While many people take great pride in shopping locally (vs. buying online from Amazon or some other e-tailer), they miss the point by hitting up Wal-Mart or another big box retailer.
When asked why it went that route vs. the nearly ubiquitous micro-USB (the choice on the tablet's e-reader siblings), the company claims that it's, in part, due to the ability to speed up charging.
Using the NYT rent-vs-buy calculator, Salmon figures out that the acquisition only makes economic sense (i.e. it is actually cheaper to buy rather than rent) if one is bullish in the long-run, or 5 to 10 years, which means assuming annual home prices and rental prices gain 1% per year.