Kindles Cost More And Make Less Sense

Did you see the price tags on the new Kindles? Amazon’s latest eReaders were announced last week. They look largely the same as the previous ones, which is not bad — if it aint broke, don’t fix it. But one big disappointing difference is the higher price tags across the whole range. The increases are not surprising given the tech landscape this year, but they’re relatively deal-breaking if not kind of crazy. I’m still a fan of the Kindle. But it’s a lot harder for me to justify replacing my five year-old-model with a new one. My Paperwhite still works well, the new ones don’t do anything substantially better, and they cost quite a bit more. The cost of a Kindle is even harder to swallow when compared to Fire tablets and iPads. The Kindles have little storage compared to these tablets, yet they’re priced above the Fire and within range of the base iPad when on sale.1 From a cost/feature standpoint, you have to really value eInk and weeks-long battery life to fork over the funds for a…