Scott Adcox

Doing More With Less Since 1972

Tag: kindle

Children’s Books Now Available on Kindle!

June 14, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Here’s some great news!

There are over 1,000 new titles available, with support for pop-up text and highlighting the artwork in individual panels.

Ana and I were just talking at lunch today about how to keep one kid occupied while another is having one-on-one school time, and one of our main options is to use a tablet and some apps for some self-directed educational endeavors. Now Kindle with children’s books is a great option!

I loved my Kindle Touch with e-ink (until it got misplaced), but never really cared much for the Kindle apps for mobile devices. The way e-ink is so easy on the eyes was the big seller for me personally. But for children’s books that are heavy on illustrations, iPads and Android tablets are absolutely perfect and intuitive for kids to use.

We may have to get another device now! The Kindle Fire is pretty reasonably priced, and there are some other options out there like the Archos Arnova Child Pad that are both cheap and kid friendly.

Amazon’s Table Announcement…Let’s Get To The Important Part

September 28, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Pricing.

The E-Ink Kindle is now only $79. Yeah…$79. That’s with “special offers.” For me, upgrading to the $100 version seems worth it because you can play mp3s and it has a touch screen.

And what about their new Android tablet?

The Kindle Fire 7″ tablet is $200. That’s right…a high functioning Android tablet for $200. That’s less than 50% of what the iPad costs. I was excited to get the Acer Iconia for $300 with a coupon earlier this summer. It seems like Amazon is going to basically give these things away knowing they can make it up on the back end by selling content through the stores that are tightly integrated with the device.

If I didn’t already have a tablet, I’d jump all over one of these. They are going to be great little media consumption devices. All the other things you can do with them are just going to be bonuses. I think Amazon is making a great bet here by leaving off the stuff most people don’t really care about for a tablet. I’ve never even considered using the camera on my tablet for instance.

iPad killer? No.

iPad competitor? I don’t think so.

I think Amazon just put this device out at a crazy low price with a strong brand behind it that will expand the market for tablet devices, and I think they are going to own the lion’s share of the new market growth.

Getting Ready To Bite On An E-Reader?

May 24, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been looking at (wanting) a Kindle for a while. But, I’m cheap. And I know the prices are going to keep dropping. Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been reading just because I don’t have a Kindle yet. I just keep having to go to the library, reserve books online, pay late fees, etc. Several things have happened recently that have me (almost) ready to buy, but the sum of these things makes me think I should wait it out just a little bit longer.

There’s speculation that Amazon is going to have two Android powered tablets out by Christmas for under $500. That means they’ll be motivated to empty out some of their lower end Kindles between now and then. They’ve already started to do so with the $114 6″ Kindle with ads for a screen saver.

This seems like the best choice for me…if I was going to buy yesterday. I’m really wanting the e-ink display instead of the LCD the tablets will have, and it doesn’t matter to me if it’s a touch screen or not. I just want something easy to look at with long batter life. Also, I don’t care if it’s 3G or not. I’m home most of the time, and I’m sure I can load it up with plenty of stuff to keep me entertained in the event I’m away for a few days, so Wi-Fi connection is fine with me. The screen size is actually perfect. I currently use the Kindle app on my phone, and my two biggest complaints with it are that the screen size is small and the display. A bigger screen would be nicer to look at, but the 6″ screen is about right for lugging around the house and holding without being cumbersome.

Barnes & Noble announced its own 6″ Nook today, priced exactly the same as the 6″ ad-free Kindle. It’s not a Nook color; it’s black and white e-ink. But unlike the Kindle, it’s running Android 2.1 and has a full touch screen. It also features a two month batter life. Sounds like a nice little device. It’ s not the one I want to buy though…I want to see what kind of pressure this puts on Amazon to lower their price even further, especially considering what they have coming later this year.

For the kicker, there was a rumor a while back that Amazon was considering giving a free Kindle to all of its Prime customers. That’s what I hope actually happens. I’m all about free. Now would seem like the perfect time. I could imagine one scenario where they do this sooner rather than later as a “reward” for existing Prime customers. Another possibility would be to not only give current Prime customers a free Kindle, but also send one out to new customers around October/November. This would be a great way to get rid of existing inventory while putting the device in the hands of people who don’t yet have one to entice them to request/purchase the newer devices as gifts. Wouldn’t hurt to entice people to try out Prime right around Christmas and have their gifts shipped (and purchased) through Amazon.

I think the end game here is control of the market itself. Readers are eventually going to be available for next to nothing either way.

Kindle Price Dropping and A Bunch of Other Financial Stuff

April 12, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Here’s another mind dump of thoughts on a few of the link worthy things I’ve read lately…enjoy!

Now you can buy a Kindle for $114! The gotcha here is that you have to be willing to look at ads and special offers. Still, I’m glad to see the price coming down one way or another. I still think the magic price for this device is $99. At least, that’s the price at which I’d bite.

5 Common Remote Work Misconceptions – Word!

Roth IRA: Time to retire Roth IRAs – Could not be more wrong. This guy needs to run the numbers, although I doubt he’d know where to start to do that. Roth IRAs and Traditional IRAs generate the exact same tax revenue if you make the assumption that the tax rate doesn’t change. But for the gov’ment, they get to have their candy now instead of waiting for you to retire. The upside for the account holder only comes if they end up in a higher tax bracket or tax rates rise across the board. Look where people have placed their bets.

Gov Shutdown’s Impact – Great argument by @newscoma for keeping $ in state instead of sending it to D.C. 🙂

IKEA desktop – <3 IKEA. This is pretty cool.

Portugal, Illinois and Caterpillar – “The Portugese have decided to protest against mathematics….” That’s pretty much all you need to know. Of course, as Dave Ramsey likes to point out, if they’d been doing math they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Stuff You Should See– February 11th through February 22nd

February 22, 2010 / / 0 Comments

NASA Releases First-Ever iPhone Game, Complete With Wiseass Remarks – And to think, it was just the other day I was telling a NASA employee that the private market could do a lot of the same stuff they do and it would be more cost efficient. She threw “we invented velcro” at me. If only she’d known they were releasing this iPhone app, she could have shut my point down completely. At least they are giving it away, so your tax dollars are being returned to you…if you happen to have an iPhone.

Marijuana use by seniors goes up as boomers age – Disclaimer: I don’t set things in fire and put them in my mouth. Period. But there are a lot of “get-off-my-lawn” type older people who really do need to chill out a little. And that wasn’t even brought up in this article. So how, exactly, would it hurt me if they got a little help with achieving that?

CPAC Exhaustion – Oops! So what if she said she met him but was mistaken. It’s not that big a deal. I’ll give some linkages just to say that. 🙂

10 fake Simpsons words that belong in the dictionary – Doh!

George Washington: Simplicity seeker – The Father of our desire for simplicity.

The finest Facebook groups ever conceived by man – Heh…Facebook may be good for something after all.

Amazon Wants To Give A Free Kindle To All Amazon Prime Subscribers – Please be true. Thank you.

9 Studies That the Anti-Vaccination Movement Says Show Links or Bury the Truth – And a few notes on them. I don’t understand the Latin parts, but I think the idea here is that these things keep a lot of people from getting really bad diseases, err, alive.

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