In addition to the hotly anticipated Kindle Fire tablet, Amazon has announced a range of new e-ink Kindles. The first is a a full-screen, touch-controlled e-reader in the vein of its leading competitor, Barnes & Noble’s latest Nook. It’s called the Kindle Touch. The Wi-Fi only model is $99, and the 3G version is $149. A lighter full-screen Kindle without touch controls will sell for $79. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says that it’s “75% lighter than previous generations.” These Kindles ship on November 21.
The Kindle Touch
The Kindle Touch has an infrared layer above the screen to detect multi-touch inputs, so it doesn’t interfere with reading. It does text-to-speech, and it plays audio books and mp3s. It has 4GB of internal storage, with “approximately 3GB available for user content. The Wi-Fi-only Kindle Touch sells for $99 with Amazon’s “Special Offers” advertising and $139 without. The Kindle Touch 3G sells for $149 with Special Offers and $189 without.
The new Kindle
The non-touch Kindle has a 6-inch, 600×800 e-ink display and about 1.25GB available for books. It has built-in Wi-Fi, and it offers free cloud storage for all Amazon content. It doesn’t have a keyboard. It sells for $79 with Special Offers and $109 without.
Amazon has offered the option for ad-supported Kindles since April, and consumers don’t seem to mind; the ad-supported Kindle with a keyboard, the cheapest Kindle until today, was by far the most popular model. Kindle customers are used to the device as a point of sale for Amazon media, so ads that display over the idle screen don’t seem out of place.
What do you think of the new Kindles? Sound off in the comments.
