To be fair the Ipad is in some ways much more than an oversized Iphone, and in other much less. But the may question that concerns us is Ipad’s as an ebook reader device, can it replace Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and the long list of black and white ebook readers already available on the market?

Let’s compare both Amazon Kindle’s and the new Apple Ipad

Ipad                                             Kindle
————————————————–

Screen Size ………9.7 inch                                     6 inch

Resolution ……….1024×768                                    600×800

Battery life ……….10 hours                                    3 weeks turning 3G off

Thickness …………0.5 inch                                     0.36 inch

Wireless …………..WIFI /  3G                                    3G

Memory slot………. No                                                 No

Storage………… 16GB, 32GB, 64GB                        2Gb

Keyboard ………..Virtual                                            Hardware

MP3 Player………. Yes                                                Yes

EInk (no eyes strain) No                                                  Yes

Web Browser ……….Yes                                                  Yes

Video player ………..Yes                                                 No

Aditional Apps ………Yes, Apple store                        Soon to come

Price ………………………$499 non 3G 16GB                  $259 (buy here)

While Ipad’s functionalities seem impressive and in many ways outperform Amazon Kindle’s the truth is that Apple’s Ipad is not an Ebook reader and is missing to main characteristics that would qualify it as an Ebook reader.

The first one is the EInk, while Amazon Kindle does not put any strain in the eyes with the EInk technology, the screen of the Ipad makes your eyes suffer a lot more when reading an Ebook, this may seem like a small sacrifice but for the avid readers this is a major flaw.

Pricing, the price of the Ipad is almost double the price of the Amazon Kindle which makes it less affordable, I’m sure Apple will sell plenty of Ipads but certaibly not as Ebook readers

No more having to read ebooks in a small scree, the Ebook reader champion Amazon Kindle is ready to be shipped worldwide to all the countries where the normal Amazon Kindle was available. Newspaper subscriptions, magazines and books will benefit from this wider availability of this Ebook reader device.

Amazon Kindle DX Features

One of the largest displays: 9.7″ diagonal e-ink screen with 16 shades of gray for clear text and sharp images

Very Slim: It’s Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Download ooks In Under 1 Minute: Get books delivered wirelessly
3G Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle DX; same as the technology used by your mobile phone

Global Coverage: Enjoy 3G wireless  in over 100 countries. See details. Check wireless coverage map.

Carry Your Library: The device holds up to 3,500 books, newspapers, and documents

Long Battery Life: It lasts up to 1 week on a single charge with wireless on

Built-In PDF Reader: No more bad conversions, native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go

Auto-Rotating Screen: Display auto-rotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the device

Read-to-Me: Text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you,

Free Book Samples: Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy

Large Selection: Over 400,000 books, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs. For non-U.S. customers, content availability and pricing will vary. Check your country.

Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise. When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items. U.S. customers will be charged a fee of $1.99 for international downloads.

It looks very similar to Amazon’s Kindle white and with a full QWERTY keyboard, yet it lack Amazon’s and Sony’s ebook reader devices wireless capabilities. The I-river Story will begin shipping in the US later this month and to make it more competitive a wireless version of the I-story will be released some time later this year.

Story Features

* 0.36-inch thick reader

* 6-inch e-ink display

* integrated MP3 player

* 2GB of internal memory

* SD expansion slot

* USB 2.0 connectivity

* Battery lasts 9,000 page turns.

More details on pricing and accessories will come later this month.

Iriver I-story Photos

For those wanting to buy the Amazon Kindle in the US either as a present or for themselves, Amazon is offereing to deliver the ebook reader in two days for free. Just choose the two day shipping option when checking out and the shipping price will be discounted from the total amount

You can be on time for Christmas without having to pay for the express shipping extra cost.

Click Here to Redeem your Free Two Day shipping on Amazon Kindle

Stephen R. Covey author of many top selling books among which is “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “Principle-Cantered Leadership” which has sold more than 15 million worldwide, has signed an exclusive deal with the ebook retailer to only distribute his books through the Amazon Kindle Store.

A move that will set apart Kindle from its competitors and that may convince many readers to switch from traditional books to electronic books.

This much feared deal will see a change in the book publishing company where authors are searching for a bigger cut of the royalties of the book by skipping the traditional publishers, this will also set Amazon ahead of its fierce competitors Sony and Barnes & Noble.

While many people are still reticent about changing their reading habits and start using the ever so popular ebook readers, Amazon’s Kindle is gaining more and more popularity. User’s cite it’s light weight, small size, access to books library any time and anywhere, subscriptions to newspapers and magazines and the fact that it causes no strain in the eyes, but above all the possibility of buying books on the go through the Whispernet has convinced thousands of users this year to become Kindle addicts.

Acording to Amazon.com’s spoke person Cinthia Portugal :

“For every 100 books we sell in physical, we sell 48 Kindle books,”  ”This is up from 35 books for every 100 in May. Our customers tell us they read more with Kindle because they never have to worry about running out of books.”

This shows that though the entry to the book readers market wasn’t easy for the Amazon Kindle or for that matter for any ebook reader device, trends are changing and owning an Amazon Kindle is becoming a household need more than a gadget geek must have.

While Amazon Kindle is not yet  compatible with the open ePub eBook format which gives Sony Ebook readers access to the entire Google Ebook Publick library, this library is mainly composed of public domain classics such as Jules Verne, Jane Austin and Mark Twain’s books.

But the key here is that these are public domain books which are equally available for Amazon Kindle users through the Amazon store. The problem is that Amazon seems to make it hard for Kindle users to find these books.

