Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Tech Data CEO: Smartphone Support Is Next Big Thing
As the CEO of Tech Data , Bob Dutkowsky sits at the
center of all things technology, from consumer electronics to enterprise data
centers and everything in between. Following the distributor's third-quarter
earnings report Monday, Dutkowsky spoke to CRN's Scott Campbell and answered
questions around HP (NYSE:HPQ)'s PSG group, and channel opportunities for
Ultrabooks, smartphones and more. The following are excerpts from the
conversation.
Everybody is concerned about global debt and the
European economy, but your European sales were up 10 percent year-over-year,
compared to a 3-percent increase in the Americas. Why did Europe perform
better?
Well, that 10 percent is net of currency. On a
constant-currency basis, it's up 6 percent. But we did have some acquisitions.
We bought Triad in October of last year, so there's a bit of that [in the
year-over-year comparisons]. The other piece of it is we're very selective in
the revenue we go after. We may have chosen to go after a little more of the
market more aggressively in Europe than the Americas. For us, revenue is one
leg of the three-legged stool. We're very interested in market share, but we're
also very interested in profitability of the business and we're very interested
in return on invested capital, things like payment terms, inventory that we buy
to get benefits from vendors to get the return we want. We sell $100 million
worth of goods a day and our average order is under $1,000. We're looking at
all three things on every deal we do.
So every opportunity is different. For example, we
may have a big direct marketer that wants us to bid on $100 million worth of
printers. That might be very attractive to a revenue point of view but the
payment terms they want might not be interesting to us. The top line looks like
better to a competitor so they win the deal.
On the conference call with analysts, you mention
that you don't think there will be any disruption going forward surrounding
HP's Personal Systems Group, a sale of which is now off the table. But looking
back, was there any disruption during the period where its future was up in the
air?
It was an unsettled month and a half when Leo
[Apotheker, ex-HP CEO] said they would sell it and then Meg [Whitman, HP CEO]
said they weren't going to sell. I'm going to say it was weeks or something
like that. During that time, HP worked very closely with us to stayed focus on
the selling opportunity in the market.
During that time, I'm sure other vendors were after
you to help them grab share from HP. How do you balance what those vendors want
with what you're doing with HP, which is your biggest vendor?
In reality, it's what the reseller wants. If a
reseller is committed to HP, it doesn't matter what other vendors bring to the
table. People are trained on HP, they're positioning HP in the market. This
answer just doesn't fit HP but all the vendors we serve. If the reseller is
committed to Apple, it doesn't matter what other PC vendors bring to table. If
they're committed to HP, it doesn't matter what other PC vendors bring to the
table. The relationship between reseller, Tech Data and vendor is more complex
than just one product. They sell multiple products, with multiple incentives
based on total revenue. When one product division does something, it won't
necessarily impact what others do.
During that time there were lots of resellers that
came us and said, 'What do you think this means?' Obviously HP was in constant
communication with us to make sure we had the facts, and what they really
thinking of. They wanted us articulating the facts, not innuendo. I met with Todd
Bradley right in the middle of that six-week period. He asked us to communicate
to every reseller could find. That's the basis of a partnership. We're together
through thick and thin.
You said on the analyst call that you expect
product constraints around hard drives due to the flooding in Thailand, but
it's too early to say how much. Do you think the constraints could give a boost
to other storage technologies such as solid state drives?
It's really hard to tell what the impact is going
to be. Most vendors think there is an early-next year resolution to whatever
challenges they're faced with. I don't think the challenge will make customers
make a dramatic shift away from hard drives. But I do think customers who buy
notebooks might instead look to buy a tablet instead. The other thing from
vendors is that I think they'll put a limited number of drives into more
fully-configured boxes. So rather than stick a valuable drive into a low-level
laptop, they'll put it into a machine with more memory or a bigger screen.
Because of that, I think [average selling prices] have the potential of moving
up just a little bit. Anytime a product gets into allocation, we may see an
opportunity to make a little more money from those products.
