http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=imwan-20

WOW!

I think I'm finally on board. All depends on price. This thing is no thicker than a magazine! The $350 price tag is still too steep for me, and I'd love for the PDF and JGPG support to be better -- reading eBooks I already have or comics on it would be WIN -- but damn, the Kindle 2 looks sweet.

Damn that thing is pretty sweet.

I may take the plunge. I keep waiting for advantageous "bundle pricing." I want them to throw in a Kindle ebook for about $5 if I buy the printed book. I can't quite depart from owning printed books yet.

I do find their pricing on digital books to be a bit off-putting. They say $9.99 is a great price -- so much cheaper than the hardcover! -- yet it's still $3 or 4 more than the paperback and $2 or 3 more than the softcover, which is how I tend to buy. I do like having books. i like being surrounded by them. I love the entire aesthetic.

So price remains an obstacle. If you want to lure me away from books and into digital books, I need price to be a major factor. I would absolutely take the plunge at some point, but there needs to be a financial benefit to me. There is not yet such a benefit, and the system is a bit too closed for my liking.

But the tech is amazing, and everything about the unit itself is nothing short of sweet.

I'm excited about the 16 shades of grey, which means it would look pretty good with most manga and a large percentage of B&W comics.

Wonder how many years away we are from a color Kindle?

And yes, $9.99 is wayyyyy too much for an e-book. Try $0.99 - $1.99.

I'd consider up to $3.99 or so. Once you get above that, though, it's easy enough to get the real book cheaper.

Jay is right. Bundles are the way to go. Get the physical book and have the eBook thrown in for free, or at a steep discount. That's what's happening in music even as we speak. Buy an album on vinyl and in most cases you're get a code letting you download the mp3s for free.

If Amazon did something like that, it's be pretty swell.

Amazon does that with some DVD and Blu-Ray movies as well. You can download a digital copy from them immediately after you purchase the physical copy.

Get back to me when I can roll it up and stick it in my back-pocket.

My ass is big enough that I don't have to roll it up for it to fit in my back pocket.

Add some starch to your diet, you'll get there.

It won't be long. Flexible LCD screens are already a reality. Here's a cool one.

Many physical DVD and Blu-Ray purchases also come with a digital download on the media itself.

Yep, Dark Knight did. I got the Amazon one as soon as I clicked "buy", though, which is the only real appeal to me.

And the nice thing about the digital download that way is that it's one of the only ways to purchase and keep digital movies. Everywhere else, it's a rental. Stupidly.

This is the most interesting field of technology for me at the moment, but right now it's just not worth it yet, it's like buying a portable phone in the 1995, it'll get a lot cheaper and a lot better in just a few years.

I'm willing to wait.

Hell, assuming it could display color images in black and white, it might do okay with color comics, too.

I wonder how it's JPEG support is? If it's just a matter of unzipping CBRs into folders...

Here's a good article on the last Kindle. It's undocumented, but pretty good:

http://www.foosoft.net/mangle/

Almost makes me want to try throwing up a whole bunch of comics on Amazon CreateSpace, with Kindle versions.

I just learned that the Kindle 2 has "Read-To-Me" software. It reads any text to you.

This could be huge for me. If the voice is remotely tolerable, I may take the plunge.

The reason is that I pay about $15 a pop for audibooks at audible now, and I get frustrated when audible doesn't have one I want.

If the Kindle Read-to-me is tolerable, the $10 price justifies for the audio alone.

I often buy a book and the audiobook, and listen in the car to the book I am currently reading. That makes it perfect for me.

File under "shameless":

Once you have your Kindle 2 in hand, why not give my trilogy of novels a try?

"Alice"--As a young employee in a Toledo, Ohio law office, Pixie Conrad has become all too aware that her firm is engaged in some illegal activity. However, she is completely unaware that Alice Harding, her predecessor in her job, vanished without a trace nearly two years earlier--and that her employer is the prime suspect in Alice's disappearance.

Special Agent Mary Jean Watts, however, is fully aware of this. As part of the Alice Harding investigation, Mary Jean has Pixie's office under surveillance. But as Pixie finds herself in greater and greater danger, Mary Jean can only listen in helplessly as the Bureau builds its case against the law firm. Ultimately, both of these women will meet in an unexpected, unforgettable way.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001B14L3O/?tag=imwan-20

"PIXIE"--As a girl growing up in Ontario, Pixie Conrad once captured Canada's attention with her exploits on the hockey rink. However, as she approaches the age of forty, attention is the last thing she seeks. Ten years after cutting a deal with the F.B.I. in order to avoid prison, Pixie quietly lives under an assumed name in a trailer somewhere in Florida, her whereabouts unknown not only to the men against whom she testified, but to her own family as well.

With the prospect of another lonely holiday approaching, Pixie is already on edge when an ex-lover arrives in Florida with a warning: Trust nobody--and that includes the people she thought were protecting her.

For Nela, it's more than enough to cause a major identity crisis.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001B14L3O/?tag=imwan-20

"BLUE BIRD"--Nearly fourteen years after her involuntary exile from Canada, Pixie Conrad finally emerges from the Federal Witness Protection Program to return to her hometown of Leamington Ontario--in handcuffs. Mythologized in her absence by friends and family, Pixie is to finally stand trial on drug smuggling charges dating back to the 1980's. While she welcomes the opportunity for redemption, her enemies may see her reemergence as an opportunity for retribution.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001B9PFH2/?tag=imwan-20

Createspace has a long way to go before they're comic friendly. Their upload limit is 100mb unless you want to pay an extra several hundred dollars to have their design experts take over. THEN, you've got something like a 400mb limit. You would in essence be paying a boatload of extra money just to be able to upload a larger book like a graphic novel. I had to throw 100 Covers in there in three separate volumes. Bottom line, they are simply not that color comic friendly yet. As for the Kindle, bxw? guh. I'm sure it's fantastic for regular text but that's a hefty price tag for this 2.0. It seems that the first one worked just fine for text, didn't it? I expected the 2.0 to be a HD color experience for that price tag...

I find myself sorely tempted, but way too much for my blood. Like three times too much for my blood.

I think a $199 e-reader with a bigger screen will be a killer app. Maybe we're a year away.

I find myself getting more tempted by this.

I'll have to wait and see how the reviews go for the second version. Sounds like they've managed to improve most of the annoying aspects of the original, but we'll see when the thing gets in the hands of the rabid early adopters.