By The Business Insider Editors
Last week's post concerned the introduction of the Kindle DX, intended for the college textbook market. We've had a number of responses, including one from a publisher's sales manager who informed us that Pearson Education has jumped on the bandwagon with the Kindle. More on this next week.
Today, we are publishing the reply from "Mike," a 30+ year veteran of college textbook publishing, whom we briefly quoted last week. He read our post and made the following comments:
Interesting that you have a Kindle; so does the bright sunlight of a Jamaica beach totally wash out the screen display like it would do on a laptop or video camera LCD view screen?
I like gadgets as much as anyone, but I still think they have this new Kindle wrong –- at least for now.
First of all, it appears the displays of the Kindles are monochrome. Give me a break; it’s a color world, color displays are ubiquitous, and intro textbooks are all in color. $500 for a super-size-me Kindle is a game-breaker price. Jeeze, one can now buy a netbook mini laptop at Costco for $350-$400 where one can read a digital textbook in color AND still do all kinds of research and goof-off things on the internet. The netbook gives more bang for buck than a Kindle. If I was a student today, that’s what I would bring to school -– not a larger, pricey laptop, nor a Kindle.
I agree, students like gadgets, too – but gadgets that fit in their pockets like iPods and cell phones, and not clunky and apparently fragile-looking things (without a cover?) like large Kindles. From what I observed, most students don’t lug ANY textbooks around unless they plan to study one of them while on campus on a particular day. With a netbook (or even a Kindle) they could bring all their books in a lighter-weight pkg, so that would be good.
For the Kindle to be truly viable as a textbook delivery system, it has to: cost much less, be in color, be more than a reading machine (i.e. be a flat “laptop” with capabilities to at least use a built-in browser on the internet and for email (oh, then don’t forget to add a usable QWERTY keyboard).
It I had a chance to develop an e-textbook this is what it would be/do:
- be in color
- have oodles of hyperlinks to flash videos, etc. to bring the graphs, illustrations and people to life
- have built-in pop quizzes to mention a few. Basically, the e-book would incorporate the book’s “student website” material along with the text.
In other words, be just like a website with all the bells and whistles such as any of the big media company websites have (WSJ, CNN, yada, yada.)
If and when the Kindle can do all this at an affordable price, then I will be “impressed.”
Comments, readers? Do you agree with Mike? Oh, to answer his question about reading on the beach: No, the screen is perfectly viewable because it's not an LCD, but a new technology from E-Ink.
Until next week,
The Business Insider Editors
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