Earlier today, Amazon unveiled four new kindles. A new version of the Regular Kindle starting at $79, Kindle Touch with a touchscreen at $99, Kindle Touch 3G with free 3G at $149 and the Kindle Fire: Amazon’s Android tablet. We heard confirmation on Amazon’s Kindle tablet a while back although the rumors have been around for about a year. All Kindles will get Amazon’s Whispersync service for free: Bookmarks, notes and highlights are automatically synchronized across devices. We’ll take a quick look at each of Amazon’s new devices.
Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire is a 7-inch tablet, running on Amazon’s own version of Android. That’s not even the mind blowing part. It will sell at $199(Lower than the predicted $250) and will be available from November 15th. Compared to other competitors of the iPad this looks like a good bargain.
On the outside, The Kindle Fire is packed with a Gorilla Glass display, 7-inch in size and it weights 14.6 ounces. On the inside it runs on a 1GHz TI OMAP dual-core CPU, 512MB of RAM, Wi-fi and 8GB of internal storage. Buyers will also get a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. The Kindle Fire is tied to Amazon’s store so you can purchase music, movies, and books directly from Amazon. Apps can also be purchased from Amazon’s Android App Store.
The Kindle fire also has its own browser called ‘Amazon Silk’. Amazon Silk is specifically for the Kindle Fire and resides on Amazon’s EC2 servers to make pages load faster. Here’s a video of the Kindle Fire from Amazon:
New Generation Kindle
The new Kindle is a lighter version of the old kindle. It’s 30% lighter at 5.98 ounces, 18% smaller and turns pages faster. It measures 6-inches and has the most advanced e-ink display so pages look like real paper. It’s also missing the keyboard that Kindle users are used to and instead has navigation buttons.
Kindle Touch
The Kindle touch will cost $99 and is basically the Kindle with a touchscreen. This makes it easier to turn pages, search, shop for more books and take notes. The Kindle touch has a longer battery life and can hold more books than the new generation Kindle. It also has a USB 2.0 port and a 3.5mm audio jack in addition to its rear speakers. It’s currently available for pre-order for US Residents and will ship on November 21.
X-Ray
X-Ray is a new Amazon feature that lets users explore the “bones of the book”. With a tap, users can see passages across a book that mention ideas, characters, historical figures and places with detailed description from Wikipedia and Amazon’s community powered encyclopedia, Shelfari. The in-built dictionary is still resident on all Kindles.
Kindle Touch 3G
The Kindle Touch 3G is the 4th addition to Amazon’s lineup. This offers the same design and features of the Kindle Touch with free 3G. This means users no longer have to search for Wi-Fi hotspots. The 3G service is available in over 100 countries. For places without 3G services, the device is Wi-Fi capable and can hold up to 3GB of user content.
All the new Kindles will have access to the Kindle Store and Amazon’s ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere’. This means you can buy books on any of the devices you have and read them on any of the Kindles, iOS devices, PCs, Macs, Android devices, BlackBerry devices and Windows Phone Devices.
What do you think about the new Kindle lineup? Seems Amazon has got everyone covered. Do you think the Kindle Fire is a competitor to the iPad? Leave us a comment.
Tags : amazon, android, kindle, Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G
