Special Black Friday special on Kindles, Fire TV devices and Amazon Echo. Additional 30% off any PRINT book. Note on Voice-dictation (speech-to-text) for HDX models for later blog article today. UPDATE 2

Amazon Kindle and Fire Devices on special sale, Black Friday (See Update 2: 30% off PRINT book.

  The special pricing on the Black Friday Amazon Devices page tends to be available until Nov 28, said to be 11:59 pm that day, tho' some have later ending dates.   Some will become available again only during lightning deals for the following "CyberMonday week" and for as long as the items are in stock).

  Clicking on the small-version images of Amazon's special sales page for its devices today will get you to the larger, much more readable page at Amazon.

The special device deals today include e-Readers, tablets, as well as Fire TV box and Fire Stick.

  Highlights

  Fire TV devices
Fire TV Stick, normally $39.99, is nearly 40% off at $24.99.

Fire TV Box (more fully-featured), normally $99.99 is 25% off at $75.99 and that's a rare price for this.

  Here's Amazon's Yr 2015 FireTV-comparison table


  Kindle e-Readers and tablets
The basic Kindle e-Ink e-Reader is almost 40% off at $49.99.

You can save $15 on the new Fire tablet, which has been, Amazon says, "the #1 best-selling product" on Amazon.com since launch.  Normally, $50, it's $34.99 today.

  Once more: the sometimes confusing lineup of Kindles and how to decide
  which ones would work best for you
  Here's a set of links that should help clarify the differences between models and allow easier comparison of features and prices:

  • Amazon's Tablet Comparison table
  • Amazon's Comparison table for the e-Ink Kindle eReaders
  • Paperwhite 3 vs Paperwhite 1: photos
  * Yr 2015 lineup: Details
        plus a quick-text listing or table of the various models:
  • Which Kindles Where? (Models available)


The previous blog article was on how the 8 days of Black Friday would work and the coming CyberMonday Week starting Nov. 30 will see similar multiple sales events.

GENERAL Black Friday pages for the US, UK, and Canada


UPDATE 2: Additional 30% off ANY Print Book 11/26-11/29 (thru' Sunday)
I got word of this and forgot, and it's not easily findable on the Amazon pages:

' Shopping Alert: Amazon Books announced it's offering shoppers an extra 30% discount on any print title beginning on Thanksgiving Day.  Shoppers must enter "HOLIDAY30" at checkout between Thursday (11/26) and Sunday (11/29) to receive the discount. '

[Amazon adds that the Amazon Book editors recently announced their Best Books of 2015 and that if any of you are looking for gifting options to use this 30% off on, take a look at the Editors’ Holiday Gift Picks.]

I'll end this here, since Thanksgiving and other events kept me from getting this out last night.

  I'm also working today on another blog article, to be completed this weekend, on how to dictate emails (voice dictation) and notes to Evernote and other apps on the Kindle HDX models.

  I've tested what works and doesn't in the way of punctuation and certain formats it understands (currency and time). This works very well for me on the 8.9" HDX that I have and for a friend's 7" HDX.

UPDATED, after initial posting:
EDITED: According to Amazon help pages on Language and Keyboard options:
  "For Kindle Fire HDX (3rd Generation), Fire HD (4th Generation), or Fire HDX 8.9 (4th Generation) devices, tap the microphone icon on your keyboard to use your voice to dictate text instead of typing."

  This means that the current HD6 and HD7 "Fire" tablets do have the Voice-dictation-to-text feature.

One more thing
  I'll also include, in that later blog article today, an example from a very effective voice-recorder app (NOT voice-to-text but an audio file) that I bought ($3), which is clearer than others I'd tried earlier, and is even said by commenters to be very good for recording singing.

  This is of course for Kindle tablets that use a microphone, although I saw that someone who bought earbuds with a mic attached was able to do the simple recording of voice to an audio file, which they can save and send or keep in a library.



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Forrester? or an ignorant column on "demise" of dedicated e-readers ?

