Hardware frequently sells at a loss. More news at 11.

Think of how much more expensive it would be to make if they weren't using child labor to get the metals and such in places like Afghanistan and Africa!

How much do the books cost?

Plus they sell ads on the $79 version.

IgG4: Plus they sell ads on the $79 version.

THIS. The ads are making them way more money than the hardware.

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Amazon takes 30% of everything you buy from them.

If you have a spare 22 large or so kicking around, buy yourself 100 shares of Amazon and put them in your safety deposit box for a minimum of 5 years.

You won't be sorry.

enry: RodneyToady: Hardware frequently sells at a loss. More news at 11.

I hear cell phones don't actually cost $199 either.

/pondering upgrading from my 2g kindle to a Touch.

Have you seen the Fire?

enry: Marcus Aurelius: enry: RodneyToady: Hardware frequently sells at a loss. More news at 11.

I hear cell phones don't actually cost $199 either.

/pondering upgrading from my 2g kindle to a Touch.

Have you seen the Fire?

Yes. It's not e-ink.

Neither is the Apple touch? I'm confused.

/been a long day

Ron Mexico's Revenge: Benevolent Misanthrope: THIS. The ads are making them way more money than the hardware.

More than -$5.00?

Say it isn't so!

Sighhhh. Blame it on the fact that I haven't had a drink in months.

czetie: When the Mach3 first came out, Gillette sent me a free razor. Based on my detailed analysis and breakdown of the component parts plus my intimate knowledge of manufacturing processes and supply chains, I can state with confidence that this razor cost more than nothing to make.

They sent me one for my 18th birthday. I've been using them ever since. I wonder if they still do that?

They make up for it on volume.

enry: Marcus Aurelius: enry: Marcus Aurelius: enry: RodneyToady: Hardware frequently sells at a loss. More news at 11.

I hear cell phones don't actually cost $199 either.

/pondering upgrading from my 2g kindle to a Touch.

Have you seen the Fire?

Yes. It's not e-ink.

Neither is the Apple touch? I'm confused.

/been a long day

Nah, Kindle Touch. Smaller than the current version Kindle, still e-ink, 3g and wifi connectivity.

Wow. I have 3 Kindles in my orbit and a Fire on order. I missed the touch completely.

I might have to get one on general principles.

bdub77: They make up for it on volume.

30% of $40 billion is $12 billion net.

That covers a lot of Kindles, if you know what I mean.

bdub77: They make up for it on volume.

I forgot the link.

The Kindle Fire will be selling at a loss also if the calculations are correct.

I'd buy one but I already have a Kindle Wifi 3G and a Kobo and many of the best features of the Fire will be unavailable in Canada. The Fire is a color tablet rather than a e-reader, which is why it does not use e-ink or e-paper. It is meant for the user who wants color text (magazines) and the web more than books and is a bridge between larger tablets and e-readers. The power consumption is thus much higher. My Kindle has a beta browser which is very slow and power-consuming. Good enough for an emergency glance at the web to see if I already have a DVD or a book.

Kindle books are usually about $9.99, cheaper than the hard cover, more expensive than the paperback perhaps, but with innumerable exceptions.

You can get plenty of good books for less or slightly more and lots of freebies if you like classics. I recommend either buying the classic for 99 cents (the editing is worth it) or getting it from a site that has volunteer editors. Many of the "freebies" are just scans and whole pages can be garbled, especially if the book scanned is in a typeface the scanner has trouble handling. This is true of many old books, for example those which use two forms of "s" as in "f" and "s" or joined letters for combinations like "sh" and "ch".

One tip: you can make your own Best of the Web bookmark guides using HTML webpage links. If you can't be bothered, you can buy applications such as this for 99 cents or more. This can save you 99 cents if you have a HTML bookmark page (exportable from Internet Explorer, for example).

If Amazon was smart they would offer Kindle for free or for a ridiculously low cost. They will make up for it on the back end by selling e-books.

Or better yet, sell Kindle for $40 and it includes three free downloads.

Once they get as many of the devices as they can into the consumer's hand, they will sell tons of e-books.

DigitalCoffee: It's amazing, but not really surprising, that most of the e-books that I'd be interested in cost $9.99 each. This is usually more then if I went into a bookstore and bought a new physical copy. Toss in the fact that the Kindle memory is non-expandable and you don't get all the memory to use, even the soon to be launched Kindle Fire only has 8 GB memory with 6 GB useable. At least with a Nook you could pop in a 32GB memory card for more storage for about $50. And with an unofficial 'OS patch' the Nook Color can be convinced to play NetFlix (or so I've heard).

/don't own either but I have been looking recently

Kindle Fire is getting the official Netflix app, too: http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2011/11/amazon-kindle-fire-will-have-a- n etflix-app-.html (new window)

Marcus Aurelius: Amazon takes 30% of everything you buy from them.

No, they don't

I just got the joystick Kindle. I don't like the idea of a touch screen reader. I like touch screens but I look at my keyboard and think do I want to read through that kind of spooge?

Expandable memory would have been nice.

First download was project gutenberg's adventures of sherlock holmes. hee hee hee. free.

Cajnik: Marcus Aurelius: Amazon takes 30% of everything you buy from them.

No, they don't

Then please enlighten me, sahib.