Amazon Kindle's $489 price tag makes iPod Touch a better buy

Four hundred and eighty-nine dollars?!?! For an e-reader...  That's not even in color. And doesn't come with Wi-Fi or games or apps or music playback or...

Tell me again why I would buy one of these new Amazon Kindle-DX devices. Because I have a cool $500 burning a hole in my pocket? Not in this economy, pal. Seems to me that it's cheaper - at least now - to just keep subscribing to the newspaper or buying used textbooks.

To recap: Amazon today announced the Kindle-DX, an electronic reader, as well as deals with textbook publishers and newspapers. (Check out Andrew Nusca's live coverage of the announcement in New York) I'm not opposed to e-readers - in fact, I use an Wi-Fi enabled iPod Touch to read a lot of newspaper and magazine content. At least with the iPod Touch, I get Wi-Fi (instead of 3G Wireless) and the ability to do more than just read - and even the most expensive model is almost $100 cheaper and comes with about 10 times the storage space.

Amazon is taking pre-orders now and will start shipping this summer. The company had better hope for some strong pre-order sales before Apple makes its own announcement at the Worldwide Developer's Conference in June. The buzz is that Apple will announce a new device, with speculation honing in on a new tablet or netbook computer. Personally, I think a larger screen iPod Touch or iPhone (which could also double as a tablet or netbook) is more in order.

If Apple pulls that off, it could steal some of Amazon's thunder by offering a better e-reading experience than even a new-and-improved Kindle is offering.

Also see: iPhone could morph into a tablet at WWDC

The big Kindle: Pondering Wi-Fi; Netbooks; Market implications

(Image Credit: Amazon.com)