The Amazon Kindle 3 Remains The Top E-Book Reader
It seems highly probable that, when the sales returns are tallied up at the end of the 2010 festive season, it will prove to have been another record breaking year for Amazon’s flagship e-book reader. Despite numerous predictions of the Kindle’s imminent demise as a result of the release of Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s category leading ebook reader just seems to go from strength to strength.
Even without the introduction of a color screen, the launch of the Kindle 3 in the autumn of 2010 opened the gap between the Kindle and the chasing pack even further. In addition to a host of technical upgrades, including increased memory (enough for up to 3,500 titles), a better contrast display and a smaller and lighter case, Amazon introduced an entry level WiFi only model.
Priced at just $ 139, the base model Kindle is less than a third of the cost of the entry level iPad. The WiFi plus 3G model is available for $ 189 – still well below the iPad price level. The fact that there are no monthly download fees associated with the Kindle remains another very big selling point of course.
Another key feature of the Kindle has always been the huge selection of Kindle books available for download from the Amazon website. At this time, there are more than 750,000 Kindle books available on Amazon’s Kindle store. In addition to the paid Kindle books, there are currently a further 1.8 million out of copyright titles – including many classics – which are available for free download.
One of the things that many prospective e-book reader buyers seem to fret over is that they will be “tied” to their reader. They feel that having bought a lot of e-books in a particular format, they will be unable to transfer their books should they wish to switch to another e-book reader later.
This issue has been dealt with very well by Amazon who have made a host of free apps available to enable readers to enjoy Kindle books on a variety of different devices. Currently, there are free Kindle apps for the PC, the Mac, the iPad, the iPhone, the Blackberry smart phone, the Windows phone and any device which uses the Android operating system. It’s a clever strategy on Amazon’s part. Not only does it overcome the concerns regarding the transfer of books, but each of these apps effectively acts as another retail outlet for Kindle books. It’s estimated that approximately 20% of Kindle book sales are made using non-Kindle hardware. That percentage will probably continue to grow in future.
As improbable as it may have appeared at some points throughout the year, 2010 has seen the Kindle reinforce its market dominance even further. The very fact that the Kindle’s only serious competition comes in the form of a tablet computer which is more than three times the price of the Amazon reader should tell a story in itself. The Kindle looks like maintaining its dominant position in the e-book market into 2011 and beyond.
Learn more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
