I tend to be a little behind the times when it comes to the latest advances in digital consumer technology. Such is the case with the Amazon Kindle portable digital reader, which I understand can hold up to 3,500 books. As with MP3 technology for music, though, I have one outstanding problem with Kindle and its competitors: what to do with my extensive and space-consuming personal library of books. As was the case with my extensive, lower-tech record and cassette collection, I don't want to have to purchase a digitalized version of a book that I already have in book form. And anyway, much of what I have is out of print. So until I can economically (and legally) copy my own material and put it on a Kindle (or a similar product), I probably will hold back on purchasing one.
Having said that, I'm still pretty interested in Kindle, as I would dearly love to cut back on the clutter in my home by reducing book space. So I naturally noticed and read a Kindle ad on the back of a magazine recently. And it was then that my "World Trade Fenter moment" jumped off the page at me.
Maybe you can explain this to me in a way that makes sense. According to the ad, you can either buy Kindle with wi-fi only for $139 or you can buy it with "free 3G + wi-fi" for $189. Do you see anything a little incongruous with that last sentence, or am I missing something here? If the only difference between the two versions is the "free 3G", then why does this version cost $50 more?
.....I'm waiting.....
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3G data plans come with a monthly fee on most devices (e.g., phones, iPads, etc.). Amazon pays for the data plan on the Kindle, so the data plan is "free" to you.
ReplyDeleteExpanding on what Anonymous said: The $50 is paying for the 3G radio (plus, I'm sure, some extra one-time profit). It's the download service that's free, that you don't have to pay for. And that can amount to significant savings if you do a lot of downloading over 3G.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion is that there's enough Wi-Fi connectivity these days that one doesn't need the 3G. It's not like you need to be "online" all the time, where you'd want the 3G connection when you don't have Wi-Fi. As long as you can catch enough Wi-Fi to do your downloads, you're fine.
And I'm finally breaking down and buying one: I've just pre-ordered the Wi-Fi-only version. But it's not for saving space at home. With more travel than ever with this new job, and with the need to read a lot of PDF and plain-text documents, it'll be very handy to be able to take them all with me and read them in airports and planes.
Yes, I figured that they probably broke it down into the "extra cost" part and the "free" part. I just wasn't sure how. Thanks for the info.
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