Also, companies that are able to make the biggest
buys and cover the most terrirory are the ones to get the most allocation.
We'll get our fair share. If there's product to be had, I'm confident we'll
have it.
We're starting to hear a lot from vendors around
the Ultrabooks that are due next year. Do you think they will be the game
changers that the manufacturers say they will be?
One of the beauties of new technology is we don't
have to make that market, the vendor has to make that market. They have to
convince [customers] that the Ultrabook is the next great thing. They will come
to us with incentive dollars, but to be frank they haven't come to us yet.
We're selling stuff on the shelves. We're still selling notebooks, we still
have some Netbooks and the tablet form factor is obviously hot right now, along
with smartphones.
Speaking of mobile solutions, can you update us on
TDMobility, your new initiative to get VARs more involved with phones and
carriers?
TDMobility is launched. That was a combination of
Tech Data , Bright Star and the organization we bought together, OTBT, which
has a VAR activation offering. TDMobility is in limited launch. We haven't
opened it up to all VARs yet because we want to make sure the processes work
because potentially there's a lot of volume to be thrown at it. VARs are out
there selling laptops and systems but their customer doesn't draw the line
between laptop and smartphone. They do e-mail on both of them. The reality is
the VAR didn't sell them the smartphone and doesn't get paid to support it. But
to the [end user's] mind, it's e-mail and the VAR's responsibility is e-mail.
The problem is the VARs don't get into it because
the phones are subsidized by the carriers. A phone costs $600 but you can get
it for $99. With VARs, the more cell phones they sold, the more cash flow
problems they had. That's what TDMobility does. That's what ActivateIT
does…Thirty days later Tech Data pays the VAR the rebate and the VAR gets the
cash flow. It's a unique offering in the channel.
All the carriers have wanted to get to VARs, but
they can't figure out how to. They already know how to get to consumers and to
big business. TDMobility solves that problem.
These numbers may be off a bit, but Intel said for
every [600] cell phones sold, the world needs another server. For every [122]
tablets, the world needs another server. Someone needs to manage that data.
Eighty percent of the world's data is created on mobile devices.
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Google Slashes Price Of Cloud Chromebooks
Google has cut the
price of its Google Chrome books line of cloud notebooks, the search giant
revealed this week.
The holiday price reduction comes as Google also tweaked the
Chromebooks interface.
"[W]e're excited to share that beginning this week Acer
and Samsung Chromebooks will be available starting at $299. The updated prices
will be available through our online retail partners," Google Senior
Product Manager Venkat Rapaka wrote in a blog post about the Chromebook price
drop.
The price cut shaves about $130 off of Samsung's average
Chromebook price, and about $50 off of Acer's.
Google first unveiled Chromebooks at its Google I/O
conference. Chromebooks are billed as cloud-in-a-box notebooks that access apps
through a Web portal. The devices, viewed as laptop hybrids, run Google's
Chrome OS and Chrome browser over Wi-Fi and 3G for users to access Google Apps
and other business applications via the Web. So far, Chromebooks have had an
uphill climb in the tablet-dominated computing landscape.
Google channel partners are also still awaiting the green
light to start selling Google Chromebooks. Google has said that Chromebooks
could reach the channel by the end of the year. In the meantime, some cloud
solution providers have been launching services around Chromebooks.
Along with cutting the Chromebook price, Google this week
also updated the Chromebook interface, giving the operating system a facelift.
Some new features include a new login screen; a revamped New Tab page that
Google said makes it easier to manage apps, bookmarks and most visited sites;
and Google has added new shortcuts to the New Tab page including shortcuts to
the File Manager on the Chromebook and to music apps and games in the Chrome
Web Store. Google also retooled the Chrome Web Store to let users scan images
to find apps and extensions.
Google also revealed that Samsung will launch a new black
version of its Wi-Fi only Chromebook Series 5 in the U.S. for the holidays.
