Tablet owners: you've already got a Kindle

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 08 August 2011 11:15

Your IT - Entertainment

Although some are excited to finally see Amazon's soon-to-be-superseded B&W Kindle 3 models set for sale from month's end in Big W, Dick Smith and Woolworths, if you already have a tablet, why swindle yourself by spending yet more on outdated Kindle hardware?

Australian Walmart-clone Big W has its Kindle pre-order page up and running, ready to take your pre-orders for Amazon's 'revolutionary' e-book reading device.

The Dick Smith electronics store and the supermarket chain Woolworths, which are owned by the same parent company that owns Big W, will also have the Kindle on sale, putting the e-book reader in retail stores at last, and broadening their appeal to the masses - especially those who don't have a computer at all, but still want the e-book reading experience.

Of course, I've been reading books on my laptop screen years before e-book reader became popular, but as a child of the early digital age, this is no surprise, or at least - not to me.

E-book readers do have advantages over laptops, however - easier to read screens, super-long battery life, PC-free operation, an interface that's very easy to learn and an inbuilt bookstore that lets you buy whatever book you want, as long as you have money in your credit card.

When the Kindle first arrived, it wasn't the first e-book reader - others already existed - but Amazon's was first to capture the public imagination and masses of sales, as well as being backed by Amazon's physical book selling initiatives, something that made it easier for the company to then move into the e-book realm. 

The thing is, you're paying AUD $159 for the Wi-Fi model, and AUD $219 for the same version but with 3G added, and while these prices are less than half the cheapest iPad, they're only really tempting if there's no other tablet already in your life.

After all, if you have an Android or iPad tablet, currently the two most popular on the market, the Kindle app is freely available to download, meaning those two  brands of tablet are already Kindles, or can be freely turned into one.

Continued on page two, please read on!