What a world! What a world! - The Wicked Witch of the West
|
|
|
No colour Kindle just yet
ONLINE BOOKSELLER Amazon is unlikely to release a colour screen version of its Kindle ebook reader in the near future.
That admission came from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. Talking to shareholders, Bezos said that adding colour to the e-ink technology used in the firm's popular Kindle ebook reader poses a difficult challenge and that a final product is "a long way out."
Amazon has done surprisingly well with its expensive single use, monochrome display Kindle. Heavily invested fans of the device refer to its e-ink technology as a great selling point, claiming that devices that have LCD screens, such as the Ipad, are too bright and difficult to read in sunlight.
Amazon clearly is hedging its bets, though. For some time an official Kindle application has been available for the Ipad and given that the firm makes more than enough selling books and just about everything else, it would be silly not to embrace netbooks and tablet devices. Bezos, as usual, was tight-lipped on exactly how many Kindles his firm has managed to shift, simply saying it is "millions".
Bezos hasn't given up just yet, claiming that he saw products in Amazon's lab that were "still not ready for prime-time production". µ
Share this:
Share
this is total and utter refuse… i don’t think amazon is being too truthful here. but why would they want to release a color e-reader anytime soon, wouldn’t this cannibalize their own [passé monochromatic] lineup?
no people, we will not see a color e-reader from amazon until they have recouped the r&d, paid off the marketing budget, and turned a solid profit. however, if another company pumps out a color e-reader that has even a modicum of the battery life the kindle has, amazon might be forced to move quicker (iRex in Q1 2011, fujitsu already has a 40 hour color e-ink reader for 1k USD).
personally, i think convergence is where e-paper/ink devices are headed… lightweight devices capable of static images and text (books) but with the ability to display fluid, high-definition video (albeit, at a cost to battery life).
So really amazon, tell the truth – either you don’t have the proper tech to pump out a color e-reader or you just don’t want to canabalize the sales of the monochromatic kindle (me thinks it’s the latter).
peace
(Whoops. Freudian slip.) Anyhoo, at present, it's a paperback novel experience for size, and though the resolution is okay, could stand being larger, even for portable, rather than attempting to make text pretty with color.