kindle-ww-slate-final-110509._SX320_SY240_CR0,0,0,0_V226589088_.png.jpegFrom an email I got from e-reader-info.com:

It seems that Amazon will offer the Kindle 2 for only $89 on Black Friday… We couldn’t find official word yet, but that’s the talk on the Kindle fan page on Amazon. The Kindle 2 is still a great e-reader with a 6″ E Ink display, 3G wireless and 2GB of memory.

In related news, Amazon says that yesterday was the biggest sales day ever for Kindle devices. Seems that the iPad and other tablets are not hurting e-reader sales after all, at least for now.

1 COMMENT

  1. $89 would be a good deal for a cellular model. Used ones are going for $129 through third parties on Amazon, so the price isn’t unreasonably low and you’d be saving $100 over the Kindle 3 with cellular.

    Judging by the Wikipedia article, the key thing to look for is if the one being sold is the international version, which uses GSM cellular and works in some 100 countries. There was an earlier US-only version that used the Singular network like the Kindle 1. The international version apparently has a better screen too.

    Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of the differences between the 2 and 3:

    “The third-generation Kindle is 0.5 inches shorter and 0.5 inches narrower than the Kindle 2. It supports additional fonts and international Unicode characters. An experimental browser based on the popular WebKit rendering engine is included, as well as text-to-speech menu navigation. Internal memory is expanded to 4 GB [from 2 GB]. The battery can allegedly last for up to one month of reading with the wireless radios turned off”

    Smaller may be the key issue for some. The Kindle 3 fits nicely into a coat pocket. The Kindle 2 might not. Also the Kindle 2 doesn’t have WiFi, which can be faster in some situations. The Kindle 3 also has a better browser, if that matters to you.

    There’s a detailed look at the two here:

    http://www.best-ereaders.com/2010/08/10/kindle-2-vs-kindle-3-the-ultimate-comparison/

    If this rumor proves true, perhaps Amazon is dumping their Kindle 2 inventory below cost to alleviate some of the Kindle 3 shortage over the holidays. With either model, they make their money by selling ebooks.

    –Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien

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