Engadget’s EBR of 2010 is…
Engadget is a leading tech website and they do awards (go figure). 😉 Actually, I haven’t done awards: I just don’t particularly like saying my opinion is better than yours.
However, they do Readers’ Choice Awards (as well as Editors’ Choice), which are determined by polls…I like polls. 🙂
The Readers’ Choice Results are in for 2010.
Engadget Readers’ Choice Awards 2010
The EBR (E-Book Reader) of the year is…
Amazon’s Kindle 3 with 48% of the vote.
Second place?
Barnes & Noble’s NOOKColor (34%).
I’ll bet you would be hard-pressed to name number three…
Amazon’s Kindle DX with 10.9%.
First off, the Kindle DX was announced on May 6, 2009…not 2010.
Second, people voted for it more than people voted for the NOOK E Ink? That suggests to me that it might be brand loyalty…whoda thunk? 😉 I know people like the Kindle DX, but my guess is that’s a fairly small group (given how much more expensive it is)…it now competes with tablets, and is a software version behind (and doesn’t have the latest update).
UPDATE: I think I figured out what happened with the Kindle DX being on the list and the NOOK E Ink models not being on it. Thanks to krystalspin in the Amazon Kindle community for suggesting this by answering a question from Spotsmom. The Kindle DX Graphite was launched on July 1, 2010. If they only counted devices launched in 2010 (and forgot to put Graphite in the name that they listed), that would explain both of those. I don’t know that I would have considered that a different device, and I don’t know how many of the voters did, but that makes sense for how it was listed. 🙂 Hmm…although, the NOOK wi-fi only was introduced on June 21, 2010: it changed the game, and should have been listed. Oh, well.
The other interesting thing was that the NOOK Color was the #6 (out of eight listed) Gadget of the Year…and no Kindle was on that list.
I’m okay with that. At this point a “reader’s tablet” is a gadget…it’s really a different item from an E Ink EBR and it’s also not quite in the same category as other tablets. It’s too soon to say if it’s a genuine product category, like EBRs.
It’s possible reflective technology EBRs will go away in the next couple of years, but I think that is unlikely. At this point, I’d say they are now out of the novelty category and into the mainstream…which for me, tends to make them not a “gadget”.
That’s just what gadget connotes for me, though.
Congratulations to both companies!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
I Love My Kindle 
February 23, 2011 at 4:29 pm |
it´s really interesting.
February 24, 2011 at 6:45 am |
I am of course an avid KDX user (it’s far the best for technical books). I really really hope they get around to announcing their tablet soon, and that it will prove to be a good upgrade for KDXers like me.
I don’t guess the KDX stats were skewed all that much by mishing graphite and KDX together — I would think that far more KDX graphites were sold than garden variety KDXs
February 24, 2011 at 1:41 pm |
Thanks for writing, Edward!
You might be right on the Kindle Graphite…but it didn’t come out until July. It isn’t a question of how many were sold (at least putatively) on the list, but what were the best gadgets. I just don’t think that the Graphite was so much of an improvement over the non-Graphite DX. If someone liked the DX in 2009, did they love the DX Graphite in 2010?
Maybe…if you are reading technical books with intricate graphics, the Pearl screen may have been a big improvement.
I think it’s great that people love the DX…I just really think it’s more of a niche device…
February 24, 2011 at 12:27 pm |
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