The people at iFixit have shown that they’re still on top of their game by tearing down the new Kindle 2 eBook reader. The main processor is a 532MHz ARM-11 from Freescale. Interestly, there isn’t any significant circuitry behind the large keyboard; it seems its existence is just to hide the battery.
Related: previous teardowns on Hack a Day
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the thing is too damn expensive. go buy some freakin books!
xkcd actually had a good point, with the free wikipedia access this device essentially becomes the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
However, personally, the largest number of books I can read concurrently is 2-3 and I can easily carry them around with me. If they get wet or ruined, I am only out at most $30.
If the price of the kindle fell to around $100 I think that might make it much more tempting.
is xkcd right about the free mobile broadband? there has to be some way to exploit that
this works off of sprints mobile broadband, since i use them already for my internet, i wonder if its posible to make the kindle 2 to use my unlimited account instead of amazons ultra limited account. Then i would have a ultra bad ass uber portable web tablet.
i admire the kindle, i really do.
but its way, way too over priced.
i get by with an old palm with a modified 4 cell laptop battery. i get 16 days of heavy usage, its got a backlight so i can read in bed, and it reads pdf’s. reading doctrow’s “little brother” took a whopping 2% of the battery life.
image proof
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emperordane/3311200028/in/photostream/
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emperordane/3311200230/in/photostream/
book readers was good idea but eeepc killed them before they even become popular
You lot are missing the point of eReaders. The screens are far nicer to read from than LCDs and you can store an entire library of books & documents (that don’t need to be printed) on them. They don’t have to be as cheap as books to be worth buying, because in many ways they are better.
Admittedly the kindle looks a bit shit. Needs a bigger screen and to lose the ugly keyboard. Something like this:
Wow. It actually looks pretty simple. I expected it to have more to it.
Gee, my laptop and smartphone both have great screens and hold entire libraries of information.
-and the best part is that they are things that address multiple needs!
this thing simply creates needs around itself, and that’s bogus.
Your laptop and smartphone may have great screens for their purposes, but they have terrible screens if what you want to do is read ebooks on them for long periods of time. Standard LCDs cause all kinds of eye strain problems when reading on them for hours, while the screen on the Kindle doesn’t.
great post, thanks….
I still prefere books, simply because they are much more rugged.
Yo can put them in a bagpack and throw them in a corner without fear to kill the LCD or the HD in a laptop.
Hope some guys port a really free Linux kernel to it, without that DRM crap. Since it’s ARM based, I think this will happen soon.
If this thing is just an ebook reader, why does it have a 533Mhz processor – that seems like overkill just to render a page of text every few mins.
Surely they could have much better battery life if it had a really low end processor.
hmmmm, wireless you say, this will soon become a meme I think, but I wonder if someone could get the card into monitor mode and run airodump-ng or such.
$9 for a book on a $400 machine is too much. I can get books for anywhere between $.69 and $4 used.
Is the Kindle2 quite awesome? Sure. It just costs too much, especially right now.
@w00tb0t
as far as I know, it doesn’t have wifi, only EVDO cellular wireless.
is this thing capable of running linux?
i like how the screen shows where the kindle died mid-load, like the frozen expression on a murder victim
So has anyone tried using that Cellular card in a laptop?
The cost is unsubsidized. It covers the parts, labor and future use of the 3G with Sprint. No contracts, no annual fees. True they make a profit on the things, but E-Paper is still not popular enough to be cheaply made. With the added cost of a cover a d insurance, this device is about $435 in all. But in the end you are getting it for convenience of many books in a light and compact piece of equipment and books accesible in under a minute. No shipping costs, no traveling to a bookstore, no gas, parking and snacking costs. Plus cheaper books than new prices on Amazon. Plus some of the books also run $6 and $4.
I want/need a Kindle2 + Iphone + Ipod + GPS + e-mail that I can toss in a backpack and not worry about it getting busted up.
Guess I have to wait a year or two.
i can pay a midget to read me books in bed for $400
Well for all you guys who say that the kindle is for just reading you’ve lost the point. The kindle does more then just one thing. You can use it to browse the web. You CAN use it as an mp3 player. You can store your personal work files. You can do tons of things that they didnt intend for you to do and thats the fun part.
Yes. Let’s say someone offered a permanent connection to the internet for a flat rate, no monthly payment whatsoever? What would that be worth?
The kindle gives you that for $300.
Who give a better rate? Remember, flat rate, no monthly charge. As far as I know, there IS no other choice. I would be interested on any contradictory information.
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Very interest article.