Don't know if you noticed it or not but Amazon semi-quietly lowered the price on its "Kindle" electronic book ("ebook"), or as they call it, "wireless reading device". (Hate shoving those book wires in my eyes.)
I have to say that, while I really like the idea of an ebook, I was pretty sure that at $399 the Kindle was going to be a non-starter. Once again: Bezos right, me wrong. The initial supply of Kindles sold out immediately at $399 and have been moving briskly ever since. Enough so, in fact, that publishers are quickly releasing more titles for the Kindle and new books are made available for it right away. Bezos is way right.
It is a pretty cool device but I still can't reconcile myself to the price. Plenty of good features to make it easy and even enjoyable to use but $399 just seems crazy. So the new price, announced a couple weeks ago, is down around 10% to $359. That's still in the "are you nuts?" range as far as my budget is concerned, but at least it's moving in the right direction.
It doesn't help me any that most of the rest of the ebook devices are around the $200 to $300 range. A few go higher -- up to around $700! -- and a few go lower but with those the content availability may be a problem.
The device is an obvious winner in handiness, ease of use and, more and more, access to desireable content. New NYT bestsellers are under $10 -- and you save a tree! I hope that the price for Kindle keeps moving in this downward direction. When it hits $49.95, I'm there.
