World’s biggest e-book reader heads for Ireland
The world’s biggest-selling digital e-book reader will go on sale in Ireland later this month.
Amazon’s Kindle 2 will retail for $280 (€200), but will cost $360 (€250) when delivery and customs charges are applied to Irish customers. The device will compete with Sony’s Reader, iRex’s Iliad and the Be Book.
The Kindle is aimed primarily a t downloading digital books from Amazon’s webstore, which hosts 300,000 titles. However, it will also be capable of downloading and displaying books from other online sources, including Project Gutenberg, which hosts 20,000 free titles.
Amazon also intends to sell magazine and newspaper subscriptions through the device, which will display the publications in a format similar to their offline designs.
E-books cost roughly the same as their physical equivalents, a state of affairs that has been heavily criticised by ecommerce advocates. Publishers defend this pricing parity by arguing that technology transfer costs create extra price pressures.
The Kindle will not be able to download e-books in portable document format (PDF), which is the most widely accepted digital file format on the internet. Instead, the device will only be compatible with plain text files (.txt), mobi text files and Amazon’s proprietary AZW text files.
The gadget’s screen is five inches tall by3.5 inches across. While it does not display colour, it can reproduce photos.
The Kindle differs from its rivals in that it can purchase digital books wirelessly without connecting to a computer. It does this by operating over a 3G cellular connection, supported by a mobile phone operator.
In the US, the device works using Sprint. However, it is not yet clear which Irish mobile phone operator, if any, the Kindle will use.
The device can also download e-books from a web connected computer.
The device is currently available to pre-order from Amazon’s website. Orders will be sent directly from the US, rather than from a European base.
