Amazon will apparently make some announcement tomorrow (Wednesday) that has been claimed to be a new version of the Kindle aimed specifically at newspaper readers.  Until it has an official name, I will call it the Kindle++.  My personal wish list for the Kindle++ actually has nothing to do with size of screen.  I find that the Kindle 2 already has sufficient real estate.  Instead it has to do with how the device is priced and restricted.  By packing bandwidth into the upfront price of the device Amazon has to restrict usage after the fact.  They mostly do this by having a fairly lame web browser.  This is not due to a lack of capability, as the Kindle 2 has a faster processor than the iPhone.

Instead, I want a Kindle++ that is pretty cheap upfront, say $199, but ideally $99 or - if they want to be really transformative - free (more on that later).  Then it would have a monthly subscription that starts at say $30/month and includes bandwidth and one major newspaper (e.g., New York Times or WSJ).  The existing price for the NYT on the kindle is $13.99 per month, which I consider to be a bit on the high side.  If you allocated $8 per month from the bundle to the NYT (about $100/year) that would leave $22 per month for bandwidth and amortizing hardware.  Now I am paying T-Mobile (admittedly as part of an overall plan) $30 for unlimited data on my Blackberry, but I am pretty sure that is very profitable for them.  Unless the data networks are totally congested, the Kindle++ data revenue would be pure additional margin for carriers (since the Kindle++ is not replacing my Blackberry) and it would seem that something like $8 per month should cover that which would leave $14 per month to amortize hardware.  So with only a 1-year subscription one could support an additional $168 of device cost.  That also shows that with maybe one or two other subscriptions wrapped into the monthly price and a 2-year contract it might be possible to make the Kindle++ device itself free.  As a current print subscriber to both the NYT and the WSJ, I would be tempted by such an offer (which has been proposed by others).

Would love to know if my math is totally off here, but this is what and how I would like to pay for the Kindle++.  In return, the Kindle++ would have to come with as full fledged and fast a browser as possible on the device.  My final requirement for the Kindle++ is a bit odd, but I would like it to be water resistant.  I am not planning to use it in the bathtub (ok, that would be neat) but I would like to be able to carry it around without a cover even when there is a chance of rain.