covetting a kindle...does it make me a bad person?

Fifer

asbokid wrote: »

The Kindle 3 has apparently got a Lithium-Ion polymer battery, the type of battery commonly found in mobile telephones. Li-ion batteries do fail. Over the years, I've replaced the Li-ion batteries in most of my mobile phones.

Really? I've been using Li-ion batteries since we introduced them in the mobile phone industry well over 15 years ago and I've honestly never had to replace one much earlier than its design MTBF.

asbokid

Fifer wrote: »

I'm talking cost price for e-paper screens in production volumes. Just over a year ago, they were in the order of $80. My understanding is that current pricing is still around the $60 mark.

Are you serious?! Where did you read that? Have you got a link please.

I think there is some confusion here between dollars and cents! The screens for Kindles cost much less than a dollar to manufacture. We are talking pennies.

EDIT: This and other articles suggest that Amazon is selling the Kindle at a loss.

Well they would say that, wouldn't they?!

The article is pitched at consumers, and aims to hoodwink them into buying a Kindle, in the belief that they've wangled a bargain out of Amazon, who will be selling at a loss. Don't believe that for a minute.

Those component prices for the Kindle are pure fantasy figures..

Electrophoretic sheets are produced by the roll in vast quantities and at very low cost. The sheets are then chopped down to the required size of a Kindle screen. In that scale of production, individual Kindle screens cost just a few pence each to make.

The "estimated" price of $40 for the CDMA 3G module is ridiculous as well. Even the retail price for that type of module is less than $10. Purchased in volumes of 10,000 or more, the price of the CDMA 3G module would be less than $2.

The PCB for a Kindle will cost 50 cents or less. Not even a tenth of that ridiculous estimate of $9.83. And again, vast economies of scale are at play, here.

Chinese PCB fab houses working to large volumes (US$2500+) charge the following sorts of prices for fabrication of 8 layer boards. The Kindle makers, because of their purchasing power, will negotiate very tight prices from the PCB fab houses..

http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/quote3.php

Pricing for PCB assembly is also very modest..

http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/hvloum.php

The rest of those "estimated" component prices are fairytale figures, exaggerated upwards by roughly 500%-1000%. The prices are way higher even than retail prices.

Li-ion batteries of the type in a Kindle, for example, do not cost $7.50. More like 75 cents a unit in production volumes.

And the processor, a fairly crap and now obsolete model from the ARM-11 series, running at just 532MHz probably costs <$1 to buy in volume in the Far East.

I will stick with my revised estimate that the entire Kindle 3 is manufactured for less than $20 a unit.

And of course the Kindle runs a 2.6 Linux kernel, which costs nothing. The developers didn't even have to write the device drivers for the screen driver and the CDMA module. All the drivers are built already and released as open source code by the good people at http://www.arm.linux.org.uk based in Cambridge, UK.

Fairytale figures for Kindle component costs

Fifer

Can you please provide a link supporting a sub-$1 price for a 6" e-paper screen?

mttylad

There will not be a link for it, it is not something that a manufacturer would put online.

Sales information like that is kept secret.

asbokid

Fifer wrote: »

Really? I've been using Li-ion batteries since we introduced them in the mobile phone industry well over 15 years ago and I've honestly never had to replace one much earlier than its design MTBF.

Well I've replaced maybe six Li-ion batteries over the last ten years in two Motorolas, in an unknown model of O2-branded phone, and in each of the last three Blackberries that I've owned. The Li-ion batteries have never died completely but within perhaps 18 months, the batteries had deteriorated to the point that the phones could no longer be used for any reasonable length of time.

The Qualcomm-licensed CDMA chipsets used in today's UMTS (3G) phones, and notably in the Kindle as well, are particular bad for draining batteries. Those who use 3G USB dongles with their laptops will appreciate the astonishing amount of heat generated by the tiny devices. That wasted heat energy means that the battery has to be re-charged more frequently.

According to the website below, the "cycle durability" of the cheaper Lithium-ion polymer battery (as used in most cellphones and in the Kindle) is estimated to be 400 - 600 charging cycles.

That means going from flat to fully charged and back to flat, every day for a year and a half or so. Which sounds about right, if my experience of Li-ion polymer battery life is any sort of benchmark.

At the lower end of that cycle durability estimate for Li-po cells - that is 400 charging cycles - I would suspect that with moderate 3G use of a Kindle, the internal battery could possibly wear out before the one year warranty was up, or more typically, it would wear out shortly thereafter!

http://www.thermoanalytics.com/support/publications/batterytypesdoc.html

23n1th

asbokid wrote: »

Are you serious?! Where did you read that? Have you got a link please.

I think there is some confusion here between dollars and cents! The screens for Kindles cost much less than a dollar to manufacture. We are talking pennies.

