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Comment by ajg1977 | Hacker News Reader

ajg1977·

Interesting that there's only a $50 premium for the 3G Kindle, whereas the 3G iPad is an additional $130 over the Wifi model.

Different licensing agreements? Amazon taking a loss? Typical Apple markup?

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Not only that, you need a separate data plan for the iPad, right?

iSuppli estimates that 3G radio adds about $25 to the cost of iPad (http://www.isuppli.com/teardowns-manufacturing-and-pricing/n...) so at $50, I'd imagine that Amazon's probably recouping the cost of baseband hardware + development time and effort, and not much else.

It's amazing to think that they can throw in the free 3G access on top on the hardware for just $50 extra. I guess they're counting on low browser and web usage due to the e-ink screen...

Web browsing on the kindle is painful enough that I'd only use it for emergencies.

> It's amazing to think that they can throw in the free 3G access on top on the hardware for just $50 extra. I guess they're counting on low browser and web usage due to the e-ink screen...

I think that's subsidized by the increased amount of books people buy when they can buy them anytime anywhere but only through Amazon.

I'd imagine the web usage is probably a LOT heavier on an iPad than a Kindle (at least, I use it a lot more on my iPad than I do my Kindle... :)).

Yeah, more wear and tear on the 3G chips, so Apple had to put extra-enforced chips in there.

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