Amazon Faces New Challenges, Introduces Lower-Cost 3G Kindle

From PC World: As its competition announced new models that shoot squarely at the heart of Amazon's Kindle e-reader business, Amazon responded by quietly unleashing a 3G variant of its Kindle With Special Offers. Like the Wi-Fi-only Kindle With Special Offers, this model shaves $25 off the price in exchange for turning the screensaver into a targeted advertising slate with deals.

The Wi-Fi Kindle With Special Offers shipped just six weeks ago, and at $114, Amazon has said it already has shot to best-selling Kindle status. Now, the same special offers, which can vary from discounts on Amazon merchandise to discounts on Kindle and Audible books, and on Amazon gift cards.

With this move, Amazon maintains its price lead on both its Wi-Fi- and 3G-connected products. For that matter, Amazon is now just one of two e-reader makers in the market with a 3G product (Sony being the other, with its Sony Reader Daily Edition). The other two notable players in this space, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, each only have Wi-Fi-equipped E Ink e-readers now.

Barnes & Noble just took the wraps of its second-generation Nook reader, and while the new device adds an infrared touch screen at a $139 price, the company didn't mention plans for bringing a 3G model to market, too. Kobo also this week introduced its new Kobo eReader Touch Edition at $10 less, and it too only connects via Wi-Fi.

The new B&N and Kobo models have been--predictably--compared to the third-generation Amazon Kindle, and rightly so. But aside from introducing touch screen overlays at an affordable price (Sony's touch models remain stratospherically priced, with the comparably sized Reader Touch Edition priced at $229), these models are largely playing catch-up to Amazon's Kindle. They're first getting the E Ink Pearl display, nearly a year after Amazon debuted the technology.

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