If you’re looking to read up on the upcoming Amazon Kindle eBook reader, check out Newsweek’s front page cover story for the Kindle (which you can find here). Kindle is Amazon’s first eBook reader product and really their first home grown electronic product of any kind. Everything you really want to know about Kindle can be summed up with this sentence in the Newsweek article:

This week Bezos is releasing the Amazon Kindle, an electronic device that he hopes will leapfrog over previous attempts at e-readers and become the turning point in a transformation toward Book 2.0.

Here’s what you need to know about Kindle thus far:

• Think of it as an extension of the Amazon store
• Buying a book will be a one touch process
• Access books, magazines, and newspapers etc
• Designed to be constantly connected to the Internet via the Whispernet service
• Will have access to a new Amazon eBook store
• Will work over EV-DO service from Sprint and via Wi-Fi
• 6 inch “digital paper” screen
• Integrated keyboard
• Users can search for books, jot down notes or visit websites
• Integrated flash memory holds roughly 200 titles and expandable using memory cards
• Up to 30 hour battery life

The Kindle will be available for $399 and the new eBook store will launch with around 88,000 books and subscription publications. New books and bestsellers will sell for $10 dollars each but some books can be as low as $2 dollars a piece (“You can also get classics for a song”).

So now you know what the Amazon Kindle is all about, one has to wonder – is this the break through product that will revolutionize the book and e-Book industry? If there’s one company that can actually do this, it might very well be Amazon – the company that revolutionized the online book industry. It’s not a far cry to suggest the the Kindle can indeed become the iPod for books. $399 does seem a little pricey for the reader.. but then again, the original iPod was pricey too and guess what? People bought them!

Yet the key differentiator is the content here. The iPod allowed regular Joe Schmoes the ability to easily transport their digital music collections (which was normally free to begin with) anywhere they wanted to. With the Kindle, you’ll need to buy your content before you bring it anywhere. How many of us actually have large collections of eBooks? Not a lot I’m willing to bet. So.. if content can be made available to consumers in an inexpensive method and proven to be as permanent as say an actual hardcover version – then you just might have a product worth checking out!

[Check it out via Electronista]

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