- $259 Kindle 2 – My Kindle 2 Review based on 6 months of use.
- Kindle DX - Kindle DX Review including videos and pictures.
Filed under: reviews | Tagged: kindle 2, kindle dx | 11 Comments »
Filed under: reviews | Tagged: kindle 2, kindle dx | 11 Comments »
There are two excellent videos in this Color eReader comparison – prepare to be blown away
.
The contenders -
Liquavista’s fast refresh Color ePaper
First, a video from Liquavista’s YouTube page -
Liquavista’s ePaper technology hits the golden treble – fast screen refresh, support for video, full color.
Liquavista are taking out all the stops -
There’s also a Liquavista Press Release with this snippet -
Liquavista was founded in 2006 as a spin-out from the world famous Philips Research Labs in Eindhoven.
The company is backed by Amadeus Capital, GIMV, Applied Materials and Prime Technology Ventures.
Qualcomm’s Mirasol Color ePaper inspired by Butterfly Wings
Qualcomm’s Mirasol color display technology mimics butterfly wings to hit the same golden treble as Liquavista – fast screen refresh, video support, full color.
For an even more impressive video check out Engadget’s review (they make their video almost impossible to embed).
Engadget say -
A Kindle with a display that looks like that – Wow!
Closing Thought – 2010 looks to be the Year
If either Mirasol powered or Liquavista powered eReaders arrive in 2010 we will see incredible improvements in eReader sales and perception.
We’re talking about eReaders with -
eReaders would finally hit the 21st century. The video from Liquavista was stunning and the Mirasol video is simply unbelievable.
Here’s to hoping that the Kindle and other eReaders incorporate these technologies in 2010 itself.
Filed under: eBook Reader Devices | Tagged: color ereader, color kindle | 1 Comment »
Samsung just entered the US eReader market with its E6 and E101 Readers - there won’t be a comprehensive samsung reader review until the release in ‘early 2010 - March/April’ so here’s a review of features and some thoughts.
Samsung Reader E6 – Review of Features, Price
The Samsung Reader E6 is much more polished than the SNE-50K which Samsung sells in Korea. Let’s start with its main advantages.
Samsung Reader Killer Features, and Writing in addition to Reading
By far the biggest push Samsung is making is that E6 is an eWriter as well as an eReader. There’s certainly some merit to it as this video demonstrates (jump to the 1:30 mark for the good part) –
By using a special electromagnetic resonance stylus pen Samsung avoid the problem of having hands and fingers interfere with writing. You can even flip the pen around and use it as an eraser.
The killer features of the Samsung E6, in addition to support for writing, are -
Thanks to RegHardware for some good Samsung Reader details and Crunch Gear for the Samsung E6 video and some decent analysis.
Achilles Heel of the Samsung E6 – the $399 Price
The $399 price of the Samsung Reader E6 puts it in the same tier as the $399 Sony Reader Daily Edition (with a 7″ screen) and the $489 Kindle DX (with a 9.7″ screen).
Samsung Reader E6 Features
Let’s quickly list all features (even the unglamorous ones) -
Quite an interesting list.
Samsung Reader E6 – Thoughts
Version 1 of the Samsung E6 Reader is too expensive – there just won’t be enough people buying it and its cool writing feature will be wasted.
Samsung Reader E101 – Thoughts
Samsung revealed very few details on the E101 -
At a $699 price point the E101 is closer to an Apple iSlate competitor than an eReader. Really makes you wonder who Samsung think they are going to sell the E101 to.
Filed under: eBook Reader Devices | Tagged: samsung e6, samsung reader | Leave a Comment »
Teleread notes that AT&T customers can now get Nokia Ovi Store App purchases billed automatically to their AT&T bill.
The Press Release mentions convenience -
Ovi Store by Nokia is now available to AT&T customers using the following Nokia devices the Nokia E71x, Nokia Surge, Nokia Mural, Nokia 6650, Nokia 6555 or Nokia 6350 …
These AT&T customers will also be able to download free and paid content from Ovi Store with the convenience of charging their paid content purchases directly to their monthly AT&T bill.
This is a HUGE move and convenience is a rather small part of it. This post will discuss automatically billed purchases from a consumer psychology perspective.
Critical Aspects of the Purchase Process
There are several things that make a huge difference to how much purchasing customers do and how happy/content they are with it -
We’ll look at Nokia’s automatic billing addition, the iPhone’s App purchase process, and Kindle Store purchases.
Setting the Right Context
Consider the Internet -
You basically have a purchase context that’s far from ideal. Even before users can see what product you’re selling, what its utility is, etc. you have the odds against you.
