Kindle Sparks Curiosity

Would you like to have hundreds of books at your disposal every moment of the day.  The idea has appeal.  An e-reader lets you carry volumes of books.  Plus you can search, or jump to any spot in the text, and bump up the type size when your eyes get tired.

But the counterarguments are equally persuasive. Printed books are dirt cheap, never run out of power and survive drops, spills and being run over. And their file format will still be readable 200 years from now.

So e-book readers keep on coming and keep on flopping: the Rocket eBook Reader. Gemstar. Everybook. SoftBook. Librius Millennium Reader. The Sony Reader is in stores even now, priced at $350 and making literally dozens of sales.

Now Amazon has its own called the Kindle. It arrives at $400–reading material sold separately.

There’s even a crude Web browser. It’s fine for text and graphics, lousy for Web layouts and useless for streaming audio or video. But with some effort, you can use it to get news, rebook a flight, monitor blogs and even check Web e-mail (like Gmail).The pricing is another breakthrough: Kindle books generally cost less than half of what printed books cost (and much less than Sony’s e-books). It’s common sense; why should a digital file cost as much as a physical object, manufactured and shipped? Most Kindle hardcover books cost $10, including I Am America (and So Can You), Deceptively Delicious and Freakonomics. Their hardcover prices are $25 or $26. Older books cost $3 to $6.