Well they would say that, wouldn't they?!

The article is pitched at consumers, and aims to hoodwink them into buying a Kindle, in the belief that they've wangled a bargain out of Amazon, who will be selling at a loss. Don't believe that for a minute.

Those component prices for the Kindle are pure fantasy figures..

Electrophoretic sheets are produced by the roll in vast quantities and at very low cost. The sheets are then chopped down to the required size of a Kindle screen. In that scale of production, individual Kindle screens cost just a few pence each to make.

The "estimated" price of $40 for the CDMA 3G module is ridiculous as well. Even the retail price for that type of module is less than $10. Purchased in volumes of 10,000 or more, the price of the CDMA 3G module would be less than $2.

The PCB for a Kindle will cost 50 cents or less. Not even a tenth of that ridiculous estimate of $9.83. And again, vast economies of scale are at play, here.

Chinese PCB fab houses working to large volumes (US$2500+) charge the following sorts of prices for fabrication of 8 layer boards. The Kindle makers, because of their purchasing power, will negotiate very tight prices from the PCB fab houses..

http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/quote3.php

Pricing for PCB assembly is also very modest..

http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/hvloum.php

The rest of those "estimated" component prices are fairytale figures, exaggerated upwards by roughly 500%-1000%. The prices are way higher even than retail prices.

Li-ion batteries of the type in a Kindle, for example, do not cost $7.50. More like 75 cents a unit in production volumes.

And the processor, a fairly crap and now obsolete model from the ARM-11 series, running at just 532MHz probably costs <$1 to buy in volume in the Far East.

I will stick with my revised estimate that the entire Kindle 3 is manufactured for less than $20 a unit.

And of course the Kindle runs a 2.6 Linux kernel, which costs nothing. The developers didn't even have to write the device drivers for the screen driver and the CDMA module. All the drivers are built already and released as open source code by the good people at http://www.arm.linux.org.uk based in Cambridge, UK.


Fairytale figures for Kindle component costs

I'm not going to debate costs with you but I will say what you are saying with "It's probably less than $25 to produce in volume." and "I might consider a Kindle if it cost £10 or perhaps £20" is a little silly.

The production costs of many many things are a lot cheaper than what you pay for it, and the same is true of CPU's, GFX cards, clothes, furniture, etc etc. The production cost will always be dwarfed by the consumer cost. (In apples products a lot lot more)

As to the processor, why in something that does one job would you need a processor more powerful than the one it has? What good is a dual core 1.2ghz snap dragon arm processor going to do in the kindle, none, it would be wasted completely.

Another thing you haven't factored in is advertising/marketing and the cost of amazon funding its own format, setting up the whisper net, providing essentially free data allowances for those with 3g, etc etc. Lets not forget amazon are in the business for profit not for good will.

I bought the kindle because at the time it was the best on the market and the cheapest.

On the battery front, since I bought it 6 months roughly I have charged it 3 times, 400 charges is going to last a long way passed the years warranty.

asbokid

23n1th wrote: »

I'm not going to debate costs with you but I will say what you are saying with "It's probably less than $25 to produce in volume." and "I might consider a Kindle if it cost £10 or perhaps £20" is a little silly.

As with any non-essential consumer product, each individual decides whether the price is warranted.

In 1985, some people were happy to spend £2,500 on a "mobile" phone that was the size and weight of a house brick. Five years later and phones were the size of a cigarette packet and cost £100. Ten years later they were £30 and today, a budget mobile that does everything the "house brick" ever did, costs only £10.

As for the Kindle, the technology it offers does not warrant the current price of £100+, at least not for me.

The production costs of many many things are a lot cheaper than what you pay for it, and the same is true of CPU's, GFX cards, clothes, furniture, etc etc. The production cost will always be dwarfed by the consumer cost. (In apples products a lot lot more)

Yup, we were discussing the untruths in that article about the purported component costs to Foxconn, the manufacturer of the Kindle.

The Big Lie from that article, and other articles, is that the Kindle is being sold at a loss by Amazon. That's totally false. The device is being sold at a huge markup of roughly 500% on its production cost of $20.

As to the processor, why in something that does one job would you need a processor more powerful than the one it has? What good is a dual core 1.2ghz snap dragon arm processor going to do in the kindle, none, it would be wasted completely.

Sure, I agree. The Kindle can just about manage with its humble 500Mhz ARM-11 core (except for browsing when it's painfully slow).

But that article claims that the processor is costing Kindle manufacturers $10 a unit to buy. That's just not true. The price for that CPU will be <$1 a unit.

And lies like that one, in which the cost of components in the Kindle are heavily inflated, are there to deceive consumers into paying more for a product.

