Comments on: Report: Rivals can exploit Kindle shortcomings

Amazon's Kindle will face increasing competition from cheaper and more versatile e-readers over the next few years, says a new Forrester report.

[Antemeridian]

Just a thought, but the reason that the Kindle lags in the rest of the world, is, well, the fact that it's unavailable in the rest of the world.

[Farthing Haypenny]

Well that, and it's a piece of excrement.

[rcautrey]

An LCD screen is not comfortable for reading for long periods of time. The netbooks and LCD eBook readers are alternatives for your laptop, but the eInk screens are alternatives to paper products. While the others may capture some market share, I think the market for eInk readers will still be strong among book fans.

[gregone]

An LCD screen is comfortable for reading, as comfortable as print, and guess what? You can read in the dark with an LCD screen , you can't with a Kindle. Why would you want to pay top dollar for a Kindle and have a limited crippled device from Amazon? The Touch Book by Always Innovating is about $90 cheaper and can actually run on a few operating systems of your own choice, not what Amazon decides. Oh and the Touch Book has tons more features. Jeff Bozo says not to wait for a color Kindle anytime soon, meanwhile others provide color devices that do more, are much better, cheaper and are more powerful devices, that leave the Kindle line dead in the water.

[chuckl8899]

No human who's ever used an e-ink e-reader would say that reading blinking pixels is as comfortable as reading paper or a magnetically charged electrophoretic display, which closely approximates the paper experience. The reason you can read an LCD in the dark is because it's backlit and backlighting does not make for a comfortable reading experience.

[kanakuk]

The ebook and the laptop will merge just like the cell phone and the laptop have merged. This is my prediction.

[flatrock19]

Amazon seems to think that having the Kindle use Sprint's wireless network is a big benefit. I think it limits them too much. I travel to Canada quite often. I go to places where Sprint's network doesn't work well. However, a day rarely goes by where I don't have access to wifi. Maybe Sprint's network works better for newspaper subscriptions, but newspaper articles are short enough to be viewed on a PC or laptop without the eye strain being a big issue. If I could set it up to download the newspaper before I leave the house or hotel room in the morning, it would also address that issue.

I imagine that Amazon pays Sprint a fee to activate the Kindle on their network, and for the data downloaded. That makes it harder for them to offer much free content, and makes it unlikely you'll be able to use your Kindle to access other sites other than Amazon's.

I want more flexibility than the Kindle offers. I also want to be able to buy books from multiple sources, not just Amazon. Usually when you buy hardware that is tied to a particular vendor, the hardware is sold pretty cheap, and they make their money off of the content. With the Kindle you pay a premium price for the hardware, and the price for the content is still pretty high as well.

The market obviously isn't very competitive yet.

[gregone]

Yup, the Kindle line of products are crippled compared to other more versatile & cheaper better solutions.

[Renegade Knight]

Heck if someone figures out a way to transfer a book from one reader to another (so you can give away or sell your used books) or via email/usb key/SD Card. That reader will start gaining some market share. It's the first one I'd look at.