New Amazon Kindle Will Not Succeed with College Students

New Amazon Kindle Will Not Succeed with College Students
By: Chris Tsiropoulos

Today, Amazon has announced that they will hold a press conference at Pace University in New York on Wednesday, and the rumour mill suggests that Amazon will unveil a larger version of the Kindle to target college students. With the textbook market at about 8.6 billion dollars annually in the United States alone, Amazon sees a perfect opportunity to capture market share with their new device. However, as a college student, I am not convinced that this device will benefit me financially or physically from carrying all those books.

Let’s face it: the Amazon Kindle is ugly. Period. Although the latest Kindle 2 looks incrementally better than the original, it is definitely not a beautiful device that you want to show off to your friends, as say you would with the iPhone. Also, it seems as though most people who are buying Kindle’s are older people. Now, as college students, we tend to create our own popular trends as opposed to embracing technology meant for our parents.

Also, we must consider the price. According to Amazon.com, the latest Kindle 2 sells for 359$ USD, and with shipping and taxes it is fair to round this number up to 400$. With a bigger, textbook-reading Kindle, I think it is safe to say that it will cost more than 400$, although Amazon may subsidizes this price to give incentive to students to buy their product. However, I seriously cannot see students buying this product because of the astronomical price for a one dimensional product.

The only good thing about the Kindle is that is has a data connection, and this connection is built into the price of the Kindle. However, for 400$ it is not worth it for a student to buy this product. Doing a quick search on Apple.com, it costs 950$ for a new 13 inch white Macbook with the student discount, and during back to school season Apple throws in a new iPod Touch with every laptop purchase for students. If I were in the market for the Kindle, I would seriously consider buying a Macbook (950$), selling the iPod on eBay (roughly 200$), and factoring in the price for an Amazon Kindle ($400), I would be paying $350 more for a Macbook that is unquestionably not a one dimensional product like the Kindle is, and I can still read books from this computer.

Most college students already have a laptop computer and increasingly more students are buying trendy smartphones. These two devices are able to become e-readers with the proper software, and students already own these devices. Personally, I could not rationalize buying a Kindle, just to save money on textbooks. According to ZDNet, instead of buying a textbook for 100$ in the book store, Amazon will charge 35$ to buy it on the Kindle. The Kindle could pay itself off in one year of buying textbooks from it alone! This may be true, although Amazon has underestimated the usefulness of a physical textbook that students use.

Personally, my textbooks take a beating over the academic year. I like to highlight, write in the margins, and underline content in my textbooks to engage and understand the material. How do I highlight, write in, and underline content on the Kindle? Definitely can’t do that. Also, I can sell my books and get 30-50% of the money I spend on them back in my wallet. How do I resell an e-book? Definitely can’t do that. Also, there are some students out there (like our friend Dan Kalmar), who do not buy books at all and still get through their studies. Did Amazon take all of these factors into consideration?

Now I could be wrong about this new Kindle, but when I go to the library I know that it is normal to read from two sources: a laptop and books. I would not want to be “that guy” in the library that pulls out his thin, ugly, over-priced device to read from. I would rather pay the premium and buy the Macbook to read from, among other things. But how would I get my e-book? Apple should push iTunes as a textbook marketplace for students, where students could pay for and download e-books to their computer. Most students have a computer with iTunes already installed on it, so it would be much more realistic for a student like me to buy an e-book for $35 through iTunes versus buying a new Kindle at 400$ to spend $35 each time I download a book.

Update: The new Amazon Kindle DX will go on sale for $489. Madness!

Does anyone agree with me? Leave your opinion in the comments.