Another thing you haven't factored in is advertising/marketing and the cost of amazon funding its own format, setting up the whisper net, providing essentially free data allowances for those with 3g, etc etc. Lets not forget amazon are in the business for profit not for good will.

None of those things are benevolent. According to consumer reports, internet access on the Kindle is said to be painfully slow, no doubt in part because of that poor CPU, but internet access might also be nobbled to deter heavy users. Who knows? And realistically, the internet connectivity is there because Amazon needs it there to sell e-books.

Amazon is using its own proprietary document format to prevent copying. No other reason. There are dozens of open document standards that the company could have used, such as PDF, but instead, Amazon has spent millions of bucks developing its very own proprietary standard. That was a commercial decision to prevent people from sharing e-books, in order to protect sales and maximise profits. So the customer pays the bill in every sense.

On the battery front, since I bought it 6 months roughly I have charged it 3 times, 400 charges is going to last a long way passed the years warranty.

Is yours a 3G model, and if so, how heavily have you used the 3G facility over the last 6 months?

This is what Amazon says about the battery life of a Kindle 3G:

Kindle's battery charges fully in approximately two hours. Leave wireless connectivity on and recharge every other day...Using Kindle's wireless feature for shopping or browsing the store will drain your battery more quickly.

That's pretty much what I said before. With an average lifespan of 400-600 charging cycles, the Kindle 3G battery will last 18 months, and users will be lucky to get two years life out it.

Once the battery has failed, you must either crack open the Kindle case and fit a new 3rd party battery yourself, as per that youtube demonstration, or else return the whole Kindle unit to Amazon for repair/replacement at an unknown cost.

Has anyone asked Amazon what the battery replacement charge will be?

EDIT: Incidentally, why do people keep quoting an entire message in their reply?

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

er...getting a bitt too techie for me but thanks to all for your posts, I am so escited about geting my kindle and cant wait! Thanks especially for the tip about calibre, I have had a look and it seems very good, also my mate had a kindle at work today and she showed me it, its is so nice, the screen looks just like paper and she is thrilled to bits with hers.

Syman

wouldn't be without mine.

though i wouldn't use it to prop up a bookcase that has a missing foot. i COULD do that with "real" books.

23n1th

asbokid wrote: »

As with any non-essential consumer product, each individual decides whether the price is warranted.

In 1985, some people were happy to spend £2,500 on a "mobile" phone that was the size and weight of a house brick. Five years later and phones were the size of a cigarette packet and cost £100. Ten years later they were £30 and today, a budget mobile that does everything the "house brick" ever did, costs only £10.

As for the Kindle, the technology it offers does not warrant the current price of £100+, at least not for me.

For me it is worth the price mostly because it was the cheapest and best on the market, but not only that I now don't need to pay for any books, its paid for itself already in 6 months.

Sure, I agree. The Kindle can just about manage with its humble 500Mhz ARM-11 core (except for browsing when it's painfully slow).

Its purpose is to read books, the processor is more than enough to do this, I know because I use it constantly. If I wanted to browse the web I would buy a tablet as the screen IMO is the biggest problem with slow browsing.

And lies like that one, in which the cost of components in the Kindle are heavily inflated, are there to deceive consumers into paying more for a product.

I wasn't deceived, but still paid because again it was the cheapest, I'm not debating the cost of the hardware with you but as I've already mentioned there are other things to take into account.

None of those things are benevolent. According to consumer reports, internet access on the Kindle is said to be painfully slow, no doubt in part because of that poor CPU, but internet access might also be nobbled to deter heavy users. Who knows? And realistically, the internet connectivity is there because Amazon needs it there to sell e-books.

I'd only disagree with the slow internet being due to the screen having used it on my wifi. Of course the wifi/3g is there to sell books that's what amazon do, that's why they set up the whispernet. Personally I didn't buy the Kindle to browse the internet I bought it to read books from, which in this area is second to none.

Amazon is using its own proprietary document format to prevent copying. No other reason. There are dozens of open document standards that the company could have used, such as PDF, but instead, Amazon has spent millions of bucks developing its very own proprietary standard. That was a commercial decision to prevent people from sharing e-books, in order to protect sales and maximise profits. So the customer pays the bill in every sense.

DRM is a curse but is part of the process, and whilst I agree is only punishing the valid customer the aim of DRM is a misguided attempt at stop piracy. The PDF format is not as flexible as epub/mobi etc. Infact it is rubbish on ebook readers.

Is yours a 3G model, and if so, how heavily have you used the 3G facility over the last 6 months?

No its not mine is wifi which is switched off permanently, I bought it to read books not browse the web, its not a tablet device its an ereader.

EDIT: Incidentally, why do people keep quoting an entire message in their reply?

i have done my best not to quote your whole post.