Hasta La Gadget!

At Amazon’s press conference today in Santa Monica, the company is unveiling new devices, but to help sales along through the range, it’s also dropping the price of at least one of the old ones.

The older, $79 Kindle is getting discounted by $10 and picking up a new name and a few other extras in honor of the occasion. It is now called “The $69 Kindle.”

This makes it the cheapest device yet in the Kindle range of e-readers and tablets.

Shipping from September 14, it will feature improved page turns and more fonts.

The announcement was made as CEO Jeff Bezos introduced a line of new devices. No word on how the current stock has sold yet, although some wider proclamations made on the current state of the market:

“Last year there were more than two dozen Android tablets launched into the marketplace, and nobody bought them,” said Bezos today.

The company has been notoriously quiet about giving hard numbers for how the Kindle has sold. In December last year, it revealed that it was selling all Kindles, including the Fire tablet, at a rate of over 1 million per week.

More to come.

The original is now $160. That’s absurd. But the real news is the new HD model—and its big brother. More »

Amazon has made the jump from small to big screens with its e-readers in the past, and its now done so again with its tablets. The company has just announced a new Kindle Fire HD with an 8.9-inch, 1920 x 1200 display (or 254 ppi). The device itself measures 8.8mm thick and weighs in at 20 ounces, and that high-res screen has a polarizing filter on it that promises to cut down on glare — the touch sensor is also laminated, which Amazon says offers better sharpness and contrast. As for internals, the Fire HD 8.9 (as Amazon has distinguished it) has a TI OMAP 4470 processor, dual speakers, a front-facing HD camera, and HDMI out. As the company is happy to point out, it’s also the first tablet with dual-band (2.4GHz, 5GHz) MIMO technology, which Amazon says makes the device’s WiFi 41 percent faster than the latest iPad. Look for it to run you $299 for the 16GB version when it starts shipping on November 20th. Those looking for some added connectivity will also be able to opt for a Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE for $499 (also shipping November 20th). That buys you 32GB of storage instead of the standard 16GB (a 64GB option is also available), and you’ll get 250MB of data per month from AT&T if you shell out an extra $50 a year.

But that’s not all, Amazon has also announced a smaller, 7-inch Kindle Fire HD that will run you just $199 (also for 16GB). It boasts most of the same specs as its larger counterpart, the big exception being the screen resolution — you’ll get 1280 x 800 here, which puts it on par with the Nexus 7. According to Amazon, you can expect 11 hours of battery life from the 7-inch model, but it’s curiously not offering battery details on the Fire HD 8.9. Pre-orders for all three options start today.

Continue reading Amazon announces 7 and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDs, pricing starts at $199

Filed under: Tablets

Amazon announces 7 and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDs, pricing starts at $199 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon isn’t content to limit its attention to hardware today. It just introduced Kindle Serials, a way of consuming a steady stream of content: buy once and you get all future issues of a text, with new segments appended to the old as they arrive. Only eight titles are available to start, but Amazon is promising a modern take on history by offering Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers for free, serialized the way they were many decades ago. Episodes will cost $1.99 a pop, which makes them tempting for readers who just want a small literary snack — and authors that want to start seeing income in weeks rather than months or years.

Follow the Amazon liveblog here!

Filed under: Software

Amazon intros Kindle Serials: buy once, get them all originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just as we were expecting, Amazon pulled the veil off the newest iteration of the Kindle today. Dubbed the Kindle Paperwhite, by far the most noteworthy feature about this new eReader is its display. With it, we’re seeing Amazon make a departure from the Pearl E Ink display it has used in previous Kindles and instead go for a white display that comes complete with a backlight.

That “Paperwhite” display lends to a number of improvements in the eReader field. Amazon says that the Kindle Paperwhite offers 25% more contrast, whiter whites and blacker blacks. The high-resolution screen provides 212 PPI and 62% more pixels, a significant improvement over Kindles from the past. Even better? Amazon says that the Kindle Paperwhite boasts a 8 week battery life, even with the light turned on the entire time. Any way you slice it, that’s pretty impressive.

Like most eReaders, the Kindle Paperwhite is pretty lightweight and easily portable. The entire unit sports a thickness of 9.1mm and a weight of just 7.5 ounces. It’s no surprise that Amazon has announced a new Kindle with a backlight – doing so lines it up to be a direct competitor with Barnes and Noble’s Nook Simple Touch with Glow Light – but these additional features and that sexy display might just make it the eReader to have this holiday season. Stay tuned for more news direct from Amazon’s Kindle press event!

Kindle Paperwhite arrives with backlit screen is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
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