thinking early about stocking-stuffers?

October 9, 2009 Heh,a personal pet topic of mine.

Been snooping around the forums at MobileRead for feedback on the international Kindle since the announcement.

Downsides to the international version: books are generally $2 more expensive than the US store ($11.99 versus $9.99) and, due to publisher restrictions, there are over 100,000 books that won’t be available outside the US store (including, supposedly, Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol”)

However, tons of people have been using US Kindles outside America for quite some time now – it’s all in the judicious use of Amazon electronic GCs and a VPN to “magically relocate” you for a few minutes, plus a USB connection to do all your transfers.

And hey, bang for the back tip – if you aren’t going to need the international Whispernet anyway, refurbished 1st gen Kindle readers are only $150 on Amazon right now.

In fact for me, the best part about the Amazon Kindle store is the content, not necessarily the device.

If you’re an iPhone user that can snag a copy of the Kindle app off the US iTunes store, you don’t even need an actual Kindle – and now you can seamlessly use Whispernet not only over 3G, but WiFi as well. Not to mention the ability to read non-DRM ebooks (using Stanza), get many more blogs, news and feature articles synced to your device (using Instapaper) and view full resolution, full color PDFs (using GoodReader).

October 9, 2009 Having tried a DX, the 6″ International version is not so bad at all. I’ll probably get one before the year ends. Its more portable than the DX. I’ve been using the iPhone app for months and fairly satisfied with it, but the E Ink screen is definitely more friendly to the eyes.

Yup International books costs $2 more but its still cheaper compared to a print book you get locally (I recently bought one for $8 when it sells for $15 for print locally), although there are some from the best-sellers list not included (yet).

The e-book reader allows you to store up to 200 books and has a little more room for periodicals, magazines and even 300 blogs. All this you can get or download anywhere using a free high-speed cellular wireless network from Sprint (EVDO, Amazon Whispernet). Looking to be a better competitor to the Sony Reader Digital Book (PRS-505).

The catch? While access to the network is free, you’ll have to pay monthly subscriptions rates even for the freely available periodicals (New York Times, Washington Post, etc) and blogs (TechCrunch, Boingboing, etc). The screen is also in black & white though that actually helps for a longer battery life.

The unit ain’t that cheap too — $400 a pop. Feature-wise it’s packed but will people buy yet another dedicated device to tag along with them? Maybe for the book freaks gobbling 3 books a week.   Read the original complete posting here http://www.yugatech.com/blog/toys-gadgets/kindle-amazons-new-ebook-reader/

These days, you can buy a laptop for $400, and it will do everything that the Kindle will do, plus much more.