There are obviously exceptions – search engine traffic is often traffic of good intent and sites like Amazon.com have a good purchase context.
Contrast the Internet Context with the iPhone App Store context -
eReaders and Cellphones provide amazingly good purchase context.
Taking the user naturally and quickly to the purchase point
Look at the iPhone and the Kindle -
Shouldn’t it be the most natural thing to take users quickly and smoothly to where they can buy the product?
However, a lot of companies don’t get this -
Ease of Making the Purchase
It’s ridiculously easy to make Kindle and iPhone purchases -
Think about just how easy buying a book on the Kindle is - you have almost zero friction. The only thing easier would be it reading your mind.
In stark contrast is how you buy Android Apps -
This article in Venture Beat discusses it and it’s particularly interesting to hear one possible solution -
Hoogsteder thinks carrier billing, where Android app purchases show up on your phone bill instead of your credit card, will get people to start buying.
The automatic billing suggestion does a lot more than simply make buying easy.
Invisible Purchases – Detaching the fact that you are paying money from the purchase
This is where the effectiveness of Nokia and AT&T’s strategy becomes apparent.
We’ve gradually had various layers placed between buying something and paying for it -
The bigger the detachment from the concept of paying money the higher the chance customers make a purchase.
Making things so simple and smooth necessitates providing some way to undo purchases.
Removing the Threat of Regret
A large portion of people’s reluctance to buy products stems from the fear of something bad happening and them regretting the purchase.
That leads to -
With Amazon you get a 30 day return period. You even get a 7 day return period for Kindle book purchases.
Return policies remove a lot of the perceived commercialism of making the purchase process easy -
eReaders, eBooks and the Purchase Process
While we’re seeing rapid progress on a lot of different fronts, eReader and eBook companies are still missing out some important aspects -
Customers are coming in with great intentions – it’s simply inexcusable to make things complicated and painful for them.
By making purchases extremely convenient and painless you walk the line between convenience and diabolical effectiveness – However, things like a good refund policy ensure you stay on the side that’s good for customers.
Filed under: thoughts | Tagged: path of least resistance | 1 Comment »
Lots of people are getting excited about the prospects of putting ads into eBooks and eMagazines.
Newspapers killed themselves by buying the ‘give away content and make money from ads’ siren song of the Internet.
You’d think that would convince content creators and companies selling content to stay away from advertising. However, it doesn’t seem to be enough.
Users don’t really like Ads
Users are showing their reluctance to be herded like cattle -
A great example of the last point is the dismal click-through rate for ads on Facebook.
Still, advertising companies and content creators fixate on ads.
Why are so many companies fixated on ads?
Advertising hasn’t worked for the overwhelming majority of start-ups. It certainly hasn’t worked for newspapers.
What makes content creators still cling to ads?
Perhaps the biggest factor is that Internet companies prey on the fear and greed of Publishers.
Companies fooling companies that want to fool people
At some level we should be happy about this.
Karma kicks in. Magazines sell their users to advertizers and users return the favor by totally ignoring all advertising.
Who benefits? Users and Advertising Companies. Who gets killed? Greedy, scared Publishers.
Would an Internet company really exploit a Publisher?
Of course not – all Internet companies are made of sugar and spice and all things nice.
Although both users and Internet companies push the notion that Online Advertising will work -
The illusion that advertising works online is very convenient to everyone in the online eco-system – that’s the only reason it has survived.
Will companies like Hearst ever figure out that advertising isn’t the answer?
Probably not.
When we find success with a model we are reluctant to believe it could stop working or that another model would work.
Apple and Amazon have shown a remarkable ability to not fall into these patterns of behavior. Probably a function of the CEOs.
It’s not that big of a conceptual leap to understand that readers are now smart enough to ignore ads.
Advertising does not work online – except in Search and Search Ads are actually shortcuts. They are taking users where users already intended to go.
Hearst’s desire for a return to the good old days when things worked the way they are supposed to is overriding the giant example of newspapers and almost every start-up not named Google.
Filed under: thoughts | Tagged: lack thereof, utility of advertising | 4 Comments »
For the third time we have non-free books showing up in a search for free kindle books. That means there’s a chance these 7 books will be free at some point today or tomorrow (no guarantees) -
The theme seems to be health and fitness and life lessons and most of the Publishing Imprints seem to be part of the Hachette Group. Perhaps Amazon wants to help us with our New Year’s Resolutions.
Here are some books (courtesy MobileRead) that are definitely free -
For some strange reason the number of free books bouncing around the Internet is rather low this week. Hopefully it picks up.
Filed under: free books | Tagged: free kindle books | 2 Comments »