Article first published as Amazon Unveils... Your Future. on Technorati.
From this moment on, the playing field of E-Readers has changed. Not only has the technology evolved and matured, ready for "prime time"as they say, but now... the price point is right for everyone.
Today, Amazon unveiled four brand new devices to their product lineup, just in time for everyone to drool over and get their orders in before the Holiday season.
The "all new Kindle" ($79), Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G, and the Kindle Fire ($199). The Kindle with the physical Keyboard, and Kindle X with Keyboard, are still available.
In a wonderfully stated open letter tastefully displayed on their website, C.E.O Jeff Bezos stated:
"Dear Customer,
There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.
We are excited to announce four new products: the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199.
These are high-end products – the best Kindles we’ve ever made. Kindle and Kindle Touch have the most-advanced E Ink display technology available, and the 3G Kindle Touch adds free 3G wireless – no monthly fees and no annual contracts. Kindle Fire brings everything we’ve been working on at Amazon for 15 years together into a single, fully-integrated experience for customers – instant access to Amazon’s massive selection of digital content, a vibrant color IPS touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle, a 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, a state-of-the-art dual core processor, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, and an ultra-fast mobile browser – Amazon Silk – available exclusively on Kindle Fire.
We are building premium products and offering them at non-premium prices.
Thank you for being a customer,
Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO"
While most of the other tech reviewers and websites are talking rampantly about the (admittedly lust worthy) Kindle Fire, comparing it along side the Apple iPad, I think it's interesting, and important, to take a detailed look at the $79 entry level "All New Kindle" device. Why? Because at $79, this is the real game changer. This is the one that is most likely to end up in stockings this season, not only for adults, but children as well. Getting children to read is a major hurdle for most parents. At this price point, it just might be the magic device.
While I am personally not crazy about the new slate grayish color scheme, (I preferred the dark charcoal of the existing Kindles), the all-new Kindle is 30% lighter (weighs less than 6 ounces), has an 18% smaller body, while keeping the same 6" screen size, so it can easily fit in your pocket or purse, and features the most advanced E Ink display that reads like paper, as the Amazon website details.
The most elegant feature of a physical book is that it disappears while you're reading. Immersed in the author's world and ideas, you don't notice a book's glue, the stitching, or ink. Our top design objective is to make Kindle disappear — just like a physical book — so you can get lost in your reading, not the technology.
Kindle is easy to hold and read. When reading for long periods of time, people naturally shift positions and often like to read with one hand. Kindle's page-turning buttons are located on both sides, allowing you to read and turn pages from any position.
Kindle has an easy-to-use 5-way controller, enabling precise on-screen navigation for selecting text to highlight or looking up words. No on-screen fingerprints, and unlike a laptop, Kindle never gets hot so you can read comfortably as long as you like, and Kindle automatically detects nearby Wi-Fi networks at school, home, or your favorite café.
Latest Generation E Ink: Kindle uses E Ink Pearl – the latest generation of E Ink technology available – to deliver clear, crisp text you can read without eye strain. Electronic ink uses actual ink particles to create crisp, print-like text similar to what you see in a physical book. Kindle uses proprietary, hand-built fonts to take advantage of the special characteristics of the ink to make letters appear clear and sharp.
Reads Like Real Paper, Even in Bright Sunlight Because Kindle's electronic display uses E Ink, it looks and reads like real paper. Kindle's screen reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlighting, so you can read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room.
Reading on Kindle is amazing. Adjustable Text Sizes, Font Choices Kindle has eight adjustable font sizes to suit your reading preference. You can increase the text size of your favorite book or periodical with the push of a button. If your eyes tire, simply increase the font size and continue reading comfortably. Kindle also has three font styles to choose from – all optimized and hand-tuned to provide the best reading experience.
Kindle uses hand-built, custom fonts and font-hinting to make words and letters more crisp, clear, and natural-looking. Font hints are instructions, written as code, that control points on a font character's line, improving legibility at small font sizes where few pixels are available. Hinting is a mix of aesthetic judgments and complicated technical strategies.
Kindle now has faster page turns. By fine-tuning Kindle's proprietary waveform, the series of electronic pulses that move black and white electronic ink particles to achieve an optimal display of images and text, and Kindle supports the display of non-Latin characters, so you can read books and documents in the translation that's right for you. Kindle displays Cyrillic (such as Russian), Japanese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Korean characters, in addition to Latin and Greek scripts.
Full Image Zoom: Images and photos display crisply on Kindle and can be zoomed to the full size of the screen.
Rotate Between Portrait and Landscape Mode: Switch between portrait and landscape orientation to read maps, graphs and tables more easily.
Real Page Numbers! Easily reference and cite passages or read alongside others in a book club or class with real page numbers. Using the computing fabric of Amazon Web Services, Amazon created algorithms that match specific text in a Kindle book to the corresponding text in a print book, to identify the correct, “real” page number to display. Real page numbers are available on tens of thousands of our most popular Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions. Page numbers are displayed when you push the menu button.
I am very interested to know your comments about the new Kindle series. Please comment below, and share with post with your friends!
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