Today in Los Angeles, Amazon announced a new brighter, sharper e-ink Paperwhite Kindle. The device features a Lightguide frontlit display with fiber optic lighting, runs at $119 and ships Oct 1st.
Additionally, the company has announced a free 3G-connected model that will run at $179 and a new $69 Kindle which replaces the original, low-end Kindle.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that the front-lighting makes the display feel more like ambient light than a back-lit LCD display. It’s 9.1mm thick and 7.5 ounces. The lighting doesn’t affect battery life either, as it gets 8 weeks on a charge even with the light on.
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This is a direct capacitive touch screen as well, so it’s quicker to react to input. Every font has been adjusted to fit the display perfectly, allowing for smaller sized type as well.
The backlight is adjustable using an on-screen menu and appears to have many steps available to it. There is alo a new ‘Time to Read’ feature that tracks your reading speed and tells you how much time you have left to read your chapter or the book.
Here is the full spec sheet:
Kindle cuts
Over the past year and a half, Amazon has sliced $30-$50 off of its various kindle models, which start off at $79 with a basic ad-supported model. Just recently, the Kindle touch devices went out of stock, leading many to start speculating about their replacement. Amazon has been working towards making the Kindle free for some time now, using advertisements on the lock screen of the device to subsidize its very low cost.
You can follow all of our Amazon coverage for the day here. You can also check out our roundup of everything you need to know about today’s event.
Image Credit: Xabier Cid
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