Marco.org

Quick summary:

• It’s $400 and ugly as sin. They should have considered a subsidized device or a content-store credit with each new Kindle.
• It gets content over the air with Sprint’s EVDO/1X cellular data network. There isn’t a monthly access fee. Amazon handles this relationship with Sprint.
• It includes unlimited Wikipedia access for free. This is incredibly cool.
• Most prices on eBooks ($10-20) and magazines ($2-3) are decent.
• Daily newspapers are expensive. The New York Times is $14/month.
• I’d love to know how much Amazon gets from each fee.

They completely botched blogs. First, you can’t just add any RSS feed - they have a few hundred available to choose from. But the worst part is that they want $1-2 per month, per blog. Sorry, but I’m not paying $400 up front and $50-80 per month for my RSS reader.

RSS should have been offered on an unlimited plan. I’d happily pay $20/month for wireless RSS, one newspaper, and Wikipedia. (I’d have a hard time justifying the initial $400, but I’m sure it will be cheaper next year.)

It’s a very interesting device, and not paying Sprint directly is great, but ultimately I think Amazon got a bit too greedy on the pricing and restrictions. This will probably be far more interesting a few years from now.

Also, assuming Amazon’s in it more for the monthly fees and commissions, and less for any hardware profits, why not make this available to other devices and even offline laptops? What about an iPhone version for me to use on the train?