It’s been almost two months since we scooped the Kindle 2 and since then, crickets. For those who need a quick recap, we’re talking about the sexied-up successor to Amazon’s popular Kindle eBook reader, set to further popularize a new wave of readers with a paper-like display style intended to mimic pages of an actual book. You remember what a book is, right? It’s like vinyl, but for words. Ok then. The Kindle 2 was supposedly slated for release last month to be ready and waiting for the coming holidays but unknown delays pushed it back. Rumor has it Mr. Bezos-if-you-please put the kibosh on an October release so Amazon had time to make some software changes to the device. According to rumors from this morning however, we might not have to wait much longer for Amazon’s next-generation reader. Reports now indicate an “early-2009” release, sometime in Q1. There is also still reportedly be a student version equipped with a larger screen that is due some time in 1H of next year. If it happens, it will be interesting to see what kind of arrangements and pricing Amazon will throw together in terms of textbooks. As for pricing of the actual units, we’re still in the dark for the time being.
As an interesting related note, the current Kindle model is way over-sold on Amazon’s site thanks to Oprah. Amazon’s current projected time frame in terms of new order fulfillment is 11 – 13 weeks, or between the middle and end of February 2009. This could very well mean one of three things:
- Today’s rumors are way off and Amazon indeed intends to start shipping out the current Kindle model for orders placed recently, leaving the Kindle 2 release for later in the year.
- Amazon may be putting off fulfillment and we can indeed look forward to a mid to late February release for the Kindle 2.
- Amazon plans to offer the current and updated Kindle models concurrently, which would definitely piss off anyone who orders the first-generation model between now and February.
