mewmartigan

So I know the book forum here is pretty dead but I am excited about the new Kindles...Amazon seems to have something for everyone.

A cheap basic one, a touch one, the one that keeps the keyboard, the tablet one, etc.


I am getting the Touch with WiFi and offers for $99. Hells yeah!

Living Dead

The Fire basically looks like they've turned the Kindle into a tablet. I might spring for the touch, but I could care less about being able to use apps and watch movies on my Kindle. That's not what it's for. If you want all that stuff you might as well buy a tablet with a Kindle app.

Chad

Good to see some improvements, but I'm more than content with my current K3. It's just nice to see Amazon isn't touting the Kindle Fire as an e-reader like B&N does with the Nook Color when it's clearly not. If it doesn't have electronic ink it's not an e-reader (IMO) ...it's a tablet. Now, when someone debuts a color e-ink e-reader I'll be all over that.

wmansir

Are there any hands on reviews of the Touch? I'm curious about how well the UI works and if they have solved the glare issue with previous touch e-ink displays.

Josh-da-man

Do any of these handle formats like .rtf, .doc, and other formats book formats that weren't supported by the last generation Kindles?

kefrank

The Kindle Touch supports the following formats, according to Amazon:
Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, Audible (Audible Enhanced(AA,AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

Septemberbaby

I ordered the Touch for my son for Christmas ... and this morning I was reading this and now I'm confused:

Fully charges in approximately 4 hours via the included USB 2.0 cable connected to a computer. U.S. power adapter sold separately.

Amazon Touch


So, am I reading this correctly? You have to pay separately to plug it in the wall to charge?

DJLinus

Sadly, that's how things are going these days. I remember a few years ago when I got my iPod Classic, I had to buy a separate wall charger. My TomTom GPS didn't come with one. It sucks because I'm not always around a computer (like when I travel) and USB charging seems to be slower, at least it is with my cell phone.

Luckily, you can find cheap wall chargers on ebay.

Larry C.

My 13 year old daughter loves to read. She likes tech stuff and has a Blackberry that she likes. I bought her 2 years ago a eec small laptops. She asks me sometimes to use my android phone to play angry birds or bunny shooter.

So which one will be best fit for her? I've never looked into kindles before.

Groucho

If you're buying her a device just to read, then the $79 Kindle is probably great.

If she wants to play games like "Angry Birds" then the Fire is really the only option.

Larry C.

Thanks Groucho! Twice!!

Septemberbaby

Or for 14 dollars more, I can just order him what I have, 3rd generation ... which in my opinion is better because I'm not a fan of the whole "touching" thing. Fingerprints??
And I also just realized that the page turners are on the front instead of on the side... not a fan of that either.

Groucho

Septemberbaby

wmansir

Reading some more has answered some of my questions but raised more. Apparently the Touch will use infrared sensors instead of a touch sensitive layer on the screen itself. So glare and blurry text are not an issue, but it raises more about accuracy, sensitivity, responsiveness and so on.

writer106

The Kindle Fire actually looks pretty cool and I'm thinking about pre-ordering one.

kefrank

Best Buy will reportedly be carrying all of the new Kindle models, including the Fire, so you should be able to try out the Touch there to see how it works. I'm curious as well. I don't have an e-reader at all right now, but at these prices I'm considering getting a Touch and a Fire both.

mewmartigan

You could go to Best Buy and try the new Nook Simple Touch. It has the same screen as the Kindle and uses the same IR touch technology. I think it works well and is accurate. I also don't really see fingerprints as an issue because we aren't talking a glass screen like cell phones or tablets (not talking about the Kindle Fire here!). The Nook I saw at Best Buy had none to speak of and I'm sure that's been touched all over

The one without touch is a great option if you don't plan on using the keyboard much. You'd have to use the 4 way controller to select keys and it would probably take a while.

wmansir

The problem is the basic Kindle is missing a lot more than just the touch screen. There is also:

- Half the memory
- Half the battery
- No audio, so no MP3, Audible, or text-to-speech
- No X-Ray, but it will have dictionary and Wikipedia with WiFi

However, it is lighter and retains the page turn side buttons.

I'm going to wait to see the physical devices, plus wait for any possible price adjustment to the Simple Touch. Last time I looked at the Kindle in store the problem was they didn't have any content on them so all I could do was check out the menus.

Trevor

That's good to know. I have a crap load of BB gift cards. Will wait for some hands-on.

bdshort

I'll be sticking with my G3 kindle. Was hoping for screen improvements, like higher res or even better contrast. The current screen is just fine but it's also the one area that I'd want to see upgraded before I buy a new one. Wouldn't mind seeing a slightly larger version too, but smaller than the DX.

wmansir

As I suspected B&N has reacted by dropping the price of the Simple Touch to match the Kindle Touch's (with ads) $99 price. They also say updated software will improve battery life, increase page turn speed 25% and render text clearer.

Right now I'm leaning towards the Nook, even though I would like audio. No ads, MicroSD slot, physical page turn buttons, open OS, and from what I understand it's less of a closed system in terms of content.

Kindle has: Audio, 4GB internal memory (2x Nook), X-ray, Amazon name/ecosystem.

Burnt Thru

I got the new Sony ereader and it's a lovely device. Touch screen and slightly lighter than the kindle, it also comes in a variety of colours. But most importantly it accepts epub format books which is a major issue I have with the kindle.

Trevor

Ignored this advice and pre-ordered one. Figured I should buy myself a toy before the wedding, when my decisions would need to become more responsible.

Just opened it this morning. Registered automatically and instantly, updated to new OS, and am now downloading a ton of free apps. Wifi here at work is weak, but I was able to listen to some of my Cloud music just fine, and streamed an episode of Arrested Development flawlessly.

If Facebook works well and these game apps work as well as I hope, then this will be a perfect work toy and bedroom browser.

ddwitmer

I was thinking the same thing too, very much like my Ipad, but I prefer the Ipad because I can put many other apps on it. I wonder why they would go that direction, it's not like they are really ever going to be able to compete with Apple, right?