Google Chromebooks from Samsung and Acer went on sale in
June. The cloud-focused notebooks come equipped with Google's Chrome OS and
look to be a lower-cost cloud alternative to the Windows PC stranglehold.
Google also launched a subscription service for Chromebooks through which
businesses can rent them on a three-year refresh cycle with support, warranty
and Web-based management included for a roughly $30 monthly fee per unit.
Google has already teamed up with Citrix and VMware for some
enterprise applications to work on Google Chromebooks. And in August, Google
updated Chrome OS to add support for VPN, secure Wi-Fi (802.1x) and access to
virtualized applications through Citrix Receiver, enhancements that could make
Chromebooks more attractive to enterprises.
Red Hat Offers Preview Of Virtualization App
Red Hat is offering partners and customers the chance to
download a beta version of its upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0
release, the next generation of the open-source software vendor's
virtualization system.
While Red Hat has been previewing the beta software to a
limited number of partners since August, this marks the first time the company
has offered a preview to the general public.
Red Hat is pitching the 3.0 release as a lower cost
alternative for Linux and Windows systems. It's built on the Kernal-based
Virtual Machine, the open-source virtualization software managed by the Apache
Software Foundation.
The new software can now be run as a Java application on Red
Hat's JBoss Enterprise Application Platform on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the
vendor said.
The 3.0 release offers a range of new management features,
as well as scalability and performance enhancements. The system, for example,
now has multilevel administrative capabilities for role-based access control
and hierarchical management. A new reporting engine helps managers analyze
usage trends and utilization reports. And a new portal lets users provision
virtual machines and administer their own environments.
Red Hat also has updated the software's hypervisor to
improve its host scalability, now supporting up to 160 cores and 2Tbyes of
memory on a host system. And on the guest side 3.0 can now support up to 64
virtual CPUs per guest and 512 Gbytes of memory.
Red Hat's decision to move the KVM networking stack from
userspace into the Linux kernel "greatly improves performance and reduces
latency," according to the company. The hypervisor is more secure through
the use of SELinux-based sVirt infrastructure. And developers and solution
providers can take advantage of a new RESTful API to improve Red Hat Enterprise
Virtualization 3.0's configuration and management capabilities.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Tiny USB Stick Brings Android to PCs, TVs
The Cotton Candy USB computing device by FXI Technologies is a tiny, pocket-sized computer.
Google has made no secret about its plans for Android. Smartphones and tablets are just the beginning — the company wants Android everywhere. And thanks to FXI Technologies’ Cotton Candy USB device, we may not have to wait long to see Android on more than just our mobile devices.
FXI essentially built an ultra-lean computer inside a small USB stick. Stick it into any device that supports USB storage, and Cotton Candy will register as a USB drive. From there, you can run the Android OS in a secure environment inside your desktop, courtesy of a Windows/OSX/Linux-compatible virtualization client embedded in the device.
Stick Cotton Candy into a computer, and Android will appear in a virtualized window on your desktop. But get this: The USB key also features an HDMI connector. This way, you can connect the stick to your TV and use Android on the big screen (though you’ll need some kind of secondary input device, like a Bluetooth mouse/keyboard combo, to get anything done.)
Cotton Candy is far more than just Android on a stick. Under its Hot Wheels-sized hood, the device sports a 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A9-based processor (the same basic processor architecture you’ll find in the fastest chips from Apple and Nvidia), as well as ARM’s quad-core Mali GPU and 1GB of RAM. It’s an impressive laundry list of specs, and seems more than capable of fueling Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread, the version of the OS that comes on the device.
From TVs to car stereo head units to refrigerators and lighting fixtures, it seems no piece of consumer electronics is out of Android’s reach. And, ultimately, getting Android on as many devices as possible gets Google’s search bar and services onto multitudinous screens beyond the desktop environment. This potentially means more ads served, and more revenue for the search company’s core business.
Android has already appeared is a small number of refrigerators, TVs and automobiles, and if widely adopted in the greater gadgetsphere, app-makers could make better, appliance-specific Android apps.
