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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

December - 2007 - issue > Tech Tracker

Amazon Kindle(s) a revolution in e-Reading

Christo Jacob
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Christo Jacob
Amazon's claim on Kindle running out of stock due to high demand is a rebuff to Sony PRS-500 Reader that has been in the market since September 2006.

Priced at $399, Kindle is costlier and much larger than the Sony Reader, which is available at around $300. However, unlike Sony, Kindle does not need a PC to download the e-books but provides a wireless access for the same.

What appalls the market is that Amazon's decision to use a mobile broadband connection through Sprint's EV-DO cellular data network called 'Amazon Whispernet'. Customers don't have to maintain separate cell phone accounts and hence there are no bills. The cost of browsing Amazon's Kindle e-book store is covered by Amazon; download costs are built into the price of the books, newspapers, blog feeds, and other services available from Amazon. The Kindle store at Amazon is open for the users with more than 88,000 books and subscription to all top international newspapers and magazines for a monthly fee.

Apart from the Sony Digital reader, Kindle will compete with iRex iLiad, the Jinke Hanlin eReader, and CyBook by Bookeen.


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