Demise of dedicated e-readers

  It was pointed out to me in a comment today that not only will e-readers get ever less-expensive (as most certainly all have expected them to, as pieces of electronics), but we now have another column predicting the Death of dedicated e-reader devices.

  Forrester seems most to blame for the false reasoning used in this most recent wish-for-attention column (and they're getting it) because Forrester sees tablets and e-readers in a contest that e-readers cannot "win."

  Are simpler cars in ongoing contests with multi-featured cars that the simpler cars must "win" or "die"? Will they stop manufacturing sports car models because they are not as easy-to-operate and aren't able to carry families on vacation trips?  Will the sports cars "lose" to the family sedan?  Simplistic black & white thinking carries the day usually.

  I've no patience with wishful thinking based on not understanding different technologies nor reasons why one technology, predicted soon dead by the same experts mentioned last year, proved so popular in the last year during the time that the iPad certainly claimed hearts and minds.  Buyers knew the difference, if not some gadget columnists who think only in terms of 'appearance' (drab, plain, retro) and carry mainly the "cool kid" mentality as we saw for the last year and a half until many of them decided one type of technology actually DID seem "cool" to many hoping to just read books rather than flash around playing games and surfing the web at every chance (I'm one of the latter).

  I'm behind in blogging because I was away, but I will (b)log this one before the others that I've put on a todo-list because obviously there will be much written about the latest research opinions, as happened in 2010 when all predicting the end of e-readers by the end of the year often seemed to hope they were right.

  Inevitably, yes, if/when we can get color screens for dedicated-readers while keeping the relaxing quality of e-Ink effect on eyes that don't want LCD screens for reading novels, inevitably today's e-readers (or even today's tablets) will not be wanted or needed, even if dedicated e-readers are light to carry because they are dedicated to one activity.  Everything in life does change.

  I decided to blog the response I made to a note in the blog's Comment areas, which was a helpful link to the story (because e-readers WILL drop in price as was the comment-writer's focus, which is the good and obvious point of some of the researcher opinions).

  I'm still reviewing the news of an inevitable Amazon Android Tablet (which I initially blogged (August 2010) when a long-time Computerworld columnist reported receiving confirmation from his Amazon sources in August that there WOULD be an Android tablet from Amazon.

  The recent information on the technology involved in an Amazon order for tablets from Quanta Computer (with screen-panel properties licensed by E-Ink Holdings (for fringe field switching -- which is for LCD screens) has been vague and I'll write on that later today.  Since some columnists have interpreted the "2nd half of 2011" as "by the holidays 2011" because of the time to produce, test and stock these, I hadn't jumped on it yet as the news traveled fast on Twitter, Facebook and Kindle forums, where I was involved in discussions.

  Back to the column on latest expert research.  Here's my response (slightly modified for the blog-post) to the Huffington Post article on the 'demise' of the dedicated e-reader and its days "being numbered."   Catchy thought, no?

' Didn't Forrester and assorted columnists predict the end of the Kindle itself by the end of 2010 due to the popularity of the iPad and other tablets?

Also, never in a truly idiotic presentation of the premise for the death of dedicated e-readers does the article mention Forrester speaking to the issue of E-INK (which they may have! and it was columnist idiocy instead that produced the gist re the death of dedicated e-readers).

Or, it may have been Forrester's. The many studies done have been wrong about the popularity of e-reader devices before, when the iPad arrived, asking leading questions in their surveys.

I have [and enjoy] a NookColor and I intend to get the Amazon tablet if it comes, for the color magazine capability and for portable web-browsing but with Amazon features that I hope will be better done in software than is the B&N tablet-reader.

I would *never* give up the e-Ink model for an LCD tablet, for reading books. And there are voluminous notes on forums that say the same thing, by people who own tablets or semi-tablets along with their Kindles or other e-Ink readers.

If years from now they have non-LCD and e-paper-type capabilities for relaxing reading (eye care for many), along with color on a par with vibrant color in LCD tablets, then the dedicated e-reader may not be needed (though they'll always be lighter) -- but not mentioning e-Ink here at all is sheer ignorance when predicting demise of current e-readers due to interest in tablets.  It reminds me of the columnist who idiotically placed a picture of a tombstone at the head of his column last summer with the wording that the Kindle would die and be buried as of 2010 due to the birth of the iPad.  Experts want what they want.