For now, the Cotton Candy USB stick is a stopgap item — a small taste of what Android can be before it bursts outside its mobile boundaries. Unfortunately, since it’s not a proper Android device per se — i.e., it doesn’t comply with enough of Google’s requirements to be considered “official” — you’ll be unable to access the Android Market from the device. Sideloading is still an option, though, so you won’t be left completely app-less.
Expect Cotton Candy to pop up for less than $200 around mid-2012.
Lenovo Thinks Thin
Maybe it’s a cliché that big things come in small packages, but with its IdeaPad U300s, Lenovo proves there’s truth in them there words.
The latest entry into the increasingly crowded ultrabook market, Lenovo takes the high (end) road, offering a well-thought-out feature set while keeping costs — if not exactly cheap — at a reasonable level.
Fully loaded, the high-end version of the U300s largely mimics the high-end version of the MacBook Air, with a 1.7GHz Core i7 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a blazing-fast 256GB SSD hard drive. Even the port selection is a close approximation of the Air, with two USB ports (one USB 3.0), an HDMI port, and a headphone/microphone combo jack. No Ethernet, and no SD card slot.
The U300s’s keyboard [is] one of the best-designed and most thoughtfully laid-out ultrabook keyboards I’ve encountered from this recent bumper crop.
As expected, the U300s is a stunning performer. While the Sony Vaio Z Series has more power, it’s only 10 percent faster … and $1,000 more expensive. Gaming, of course, isn’t the U300s’s strong suit, and battery life is a touch on the weak side for the category, barely hitting four hours.
The look of the U300s is a bit different than most ultrabooks. It’s actually quite eye-catching, taking its design cue from a hardcover book, complete with “covers” that slightly overhang the rest of the unit, both on the top and bottom. It’s a cute design idea but it’s also surprisingly functional, making it really easy to open the LCD one-handed. Like the Air, the all-metal design also adds to the unit’s sturdiness, but Lenovo still manages to keep overall weight at just 2.9 pounds, a shade under the Air.
Adding to the plus column is the U300s’s keyboard, one of the best-designed and most thoughtfully laid-out ultrabook keyboards I’ve encountered from this recent bumper crop. Key travel is solid and even the arrow keys, normally useless on these machines, are well placed, full sized, and easy to reach. The only issue: No backlighting.
Only two problems earned this machine its demerits. First is the display, which is by far the dimmest ultrabook LCD I’ve encountered, and one of the dimmest screens altogether I’ve seen in years. It’s not so dark as to be unreadable, but it’s a big disappointment on an otherwise stellar unit.
Problem number two involves the clickpad. While it’s spacious to the point of near-enormity, tracking is skittish, gestures are erratic, and, more importantly, clicks are frequently missed. Lenovo has had problems with buttonless clickpads since it started experimenting with them at the beginning of the year. The quirkiness on the U300s has me wondering if it’s time to hang it up and just go back to, you know, actual buttons.
All of this clocks in at $1,500, which is a $100 price cut in comparison to the highest-end MacBook Air, with which it shares a lot of DNA. For the record, that’s probably still more than most people want to pay, but if you’re not interested in the MacOS and want a metal-chassis design, this good-looking Lenovo is a really compelling machine.
WIRED Solid construction, solid performance, solid feature set. Keyboard is as good as it gets on an ultrabook. OneKey rescue button to restore/rebuild the laptop is a neat idea — but do we really need a standalone, physical button on the side for this? It’s the only ultrabook available in beautiful orange today.
TIRED What’s up with the backlighting? Minimal port selection, with USB ports on opposite sides of the machine. Weak clickpad.
USB Stick Contains Dual-Core Computer, Turns Any Screen Into an Android Station
Is that a USB key in your pocket or a dual-core computer? Today, Norwegian company FXI technologies showed off a USB stick-sized portable computer prototype, complete with a dual-core 1.2-GHz Samsung Exynos ARM CPU (same as in the Galaxy S II), 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI-out and a microSD card slot for memory. Codenamed Cotton Candy because its 21 gram weight is the same as a bag of the confection, the tiny PC enables what its inventor calls “Any Screen Computing,” the ability to turn any TV, laptop, phone, tablet, or set-top box into a dumb terminal for its Android operating system.
