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Wednesday 28 September 2011

Amazon's New Kindle Range

Amazon have held a press conference to announce their new Kindle product line up. The existing 3rd generation Kindle came in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi +3G and feature a hardware keyboard, physical page turning and an incredible "just like paper" E Ink display. Amazons USP (unique selling point) in the e-reader market is that they provide the complete package: Great hardware coupled with free access (even over 3G) to their ebook store. There is no need to own a computer, making this the e-reader of choice for a lot of 'non computer' people as previously discussed in "The eBook Revolution". You can even download the Kindle app for your iPhone, iPad, Android device, Mac or PC. All of these devices can then access your library and you can carry on reading where you left off using their free 'Whispersync' service. Amazon's system is 'purchase once, read anywhere'.

So todays announcement comes with some anticipation. What could Amazon do to improve their offering to the e-book market? They have previously made their Kindle Reader smaller, lighter and cheaper and improved the screen quality on the 2 previous revisions. Todays product announcement separates the Kindle into four models to reflect the various requirements of different customers.

Kindle ($79)
This new revision of the kindle features a much lower price and an improved E Ink display. The hardware keyboard is dropped from the this Kindle product. As a result it's smaller and lighter than the previous model.

Kindle Touch ($99)
Featuring the same advanced E Ink as the new Kindle the Kindle Touch includes a touch screen for using the on screen keyboard and page turning. A new 'X-Ray' feature allows you to get more information about your book's content from Wikipedia.

Kindle Touch 3G ($149)
As above but with unlimited 3G internet access across 100 countries with no subscription, thats right, no subscription. Feel free to go on holiday and purchase your holiday reading when you are already by the pool.

Kindle Fire ($199)
The Kindle Fire is unlike any previous Kindle model, its a full on tablet device to rival the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy tab and Blackberry Playbook. It features Amazons new web browser: Amazon Silk.

So as you can see Amazon's range is greatly improved and these devices will become available in the next few months. More info at www.amazon.com.

Image: www.amazon.com

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