The New Kindles
I am not a fan of kindles just on principal. I think it is bad enough that people don’t read anymore and that magazines are the new books as are websites. Now I am a firm lover of technology, but books are sacred. Books should smell. They should be tactile. I like my dog eared pages of a well-loved and well-read book. I like the way they look on my shelves. And yet the new kindles may make me change my mind. I may convert…only a teensy bit.
Beginning in November, just in time for Christmas for me there are new price points and pretties for the Amazon Kindle e-reader line. Your regular Kindle is lighter, smaller and apparently faster than its previous incarnations and the display reads like actual paper. It will include built in wi-fi, a book selection of more than 800,000 titles for ten dollars or less and a feature that lets you borrow Kindle books from your local public library which is sweet. Price for all of that loveliness…$79
For an upgrade, the Kindle touch has all of the previous awesomeness, but a sleeker design, the ability to store up to 3,000 books, touch screen access, a text to speech feature and the ability to access audiobooks and MP3s. It will be $99
The Kindle Touch will come with free 3G wireless that doesn’t require an annual contract or monthly fee and will allow you to download books pretty much from anywhere without Wi-Fi. It will be $149
Finally there is the Kindle Fire. Expect a vibrant color touchscreen with an extra wide viewing angle and a dual core processor. You can get movies, tv shows, magazines and of course books. Plus access to the Amazon App store which will tons of apps and games. There is a browsing feature as well as free cloud storage and Amazon Prime members will be able to enjoy unlimited, instant streaming fun. For $199 it will be all yours. Kind of Amazon’s ipad/itouch sort of thing.
You can grab the latest Kindle right now. The Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G will be available on November 21st and the Kindle Fire will be released on November 15th. You can pre-order all of them right now.
Methinks I am going to have to get a Kindle or a Kindle Touch. Please Santa. I swear I’ve been mostly good this year.
Comments
I think the kindle touch would be the last straw that broke my resolve. Lucky for me (or not) it's not a problem as it isn't going to be released in the UK.
It's like that scent becomes part of the story.
However if Kindle puts more people reading, then I guess that it has at least a positive aspect.
José