gadget that is "a little wider and a little longer" than the first generation Kindle.

Assuming the snapshots turn out to be legit, Kindle 2.0 will come with smaller buttons to help avoid inadvertent page turns. The scroll wheel gets whisked away in favor of a joystick, and the new Kindle also eschews its own charger in favor of a miniUSB cable. What you won't find is a touchscreen or an SD card slot, and according to BoyGenius this second run Kindle will use EVDO for downloads.

Thoughts on the new Kindle? Hit the jump and let us know.

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Posted 08/25/08 at 10:13:17 AM by Paul Lilly

Rumblings that Amazon is working on a revised Kindle eBook reader have been coursing through the web since July, and it's believed the new version will come in a variety of colors to appeal to a larger audience. We'll have to wait and see, but at least one analyst sees an opportunity to cash in with college students and believes a collegiate version could make a debut in the not too distant future.

"There are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works," said Tim Bueneman, an analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen.

Bueneman also predicts that one of the new features might include improved interface operating controls, which he notes has been issue with some buyers. But if Amazon is to target the collegiate crowd, the biggest issue might come down to price - $360 buys a lot of Ramen noodles.

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Posted 08/02/08 at 12:22:11 PM by Paul Lilly

By all accounts Amazon's Kindle eBook reader appears to be a resounding success. Despite the gadget's shortcomings -- no PDF support, closed eBook format, poor batter life when using the wireless service, limited magazine selection -- the $359 device sold out almost immediately after going on sale, fetching as much as $1,500 in Ebay auctions. Fast forward to today and the Kindle pushes over 12 percent of Amazon's book sales. And rumor has it that Amazon will soon release a new model, Kindle 2.0, a bigger version of the original in a multitude of colors.

Book sales aside, just how successful has the Kindle been?  Because Amazon won't disclose how many of its eBook readers it has sold, nobody knows for sure, but TechCrunch claims to have the inside scoop. "240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November, according to a source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers," TC reports.

If true, that puts Kindle sales close to the $100 million mark and well over that amount after factoring in book sales, subscriptions, and so on.  But that's only the tip of the iceberg. TC notes that Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., has Amazon on track to sell 500,000 to 750,000 more Kindles within the next four quarters, with a total revenue of up to $355 million after tallying up additional book sales. This, he says, values the Kindle as a $1 billion business for Amazon.

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Posted 07/11/08 at 07:38:50 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Amazon’s proprietary wireless reading device Kindle has been rather successful. It remained out of stock for months after being launched in November, 2007, despite being criticized heavily for its lack of WiFi, ugly design and limited PDF support. Now it is fast emerging as a popular electronic book reader, if a Time magazine report is to be believed.

A source inside Amazon told Time that Kindle accounts for 12% of sales of the roughly 130k titles that are both available physically and as Kindle downloads. Kindle’s share has doubled from May, when Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos had claimed it to be 6%. It is good to hear that digital distribution threatens to change the landscape of the books publishing industry as well. However, Kindle is far from perfect and its design and features need nothing less than an overhaul.

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Posted 02/21/08 at 03:37:51 PM by Will Smith

We’ve long appreciated the concept of the eBook, but we’ve been disappointed in its execution. The old Franklin readers ate batteries, had small screens, and included only a meager selection of books. Sony’s Reader has a better battery life, but the selection of first-run books leaves much to be desired. Amazon’s new Kindle solves many of these problems but introduces an even thornier one.

Click Read More for more. 

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