The Cotton Candy has a USB 2.0 connector on one end and an HDMI jack on the other. When connected to an HDTV, it uses the HDMI port for video, the USB for power, and Bluetooth to connect to a keyboard, mouse, or tablet for controlling the operating system. The device can output up to 1080p so even a full HD screen can display the Candy’s preloaded Android 2.3 operating system at its native resolution. The dual core CPU is powerful enough to play local 1080p video or stream HD clips from the Web. Learn more and see our hands on video below.
When you plug the Cotton Candy into a Mac or PC, the Windows or OS X operating system recognizes it as a USB drive. You can then launch the software and run the Cotton Candy’s Android environment in a secure window while you use your desktop OS outside the window. You can even transfer files between your notebook’s native OS and the Cotton Candy’s Android environment by dragging them off or on the USB stick’s memory.
We watched as FXI CEO Borgar Ljosland popped the Cotton Candy into his MacBook Pro and, within seconds, had the device’s Android OS running in a full screen window and, though we didn’t get to play with the device ourselves, we were impressed with how quickly it started up. Borgar told us that Android developers can use this environment to test out their apps while they work on code in another window.
HDTVs, monitors, and computers are just the tip of the iceberg for the Cotton Candy. Borgar told us the device will be able to connect to tablets, smartphones, and even set top boxes via USB or Bluetooth. He says that he expects the device to be able to turn even an iPhone or an iPad into a terminal for its environment. Imagine an iPhone running Android!
Because the Cotton Candy is a full-fledged computer, it should be able to plug into a USB hub and connect directly to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to launch its OS. Offices or schools could set up docking terminals to support users who carry it in their pockets.
Cotton Candy’s purpose is to provide a computing experience that users can carry with them and replicate anywhere they go. Imagine walking into an Internet cafe or a business center, popping your Cotton Candy into a USB port, and having your own operating system and applications take over the device.
Though the current prototype runs Android 2.3, Borgar told us that the ARM-based hardware can run Ubuntu Linux currently and future versions should be able to run the ARM version of Windows 8. Future versions of the device will have a USB 3 connector and faster processors.
From developers to students to mobile workers, there are a number of groups that could find innovative ways to use a computer the size of a USB stick. However, you won’t see a consumer product shipping anytime soon from FXI. The company plans to sell the Cotton Candy to developers and let OEMs license the technology and turn it into something that can appeal to a wide audience.
Borgar does not expect these future “any screen” products to replace your primary PC or smartphone, but says they could become popular secondary devices. With Ubuntu installed, the Cotton Candy can even be turned into a mobile file or web server!
FXI hasn’t set pricing yet for the Cotton Candy, but expects it to cost considerably less than $200 per unit. That’s not bad for a full-fledged computing device the size of a cigarette lighter.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Ultrabooks for Everyone: Toshiba Joins the Fray
Nothing gets the gadget fiend excited as much as the phrase, “A Best Buy Exclusive.”
Expectations could not have been lower for this machine, seeing as it’s headed into that electronic dumping ground: Holiday season at big box retailers.
Sure enough, Toshiba’s Portege Z835 looks at first blush like just another knock-off of the MacBook Air, stripped down, all plastic, and price-slashed to bring it down to a super-cheap $900, exactly in line with the new Acer Aspire S3. And yet the Portege offers some very compelling upgrades to the package.
To start with, although it is configured with just a 1.4GHz Core i3 CPU and 4GB of RAM, it’s significantly faster than the Acer — about 30 percent faster on general apps — and roughly on par with the Aspire as a gaming machine. Why then is it so speedy compared to the i5-powered Aspire? Probably due to the 128GB SSD drive, a feature you rarely see on machines this inexpensive.
