Prices of e-readers down by 40% since June 2009
No major report will be quoted, cause I haven’t found any. The numbers gathered here are a result of a private research I started exactly a year ago.
The idea was simple – to create an Amazon widget with 12 e-readers. Then I was collecting screenshots from certain days and placed them in this post. If the e-reader was no longer sold, I used a price shown in a former screenshot. As simple as that. It was designed to give a clue on how fast the prices of e-readers were going down – and to have it presented in a comparable form. Just an idea from an average e-book enthusiast.
The big news is that prices have fallen by around 40%. The major reason is a recent price war between B&N and Amazon, in my opinion taking place in view of a launch of Google Editions, which will totally change a perception of an “e-reading device”. Picking up one figure: Kindle 2 is almost three times cheaper than a year ago – $359 vs $130!
It was not so fantastic at the end of last year – prices were lower only by 15%. And this is what most of us were expecting. In a quick poll only 18% votes were given to a price drop higher than 20%.
You can check current prices at the bottom of a post. What do you think: will prices of leading devices cross a magic level of $100? »»»
eClicto – first Polish e-reader will be launched this autumn
Three weeks ago I attended a Warsaw Bookcamp, where all the participants were particularly interested in a presentation of eClicto, a Polish e-publishing platform, which is about to be launched in autumn. The business model includes an e-reading device, e-bookstore, news portal and a support centre. Comparison to Kindle is inevitable and obviously everybody gets excited with a device itself. It has 6-inch E Ink Vizplex screen with 4 grey levels, 600×800 px, 166 dpi. Internal 512MB memory can be extended with an SD card by up to 4GB. It will support epub, ecl, pdf and txt files.
One can say, it’s nothing new. Just recently Cool-er and Elonex were introduced to support similar sales models. But for me eClicto is one of first examples of bringing e-publishing from international (English) to national (non-English) level. And it’s not about the equipment this time, its about the content. »»»
How fast will prices of e-readers go down?
For updated prices please scroll down.
This is obvious that prices of e-readers will constantly go down. Just recently two new devices were launched: Cool-er from Interead and Elonex (in association with Borders UK). They are both competitively priced, $249 and $311 respectively. Although they are designed to be access points to their own e-bookstores, it’s no coincidence that Amazon has reduced overnight the price of the ugliest-ereader-ever – Kindle 1 – from $295 to $240. That was fast.
And this is the most exciting question: how much will prices of e-readers go down by the end of 2009? To make guessing simpler, I’ve collected in a beautiful widget a basket of 12 most popular e-readers available at Amazon. The total cost is not beautiful at all – on 30th of June it was $5205,71, what makes an average of $433,80.
The purpose of this post is not to give you a professional speech on the future of e-readers, but to make you excited about them (at least as much as I am). So no talking, just have fun and guess. Having a basket as a reference, please mark your vote. »»»
Recently updated Polish tech-absurdist and mobile fiction writer 3.0 beta. Addicted to ebooks and technology. Guest writer at 
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