The results are in and it was a surprisingly close finish.

The Apple iPad tablet edged out the Amazon Kindle in Public Utilities Fortnightly’s recent email poll, which asked respondents to help Fortnightly decide which prize to offer for a drawing in its current subscription promotion. The results were far closer than Fortnightly’s marketing department expected, with the iPad finishing only 5 percent ahead of the Kindle.

We can only speculate why the iPad ($499) didn’t run away in a race against the $259 Kindle. One possibility: Fortnightly’s well-read followers and fans value the Kindle’s no-nonsense, book-friendly approach over what some perceive as a Steve Jobs-hyped web-surfing machine.

Readers can peruse and search Fortnightly articles on either device — by downloading PDFs for viewing on the Kindle, or by surfing the Fortnightly.com site directly in the case of the iPad. In any case, the iPad won, fair and square, so we will honor survey respondents’ wishes by awarding the iPad as part of our current subscription promotion.-MTB

Posted: May 4th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
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