Amazon's new Kindle review

Today I would like to tell you about the new Kindle e-book from Amazon. It's about the youngest model in the lineup - "Amazon Kindle". Why is she, and not her older Kindle Touch brothers or Kindle Touch 3G? Firstly, I do not consider the touchscreen a mandatory attribute of the e-reader. Perhaps even overkill. Secondly, on the touch versions there are no side buttons for paging the pages that I like so much in the third-generation Kindle. Third, with almost equal other characteristics, the “ordinary” Kindle is smaller in size than its touch-brothers. Well, and the last argument - at the time of this writing, my Kindle is on my desk, and the Kindle Touch is available only for pre-order.



In the course of the review, I will make small comparisons of the device with the previous generation Kindle version, since I have some experience of using it. By the way, now it is called the Kindle Keyboard.

Order and delivery

On October 3rd, I placed an order to purchase a new reading room, and an original cover with a flashlight. The fact that the cover is available only for pre-order I, to my dismay, noticed only at the final stages of the purchase. Amazon said that the book can be brought by October 20, and the cover only by November 17.



Traditionally, I was offered two ways of delivery. The first, “as soon as possible”, to send a book, then a cover, having paid both deliveries. The second, "the minimum number of parcels", wait until all the order names are available. I didn’t want to pay twice for the delivery, but I also didn’t have to wait for the book for the cover of a month and a half. However, I was lucky. Amazon sends its books and covers from different warehouses, so it’s impossible to send them in one package. And these are the problems of Amazon. So the order is sent in two parcels, but the fee is charged as one.

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In general, I confirmed the order and waited. A few days later my package was still in the "Not yet sent" state. I even began to wonder - how many times a day I need to update the page with the order status, so that the staff of Amazon noticed that I was really looking forward to my Kindle, and sent it to me quickly. And finally, on the 10th of the evening, my reader was transferred to DHL, and on the 13th of the morning, the courier brought it to my office.

Open, take in hand

The shape of the box is slightly different from the packaging of the previous version. The material of the box is the same stern brown packaging paper. The box opens as well, as before - by tearing off the perforated strip.







Inside the box is the device itself, a USB cable and symbolic instructions in several languages ​​in the same “harsh” brown cover.







So, the device is in my hands. The first thing you feel when you take the device in hand is that it is really small, thin, light. For the first few minutes I was afraid that I would crush him with my rake or drop it. But this feeling quickly passed. I hope that when the cover arrives, and the reader gets a little thicker in it, it will become even easier. Reader is made of a nice matte plastic, which is difficult to slap and easy to wipe. The case is solid, when pressing, twisting and other loads, any squeaks are absent, all the gaps between the parts are minimal.



In the Kindle Keyboard, a full qwerty keyboard looked very impressive, and was pleasant to the touch, but most people I know used it only to type a wi-fi password. The new Kindle lost its keyboard and became even smaller, while the screen diagonal remained the same.







On the front side of the Kindle is a joystick and four buttons. “Back” to return to the previous state / menu, “Keyboard” to display / hide the on-screen keyboard (you must enter the password for wi-fi), “Menu” to display the menu, and “Home” to return to the list of downloaded books .



On the sides of the reader there are buttons for turning the pages, like on the Kindle Keyboard. They became a little more careful, and at first glance it seems that they can be pressed from the side, but this is not so. On the Amazon website there are many photos showing a book in the original cover. Looking at them the suspicion creeps in that, perhaps, in this form, using the paging buttons will become less convenient. We'll see when the cover arrives.



At the bottom of the new Kindle micro-USB connector and the power button. Yes, now it is the button, not the slider, like the Keyboard. It has not yet decided whether this is good or bad, but definitely not so original.







More on the body of the device there are no controls. Only on the back side of the bottom flush with the case there are two square-shaped contacts. Accurately find information about them I could not. But, since the same things are visible on the Kindle Touch photos, I’m pretty sure that they are intended to power the flashlight in the cover.



The most attentive, probably noticed that this version of the device has no speakers, and a rocker volume control. Now you will not listen to music. The corresponding item is removed from the menu.

Turn on

"Cold" inclusion lasts about 1-2 minutes. The first thing I was asked to confirm the link to the account Amazon. Immediately after sending from the USA, the Kindle bought already appeared in the list of my devices, and Amazon offered to buy books from his store in it. I politely declined, and received as a gift a Kindle user manual in several languages, and several Oxford English dictionaries.



As before, there are two ways to load books into the device. The first is via a USB cable, like a regular USB flash drive. The second is using email. After linking the device to your Amazon account, you are given the opportunity to choose a mailbox name in the domain kindle.com. By sending letters with attached books to this address, you will be able to receive these books to your Kindle using a wi-fi connection.







Compared to the Kindle Keyboard, the firmware has hardly changed. From the main menu, everyone also suggests synchronizing the device, turning wi-fi on / off and, of course, purchasing from the Kindle Store. As mentioned above, the opportunity to listen to mp3 was removed. The browser stayed. There are no portraits of writers on the lock screen now. Now there are stylish photos on typewriters and pencils.



After surfing the menu, and downloading books, you can begin to use the reading room for its intended purpose, actually reading. The device got the screen from the Kindle Keyboard, 6 "E Ink Pearl. However, it immediately catches the eye that the pages began to turn over much faster than before! There is a side effect typical for e-ink - on the background you can make out very pale remnants of the text of the previous page, but when immersed in an exciting book it does not interfere.







While reading, with the help of a joystick, you can select the text and create a note for it, or just mark this fragment for the future. If dictionaries are recorded in the reader, then when you place the cursor on any word, you can see its translation or definition.

Overall impression of the device

I like it! For me, this is one of those devices that I want to pick up again and again, to try to touch. I want to read from it, with every page enjoying the speed of its work. The new Kindle is beautiful, thoughtful, neat and quality. I am completely satisfied with my choice. It will, of course, be interesting to twist in the hands of the touch version, but I doubt that even then my opinion about the device will change a lot. A good choice for a low price.



By the way, about the price. Amazon offers the new Kindle for $ 79 “With special offers” and $ 109 “Without special offers”. In the first case, in some modes of operation, a banner will be displayed at the bottom of the screen with advertising for Amazon products and promotions. Delivery to Kiev by DHL costs about $ 20 and took 3.5 days.



Lastly, I’ll give a table with Kindle specifications taken from Amazon.com

Screen	6 "800x600, 16 shades of gray
Dimensions	166mm x 114mm x 8.7mm
Weight	170gr.
Internal memory	2GB
Battery	1 month without Wi-fi, 3 weeks with Wi-Fi
Charging time	about 3 hours with the included USB 2.0 power cord
Wi-Fi	802.11b / g / n
USB Port	USB 2.0 (micro-B connector)
Supported Formats	Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC; HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion
Warranty	1 year
Contents of delivery	Kindle USB 2.0 Cord, quick start guide