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Could this be that Amazon are prepping themselves for the phone market?
We certainly think so. Although the Fire will be an interesting development – a lot of the pre-marketing has gone onto things the Kindle cannot do – such as colour magazines, playing films and other media, it could be argued that tablet devices do this better. Whilst there is a massive advantage of reading a book on an e-ink screen as opposed to a backlit one, there are little compelling reasons why not to watch a movie on a Fire device.
One major success of the Kindle has been the 3G access, which has allowed people to access the internet even whilst abroad, without the need for a data connection. This has rather handily solved a number of problems for people – namely that internet access on mobile phone contracts is very expensive – in some cases £3/MB and upwards. This hasn’t been a problem for the Kindle as it renders in black and white meaning many sites are already out of the equation.
The other factor is that the current Kindle versions had been ungainly at using the Web. With no proper browser (the only one constantly being in ‘Experimental’ mode) the usability was also compounded by the lack of touchscreen which meant that entry was required by the QWERTY keypad which was ungainly.
Clearly to us, there is a bit of a gap in the market here: a circa 4 inch, touchscreen e-ink based mobile phone handset which would automatically gain some great advantages:
- New Standard: With no alternative available in the market, Amazon would enjoy huge branding benefits as it does with it’s current Kindle, which would be a good fit.
- Price: We’re convinced that such a device could be made extremely cheaply – perhaps under the price of the current Kindle because of the smaller size.
- Integration: Many of the mobile phone apps bundled on such a device would also easily be transferred to other Kindles: stuff like messaging, business organizer, alarms.
- Second handset: Of course, it couldn’t be that the handset would be used as the main one. Amazon would have to bear in mind that most people would have another handset (for example, one that is in colour) and arrange orderly transfer of data. A reversed-Whispersync could work.
- Battery Life: With standby battery life on the Kindle of up to 1 month, on a mobile phone version, the battery life would have the potential to be staggering. This, in the current market, would be a huge boon.
Come on, Amazon – we’re waiting to see it!