Here is a list of the cheapest Ebooks you can find on Amazon:

• Public Domain Books
• Free Kindle Ebooks
• Kindle Ebooks up to $3
• Kindle Ebooks up to $4
• Kindle Ebooks up to $8
• Kindle Ebooks up to $14
• Kindle Ebooks Bestsellers

Still the fact that you can get books through Amazon’s Whispernet gives the Amazon Kindle the advantage over it’s inmediate competitors, such as :

• • Sony Digital Reader Touch Edition – Black (PRS600BC) $290
  • Sony PRS-505 Portable Digital e-Reader System (Silver) $266
  • Bookeen Cybook Opus – eBook reader 400 MHz – RAM: 32 MB 1 GB – monochrome 5 $250
  • Libre eBook Reader Pro. (Black) $177
  • Sony Digital Reader Pocket Edition – Silver (PRS300SC) $195

After the release of the Iphone application it was only natural that a version for personal computers would be released. even though reading books on the PC somehow clashes with the portability of the concept of ebook readers, being able to read your book while on a trip without having to bring all your gadgets with you justifies the release of this small program.

Once you install the program you will be prompted to log in to you Amazon account, which will retrieve any Kindle books you already own as well as your notes and bookmarks. Alternatively there is a button to shop for book in the Kindle Bookstore which will take you to the bookshop in your browser where you can buy any books that you can later read either here, in your Kindle device or in you Iphone application.

The only problems this application seems to have is the lack of possibility of writing notes, though you can read the ones written in other Kindle devices, and also there is no search widget. Both features are said to be released in future versions.

Alla in all this is a bid from Amazon to boost the sales of their Kindle books and ultimately to increase the popularity of it’s Kindle Ebook Reader device.

This is the list of countries where Amazon will be shipping the 6 inch screen version of Amazon Kindle, check the updated list in the official blog of Amazon Kindle here:

• Aland Islands
• Albania
• American Samoa
• Andorra
• Angola
• Anguilla
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Armenia
• Aruba
• Australia
• Austria
• Bahamas
• Barbados
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Belize
• Benin
• Bermuda
• Bhutan
• Bolivia
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Botswana
• Brazil
• Bulgaria
• Burundi
• Cambodia
• Cape Verde
• Cayman Islands
• Central African Republic
• Colombia
• Comoros
• Congo
• Cook Islands
• Costa Rica
• Cote d’Ivoire
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Denmark
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• El Salvador
• Equatorial Guinea
• Estonia
• Ethiopia
• Falkland Islands
• Faroe Islands
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Fiji
• Finland
• France
• French Guiana
• French Polynesia
• Gabon
• Georgia
• Germany
• Ghana
• Gibraltar
• Greece
• Greenland
• Grenada
• Guadeloupe
• Guam
• Guatemala
• Guernsey
• Guinea-Bissau
• Guyana
• Haiti
• Holy See
• Honduras
• Hong Kong
• Hungary
• Iceland
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Jamaica
• Japan
• Jersey
• Kenya
• Kiribati
• Lao People’s Democratic Republic
• Latvia
• Lesotho
• Liberia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Macao
• Macedonia
• Madagascar
• Malawi
• Malta
• Marshall Islands
• Martinique
• Mauritius
• Mayotte
• Mexico
• Moldova
• Monaco
• Mongolia
• Montenegro
• Montserrat
• Mozambique
• Myanmar
• Namibia
• Nauru
• Nepal
• Netherlands Antilles
• Netherlands
• New Caledonia
• Nicaragua
• Niue
• Norfolk Island
• Northern Mariana Islands
• Norway
• Palau
• Panama
• Papua New Guinea
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Philippines
• Poland
• Portugal
• Puerto Rico
• Reunion
• Romania
• Russia
• Rwanda
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Samoa
• San Marino
• Sao Tome and Principe
• Serbia
• Seychelles
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Solomon Islands
• South Africa
• Spain
• Sri Lanka
• Suriname
• Swaziland
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• Tanzania
• Timor-Leste
• Togo
• Tonga
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turks and Caicos Islands
• Tuvalu
• Uganda
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• Uruguay
• Vanuatu
• Venezuela
• Viet Nam
• Virgin Islands, British
• Virgin Islands, U.S.
• Wallis and Futuna
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

The list adds up to 169 countries so the list of countries that won’t benefit from Amazon Kindle is actually much shorter.

Out of the 169 countries about a 100 of them also will benefit from the wireless capabilities of the Amazon Kindle

Ebooks are gaining on popularity

When a book goes on sale in two formats, paper and digital, 48% of Amazon’s North American buyers opt for the digital version. “Kindle has grown very rapidly,” said Bezos.

With this release of Amazon Kindle to the international market , competing with other offers Kindle electronic book such as Sony Ebook Reader Touch Edition or iRex iLiad Ebook reader, will be at an international scale. China Mobile has also announced its intention to market various types of electronic book.

In the U.S., the Amazon Kindle costs $ 279, after Amazon cut its initial price of $ 359  spurred by competition. The Sony Ebook Reader Touch Edition costs $299.  The Kindle DX Ebook Reader which is the big screen version , for e-journals is only sold in the US and it costs $ 489.

The catalog of English books available for Kindle recently reached the 200,000 titles. According to Amazon, this catalog will be adapted in each country where they’ll sell Kindle.

Forrester estimates that this year Kindle sales will reach the three million mark of electronic books sold in the world, a figure higher than its initial forecasts of two million.

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