And it took just under 3 months for it to happen, too.
Kindle Fire Now Available as a Refurb – $180
February 2nd, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · Amazon, hardware news
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46% of Kindle Fire Owners Sneak Around With Another Tablet
February 2nd, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · statistics
Changewave has just released the results of survey of 2,607 American consumers, and the results suggest that the Kindle Fire is going to have positive effect on Amazon’s bottom line.
Here are the key takeaways:
- 6% of all respondents own Kindle Fire
- KF owners are more likely to buy from Amazon (29% vs 19%)
- Out of 254 KF owners, 54% were very satisfied and 38% were somewhat satisfied with their tablet, compared to 74% of iPad owners who are very satisfied
- KF owners love the cost, like the color screen
- They also hate the lack of volume buttons and the missing camera
That first detail is definitely the most important, but it was buried in the results. 6% of the survey group own Kindle Fire, and it was only on the market for 2 months when this survey was conducted. We haven’t seen numbers like that since the iPad. The iPad actually had better numbers, but still, the 6% is impressive.
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Random House to Increase Library Ebook Prices (aka They Hate Libraries)
February 2nd, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · opinion
Random House met with ALA leaders this week in NYC, and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that RH isn’t pulling their ebooks from library distributors (like Penguin), or restricting checkouts (like HarperCollins), but the bad news is that they are also going to be raising prices.
This news comes amid reports that the ALA is meeting with other publishers over ebook lending. There’s no word yet on how those talks went, but if we use today’s news as a yardstick, my guess is not well.
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Used Textbooks Still Offer A Better Value Than Rental, Digital
February 2nd, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · textbooks
This might be an ebook blog, but the cost of textbooks has always been an important topic for me. I’ve written a number of times about how to get the best value for your textbook dollar, including a detailed look at exactly how I went about it.
I’m taking a couple college classes this semester and that has given me a good reason to revisit this topic. I’ve said that in the past that rented textbooks weren’t a good value, and after buying my textbooks for this semester I’ve concluded that it is still true.
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RIM Drops the Price of the PlayBook to $199
February 2nd, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · Daily deals
The most discounted tablet of 2011 is on sale again, and this time you can get it as the prize in a crackerjack box.
RIM is following up last month’s sale of $299 ( for any and all models) with new price for the base 16GB model. You can now get it for only $199, and the deal runs until 11 February. Of course, if you really wanted one then you probably got one when it went on sale for that exact price last year. For a tablet that hasn’t been canceled it sure does go on sale lot, doesn’t it?
Snide comments side, this is a pretty good price for the hardware. The Playbook has often been compared to the Kindle Fire, and it’s true that they look quite similar. But the Playbook has more storage, cameras, a card slot, Bluetooth, and it even has buttons. That’s an irrelevant luxury, as far as the KF is concerned.
RIM via Liliputing
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New Asus eeePad Transformer Leaked in China
February 2nd, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · hardware news
A Chinese gadget blog has turned up photos of what might be the next Asus eeePad Transformer, the TF300T. The first eeePad was the TF101, and the Transformer Prime is the TF201, so this new model number is probably legit.
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Update: StoryBundle to Offer “Pay What You Want” Ebook Bundles
February 2nd, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · ebookstore news
Jason Chen, formerly of Gizmodo (the stolen iPhone guy), is bout to launch a new ebook startup called StoryBundle. This new ebook seller was inspired by the pay what you want Humble Indie Bundles, and he plans to do for ebooks what Humble Indie did for apps. [Read more →]
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Apple Supplier Now Suing a Blog Over Leaked iPad 3 Parts
February 1st, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · hardware news
Last summer I was among the many blogs that posted about a cable that was rumored to come from the (still not yet released) new iPad. Yes, that was a little nutty, but like any story involving Apple, it gets nuttier.
It looks like the Chinese blog that posted the original photo is being sued for stealing the part. It’s not clear who is suing the blog or why (language difficulties), but it looks like the company who supplied the part may have panicked over the leak.They probably don’t want Apple to think they leaked it on purpose.
I’m not sure what they hope to accomplish; the leak happened 6 months ago. Heck, suing over the leak is more damaging than the leak itself; it confirms the accuracy of the original story.
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Amazon Saw a 5-Fold Increase in UK Ebook Sales
February 1st, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · ebookstore news, hardware news
Yesterday Amazon released their year end financial statements, and the news was both good (sales were up) and bad (profits were down). But one notable absence from the news report was ny mention of ebook sales. Yes, Amazon said that they sold million so of Kindles, but how many ebooks?
Well, The Bookseller followed up on this and they have some stats for the UK Kindle Store, and the news is mixed.
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Last Minute Addition to The eReader Petting Zoo – A 3-Screen eReader
February 1st, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · conferences & trade shows
Yesterday I had the joy of announcing TDR’s first event, a petting zoo that I am co-hosting with O’Reilly, a technical publisher, at their digital publishing conference. This morning I got an email that promised to make the event 10 times more interesting than before.
The image at right shows the work of Nick Chen. That’s not a dual screen ereader; it’s a pair of single screen devices that are designed to work cooperatively over a wireless connection. And yes, he can network 3 or more devices together.
I last covered Nick back in May, and his gadgets are worth seeing even more now. And that’s why I’m happy to say that he has greed to bring them to the petting zoo.
If you’d like a teaser of the ereaders in action, there’s a video after the break. (If this video doesn’t make you want to attend, I don’t know what will.)
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