Not too long ago, Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) took some flak for addressing the sunlight reading quality disparity between the Kindle and the iPad as one of its main selling points in a commercial. Personally, I’d say they deserved it for so much as dignifying the Kindle vs iPad comparisons with a response. They’re different devices with different goals in different price brackets. Fortunately, Amazon’s newest set of Kindle ads seem to have let up on the subject and taken a more holiday-centric angle.
There are two ads that have been recently released, one specifically targeting holiday sales, the other a more general marketing device. The New Kindle Holiday Ad shows a grandmother beset by the usual holiday requests of an indecisive kid who wants something to read. It does a good job, really, of establishing the Kindle as a device good for all age brackets and topics when it comes to reading needs. The grandma clearly knows her stuff when it comes to holiday shopping.
The New Kindle Zest Ad, on the other hand, gives us the picture of the Kindle as a go-anywhere, always useful, super-durable kind of device that is perfect for anybody. It fits anywhere, can take a licking(literally), and comes in handy pretty much constantly. While Barnes & Noble(NYSE:BKS) is frantically scrambling to establish their product line as not just an eReader, Amazon seems to revel in bringing out a great product that does exactly what it is supposed to do, better than anybody else, and for a great price.
I think that they’ve made a great choice in marketing the device as itself and letting comparisons fall aside. Yes, there are other eReaders out there, but I have yet to find one that does what the Kindle does without coming in at a much higher price. The Nook was coming pretty damned close for a while, and I really miss the Kindle vs Nook arguments already, but it feels like they’ve pretty much given up. While they’ve got the top of the market pretty much to themselves, Amazon will be making the smart move if they stay above petty squabbling over the advantages of features the Kindle, as a reading device, would gain nothing from having in the first place.
I’m not sure this is the right place to ask, but anyhow. Does anybody know whether the latest generation of kindle dx supports Chinese or Japanese language without hacking. I know the new kindle 3 can support them.