Today in TechMeet Amazon’s new Kindle lineup: Four affordable ways to enjoy your ebooks
Amazon's new Kindle Fire may have stolen the show today, but the online retailer's plans go far beyond the new budget-priced tablet. The company also fully revamped its entire line of Kindle e-readers, introducing two entirely new models in addition to the Kindle Fire tablet, while letting the last Kindle stick around. The Kindle, originally introduced in 2007, is an E Ink ebook reader that can perform a few light tasks like limited web browsing, but is paired best with a healthy collection of ebooks (cup of tea optional).
For Amazon's new lineup, price is the name of the game — the company's redesigned homepage even lays that out in the announcement's very first lines. Happily, consumers stand to benefit, both from the across-the-board affordable Kindle pricing scheme and from the various tiers of e-reader on offer to suit varying needs. Keeping the new Kindle family (and its pricing scheme) straight is a little challenging, but read on to see what Kindle you might want to cozy up with.
Kindle Touch
Amazon's new flagship e-reader (we'd call the Kindle Fire more of a tablet), the Kindle Touch is Amazon's first e-reader to feature a full touchscreen. The Kindle Touch comes in two flavors: a wifi-only version for connecting to wireless internet connections and a 3G-enabled version for an always-on mobile connection. The new Kindle Touch readers are priced at $139 and $189, but you can get a special price break on either device thanks to Amazon's clever new "Special Offers" option: for agreeing to tolerate some built-in ads, you can buy the wifi version for $99 and the 3G Kindle Touch for $149 — not insignificant savings by any means.
The new Kindle Touch features a familiar sunlight-friendly E Ink Pearl display but looks a bit different with a newly silver, squarish look. It boasts a whopping two months of battery life and 4GB to store all of your favorite reads. At 7.5 ounces (wifi) and 7.8 ounces (3G) is 8% lighter than the previous Kindle, and newly trimmed down dimensions (6.8" x 4.7") make it even better for reading on the go. And, as the name would suggest, you can navigate around the device using touch, thanks to an infrared (IR) touch display. The Kindle Touch also supports audio books and MP3s, if you're interested in a multimedia approach to digital reading. The Kindle Touch will go on sale November 21, but you can pre-order it now.
Kindle
The new Kindle (that's right — just plain "Kindle" with no suffix) is Amazon's new entry level e-reader. There's only a wifi version, but you can have it two ways: with Amazon's Special Offers for a rock-bottom $79 or without the advertising for $109. The new basic Kindle is similarly silvery, and a bit smaller than the Kindle Touch with the same 6" screen. The device doesn't sport a touchscreen, and instead employs a 5-way button control scheme. With dimensions of 6.5" by 4.5" and a weight of less than six ounces, Amazon is posing it as a pocketable device (we've not tested this, so you might need rather large pockets). It features 2GB of storage for your beloved ebook collection and a battery life of one month. The new entry-level Kindle is on sale now.
Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire is Amazon's first leap into the realm of real, full-fledged tablets. With a multitouch color screen, a powerful dual-core processor, and access to Android's considerable collection of apps and games, the Fire is the new high-end Kindle — but don't call it an e-reader. The Kindle is priced at an almost shockingly low $199, a move that may have the entry-level iPad (at $499) shaking in its boots this holiday season. The Kindle Fire will hit on November 15, just in time for the shopping madness to begin.
Kindle Keyboard
Amazon will keep the last generation of Kindle in its lineup (at least for now), but has set the device off with a new naming scheme: the Kindle Keyboard. If you're partial to the darker color scheme or the physical keyboard, you've still got plenty of choice. The last generation Kindle comes in wifi and 3G flavors; the wifi-only Kindle Keyboard is $99 with Special Offers and $139 without, while the 3G-capable version sells for $139 and $189, respectively.
Starting at 8.5 ounces, this version is a bit heavier and a bit bulkier in terms of dimensions (7.5" by 4.8"). The Kindle Keyboard is available now on Amazon. To read more about the device, read our guide to the last generation of Kindle. Note: Amazon will also let the Kindle DX stick around. The Kindle DX is the company's oversized, textbook-friendly e-reader with a 9.7" screen and a price tag of $379.
This article originally appeared on Tecca
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