Friday, September 27, 2013

Why Amazon Stops Announcing New Big Screen Kindle?

When I asked this question first time, I thought the answer is: Amazon is not a company earning money by selling hardware, its revenue comes from the digital contents, therefore Amazon need not to devote itself into developing new devices all the time.

But now I think the answer is wrong. Yes, Amazon doesn't reply on selling devices to make money, but it doesn't mean Amazon will not release new device, or why they upgrade the Kindle and Kindle Fire?

First let's talk about the difference between eBook reader and tablet:

  1. eBook reader provides the reading experience more like reading a paper books;
  2. eBook reader makes people focus on reading.

The 6-inch Kindle has already covered these two characteristics "almost perfectly", a further step is not happening under today's technology. Look at the new generation of Kindle Paperwhite, all the improvements are focus on the minor details. There is no highlight which makes me exiting on this device.

Therefore, here is the point: There is not much space for Kindle to upgrade, so does a big screen Kindle.

The primary problem for a big Kindle is the weight: Kindle DX 535g, new iPad WiFi 680g. It is not a nice experience to hold a 535g device to read for a long time. I can carry an iPad and a Kindle Paperwhite when I am out, but it's no way to carry an iPad and a Kindle DX.

The only advantage for a big Kindle is people can use it to read scanned PDF more comfortably than a 6-inch Kindle. But this advantage is fading away with the quality of epub and mobi files rising. In my own experience, I'd rather reading a scanned PDF on my iPad, but not on the Kindle DX.

That's why there is no upgrade on big screen Kindle since Kindle DX.

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