Amazon Kindle Kicks Textbooks to the Curb

It’s no secret that textbooks are expensive, and that they weigh a ton, especially when walking around campus. For some college students, lugging that bag of books across the quad is as close as they get to weight training.
Considering that it’s 2008, do college students really have to own textbooks the way their parents did? For that matter, their great grandparents?
We don’t think so. Earlier this year, Amazon.com released an electronic, wireless reading tool called the Amazon Kindle. You can download entire books from a selection of 140,000- including current New York Times Best Sellers. At any one time, it can store more than 200 book titles. You can download and read newspapers from around the world, as well as access more than 350 blogs, and Wikipedia.
What does this mean for hump-backed college kids? No more textbooks. Amazon is working to release an 8.5″ x 11″ screen model in the new year (currently has a 6″ display). This newer Kindle model will allow Amazon to broaden the marketability of the product- and ideally make it available to college students to download their college textbooks (roughly a $5 billion business in the U.S.).
The Kindle is ideal for college students because its wireless connection is similar to that of a cell phone- so you don’t need a wifi connection. The current Kindle weighs just over half a pound, making it effortless to toss in a bag, or carry in your hand.
The current Kindle sells for $359; the larger version will no doubt cost more. While that might give you sticker shock- consider one semester’s worth of printed books will usually cost more than that. Full-version book downloads currently cost $9.99 each.