Connectivity is also better than usual. You get both VGA and HDMI output, three USB ports instead of the usual two (one is USB 3.0 and one is chargeable), plus Ethernet, separate headphone and microphone jacks, and an SD card reader. The 13.3-inch screen (1366×768 pixels) is also substantially brighter than both the Aspire and the Sony Z Series ultrabook.
The kicker, though, is this: At 2.4 pounds this is the lightest ultrabook we’ve seen to date, lighter even than the 2.5-pound ultra-luxe Sony Z Series… which is nearly triple the price.
So far it sounds like a miracle machine, so what’s not to love? The keyboard isn’t too pretty, with nearly-no-travel keys and uneven backlighting that comes off looking cheap. The trackpad is nice, but the buttons are tiny and hard to press, as they’re both stiff and slightly recessed into the chassis, making them difficult to reach. My biggest complaint, though, has to be against the Z835’s lack of stability. I had far more than my fair share of inexplicable problems simply installing apps and more getting them to run successfully. While all the crashes were eventually recoverable, I found I wasted a lot of time troubleshooting issues I really shouldn’t have had to deal with at all.
Aside from the keyboard, the Z835 looks good — and professional — and feels impossibly lightweight. If the crash issues can be remedied (driver updates, perhaps?), Toshiba’s got a surprisingly near-perfect and world-class ultrabook on its hands.
WIRED Gorgeous display, great performance, ultra-cheap price, and dazzlingly light weight. More port options than most ultrabooks. Sleek and sophisticated looks despite the plastic construction. Above-average battery life at over 5 hours.
TIRED More crashes than you can shake a MacBook Air at. Screen flexes ominously. Weak keyboard with ugly backlighting. Ports (almost all in the rear) are difficult to reach.
The Kindle Touch Feels Good
The text-based e-reader isn’t ready for the dustbin of history quite yet.
The Amazon Kindle was supposed to be slaughtered by the advent of the multi-use touchscreen tablet. And next to today’s shiny glass slates, the original Kindle, now four years old, looks as antiquated as, oh, the first iPod.
But like the iPod, the Kindle sparked a revolution, feeding a hunger few of us knew we had. As such, it has remained miraculously resilient and amazingly relevant.
Kindle Touch
Wi-Fi-only with ads, $100
Wi-Fi-only, no ads, $140
Wi-Fi/3G with ads, $150
Wi-Fi/3G, no ads, $190
Wi-Fi-only with ads, $100
Wi-Fi-only, no ads, $140
Wi-Fi/3G with ads, $150
Wi-Fi/3G, no ads, $190
The new Amazon Kindle Touch resembles the original Kindle in function only. It now has a touchscreen. Gone, finally, is the keyboard, which seemed out out of place even on the first model (though in the pre-tablet era, it presciently provided the owner with a way to make a brief pit stop, dashing off a mail or checking out a link). Gone as well are the page-turning buttons as users, even infants, assume and insist the screen be the sole interface.
The Kindle is the last of the three major e-readers to switch to touchscreens. Kobo was first, followed by the Barnes & Noble Nook. But this is not a space where being first matters. It’s the other stuff — the subtle enhancements that solve little problems, and the impressive ecosystem of content you use to fill it — that elevates a device.
These are the things that create a critical mass, and these are the reasons why you should consider an Amazon Touch instead of a touchscreen Nook or a touchscreen Kobo.
Let’s start with the biggest of the little things: the lack of page-turning buttons. Kobo eschews them, and uses each edge of the “page” to go forward or back. But two hands, really, are required for this. Nook uses two configurable buttons on the each edge of frame, so that you can also advance and retreat one-handed. But … isn’t this about being a touch device?
The Kindle Touch re-maps the e-ink page so that touching a thin, one-inch strip of the screen on the extreme left serves up the previous page. Touching any part of the rest of the screen, from the edge of that first inch all the way over to the right edge of the screen, goes to the next page. If you’re holding the Kindle with your left hand, it’s an easy stretch of the thumb.