There is a wish there that's just unseemly and speaks to a special kind of extreme love for electronic sleekness over everything else that has to do with their own disliking the "drab" or "retro" *look* of e-ink readers.  Actual functionality is rarely addressed.

But you're right in your own emphasis that e-reader prices will go down.  I thought most people have seen this with ALL electronics.

The FLIP camera? GOD. It has the same end result as a fine in-camera HD movie thing. It's not remotely like e-Ink vs color. '

Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   K3 Special, $114   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

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Consumer Reports on Kindle vs iPad for E-book Reading

Consumer Reports Editor Paul Reynolds looks at how the Apple iPad compares "for e-book reading to the best dedicated e-book readers—notably, the top-selling Amazon Kindle"

Click at the left to watch the youtube video, of course.  Reynolds is joined by Web Editor Paul Eng as they 'take sides' to illustrate the pros and cons of each device.

  Their take, given near the top of the text article itself, is that "the standalone e-book reader isn't dead. The iPad is fine as an e-book device, but advantages in price, portability, and some performance attributes make the Kindle the better e-books choice for most people."

PROS AND CONS OF EACH
AdvantagePad - They cite:
  . Cooler navigation" of the iPad, and they like the book cover images of course.  They were "wow'd" by the iPad's virtual page turn feature (as is almost everyone) that emulates the look of paper-book page turns and lets you control the speed of the turn. Other pluses:

  . A bright color screen with beautiful rendering of color illustrations, and the backlit LCD screen allows you to read the device in the dark.

  . Easy access to multiple bookstores, including those of its main competitors.
  They add that "One possible reason Apple allowed the competition on: Because iBooks has far fewer titles than Kindle and B&N, at least for now, and they didn't want a limited library to irritate iPad owners."

  And it's been often pointed out that any iBook purchased can be read, at this point, only on the iPad, although the June upgrade to the iPhone will add the iBook app and store.  Kindle books are now readable on and can be synchronized between a number of devices these days, both mobile and desktop.

(An incorrect statement in the text article)
There is one incorrect statement in the text of the article, in that they had thought that "With a Kindle, getting an e-book from anywhere but the Kindle Store into your library involves connecting the device to a computer via USB cord and converting the title to the Kindle format."

  That's not true, as you can get books direct to the Kindle from other stores (at no added wireless cost) and you don't have to convert those to Kindle format, as they are already in the basic format used for the Kindle ('.mobi' or '.prc' formats).

  Details on how that is done can be read at the free-books article section covering direct downloads from other stores.  Direct downloads are available from sites such as Project Gutenberg with its 30,000 free classics,  Feedbooks,  Manybooks,  Fictionwise,  Baen, and other online bookstores.

 (I wrote about this to the Consumer Reports comments area but I don't know if the information will be approved for posting as it may be too detailed because I felt I should name the sites that allow direct downloads to Kindles.)

Advantage Kindle - They cite:
  . The most readable type, describing it as crisper than the iPad's.  Also, they describe the iPad background as having "a blue hue that's a bit harsher on the eyes than the brown-green tinge of the Kindle's."

  . Smaller size and weight.  The screen is described as equal to or approaching the size of pages on many paperbacks and is easily carried in a handbag while the iPad requires a briefcase or a sizeable bag.  that interested me, as it's women who generally carry handbags.

  . A lower price. The Kindle costs $259, "including unlimited 3G access to buy books wherever and whenever you want.  The iPad starts at $499, and a model with 3G access will cost you at least $629, plus monthly (though optional) 3G charges of $15 or $30 to take advantage of that capability."

The bottom line
In fairness to Consumer Reports, see this at their site.  (Let me know if you can't access it unless you're a member, but I think they do have this as a page open to non-members.
  This is a good online magazine subscription to have, as it's easily searchable  (I like it a lot better than trying to find articles in the physical magazine.) Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!