Amazon Offers Even Cheaper Kindle

Barnes & Noble e-reader boasts touch screen, lighter weight, two-month battery

(NEWSER) - If you’re looking to do some e-reading on the beach this summer, Consumer Reports is advocating something other than the Kindle for the first time: Barnes & Noble’s Simple Touch Nook finally has beat Amazon's offering. Unlike the Kindle, the Nook has a touch screen; it’s also lighter weight, turns pages quicker, and has a battery that lasts two months. All this, notes the Christian Science Monitor , and the Nook’s price is competitive with the Kindle’s. More»

Google's already started down the path

(NEWSER) - Cover your eyes book purists, because pretty soon, there will be ads in your novels—at least if you’re using an e-reader. That’s the case a Houghton Mifflin editor and a business professor make in today’s Wall Street Journal , calling the move "inevitable." The flagging industry needs the money, they argue, and the only reason publishers aren't selling ads already is that "books are a lousy medium for ads.” More»

Sales soaring of the device iPad was to make obsolete

(NEWSER) - Looks like the advance obits for the Kindle, which was supposed to be killed off by the iPad, were a bit premature. The iPad is selling sensationally (3.3 million and counting), Daniel Lyons notes in Newsweek , but so is the Kindle (3.5 million this year). Why? Sure, slashing prices to $189 helped triple sales, but there's also the fact that the Kindle, if not as sexy as the iPad, is arguably better for reading books. Here's why:

• It weighs less than half as much as the iPad
• The Kindle screen is easier on the eyes and more visible outdoors, in sunlight.

Even with iPad competition, sales of devices rise

(NEWSER) - Amazon is selling more books as Kindle downloads than as hardcovers, CNET reports . In the past month, the website sold 180 Kindle books for each 100 hardbacks. CEO Jeff Bezos calls the shift "astonishing, when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months." More»

Pressure from iPad leads to $60 and $70 savings

(AP) - A price war is heating up in the electronic reader market, as Amazon cut the price of its Kindle e-reader below $200 today, just after Barnes & Noble did the same with its competing Nook device. The Kindle's price was slashed by $70 to $189, just a few hours after the Nook price tag shrank by $60 to $199. The popularity of the iPad, along with a number of other tablet computers soon to be available, are seen as pressuring e-reader makers to lower prices. More»