Yes, we all switch hands, and going back a page while holding it right-handed becomes more complicated. But we go forward a page much more often than we go back a page, so going right-handed as your “resting” mode means this is a giant leap forward. And it’s not hard to imagine a next small step: a software upgrade making left/right implementation an on-the-fly user option.
There’s a thin strip at the very top of the screen which brings up a pop-up menu. Within that menu is another differentiating feature: Amazon’s X-ray service.
When you load up a book (some books, not all), additional data about proper-noun-type references like people, places and events, are loaded as well. All this data is held invisibly in the background inside a small, pre-loaded file. You can call up that info at any time while reading by touching the screen. So, if you’re reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs and you want to know more about Joanne Simpson, just tap on her name. Within a click or two are a comprehensive bio and a list of the other places in the book where she is mentioned. Amazon culls this data from Wikipedia and Shelfari, and since it’s pre-loaded, you don’t need an internet connection to access the goods.
This is a godsend when you have put a book down for a while and forget who the players are — even if the book includes a section for cast of characters, pop-up trumps look-up every time.
Amazon’s integration with Overdrive, the clearinghouse libraries use to lend digital books, is much more straightforward than the competition’s lending services. And, Amazon has its own lending program you gain access to with your $79-per-year Amazon Prime membership.
A regular digital copy of Michael Lewis’ The Big Short sells for $7.17, but Amazon Prime members can read it for free, and it says so right on the book’s product page. Notes and highlights you make in borrowed books stay there — you’ll see them again if you re-borrow later.
The offerings are limited, but this represents a significant breakthrough with publishers, who Amazon famously battled over $10 best-sellers and lost. Though if I ran a lending library, I’d be asking some questions about this.
And there is still Whispernet, the free, always-on connection to Amazon.com that syncs all your Kindles and Kindle apps. If you’re willing to spend $150 on the 3G version of the Kindle Touch, it really is always-on. You can sync and purchase where Wi-Fi isn’t available.
I was wary about the imposition of advertisements (even the least intrusive ads on a smartphone app seem overbearing to me) but Amazon seems to have corralled the sponsored content just right. I tested the version of the Kindle Touch that displays ads. The offers are tame and relevant, with $1 books and Amazon’s branded credit card offers among them. Your screensaver is an ad, but touching the screen doesn’t wake the Kindle up or take you to the offer, which would be unfriendly if you touched it by accident. Within the Kindle, ads appear only at the bottom of index pages — never in a book — and rather than try to create some bad version of a black and white page to detail the offer, additional details are sent to you in an e-mail if you request more info.
All in all, I never felt compromised, and given that you save $40 on the purchase price, and that you will likely take advantage of some of these offers, Amazon has begun to gently condition us to appreciate the inevitability of ads in walled-in digital media as we have always accepted them on similarly-immersive television (Kobo took the hint this week, announcing a new Kobo Touch with Offers priced at $100, the same as Kindle’s lowest-priced touch device).
Oh, and did I mention the single “home” button, and one power button? Very Apple-esque. But rather than insist that the cloud be the only onramp, Amazon has allowed for the sideloading of content (audio and documents) over USB.1
Far from hanging on for dear life, text e-readers are undergoing a renaissance. There’s still plenty to improve, like the price (The $80 non-touch Kindle is almost, though not quite, cheap enough to make e-readers a basic, birth-right necessity). But there’s enough here for e-readers to demand a seat at the table in a world dominated by smartphones and tablets.
WIRED Emphasis on reading and instant gratification in a comfortable package that actually improves on the e-ink touchscreen metaphor. Ads are not intrusive. It’s soothing to see page numbers that match up with the print world.
TIRED Though you can see community notes and tweet your progress while reading, the social layer is not as broad as the ones baked into the Nook and Kobo Touch.2
Note 1. The original version of this article misstated the device’s capabilities for sideloading media. Users can load text documents and audio files onto the Kindle Touch using the USB port.
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