Hasta La Gadget!

Today you’ll be digging your fingernails into your kneecaps with anticipation all the more readily as Amazon ships their Kindle Paperwhite device to stores across the USA. If you’ve ordered a unit beforehand, expect your device to be getting to your home either today or within the next couple of days without a doubt. If you’re thinking about getting an e-reader in the near future and have been thinking about grabbing a Kindle, now is the time – have a peek at our full Kindle Paperwhite review and check the details.

This release is what Amazon is calling the “most advanced e-reader built” and lets the world know without hesitation that they’ve got technology that’ll back up their claim. In our full review, you’ll find that Cory Gunther had a fabulous time taking a peek at how this device functioned. In addition to this device having a free 3G connection at all times in 100 different countries around the world, it’s got advanced display technology that brings your reading experience up to a new level.

“Essentially what we have here is a front — or side-lit display — instead of a backlit screen that will strain your eyes after an extended period of time. What makes the new Paperwhite that much better than the Touch is not just the built-in light on the screen, but the 6-inch display has 62% more pixels (221PPI) with a 1024 x 768 resolution too. The screen looks better, text is crisp, vivid, and easy to read, and of course the light makes the reading experience top notch.” – Cory Gunther

This device will work with Amazon Prime for 210,000 books right out of the Lending Library, and of course the full Amazon e-book library is open to anyone who purchases the device – buy em up! This device also comes in a wi-fi-only iteration for a slightly smaller cost. The wi-fi version of this tablet will cost you $119 USD while the 3G version will run you $179. Expect these devices in stores this week – and again, if you’ve pre-ordered a Kindle Paperwhite, it’s time to start waiting by the mailbox!

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite ships today in USA is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you had told us at roughly this time last year that the e-reader race would be heating up going into the 2012 holiday season, we would have disagreed. If anything, 2011 seemed like the beginning of the end. Spurred on by the tablet explosion, companies like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and even Kobo were looking toward that space for inspiration, introducing flagship devices on which reading was just one of many features. Heck, even the readers themselves started to look more tablet-like, with many abandoning of physical keyboards in favor of infrared touchscreens.

But here we are at the end of September, and this product category has never been more exciting. Back in May, Barnes & Noble captured our hearts and midnight reading marathons with the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, a wordy name for a great little device that made reading in bed at night a little easier. (A problem, according to Barnes & Noble, that was tearing the country’s families apart.) But don’t let it be said that Amazon doesn’t believe in the American family. Earlier this month, the company launched the Kindle Paperwhite, the latest addition to a product lineup that has more or less become synonymous with the term “e-reader.”

At that launch event, CEO Jeff Bezos described the four years of R&D that went into the front light technology powering that bright screen. It was clear from our hands-on time with the device that, although Amazon is placing extra emphasis on the Fire line these days, it still has a lot invested in the e-reader fight. The sharpened, illuminated text is impressive, and Amazon has gone so far as to describe this as the Kindle it’s always wanted to build. That’s all well and good, but how does it compare to similar offerings on the market? Is this worth the $119 asking price (with ads)? Let’s find out.

Continue reading Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Sep 2012 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon‘s impressive new Kindle Paperwhite is set to launch in just a couple of days, but Barnes and Noble has decided that its going to put up a fight. Both Target and Walmart are showing that the price of the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight has been cut just ahead of the Paperwhite’s launch. The new price of the Nook GlowLight? $119, the same price that Amazon has given the basic Paperwhite model.

Of course, one of the biggest differences between the Paperwhite and the Nook GlowLight is that the Paperwhite will show you “special offers,” which is just fancy PR talk for “advertisements.” In order to banish the advertisements from your Paperwhite, you’ll have to pay a fee. The Nook GlowLight doesn’t show any advertisements, and now that Barnes and Noble has brought the price down to match that of the Paperwhite, it might be able to steal some sales away from Amazon.

This doesn’t look like a limited time promotion either – Target’s ad says that the Nook GlowLight’s price has been cut, rather than saying that it’s merely on sale or that this is a special offer. It’s worth pointing out, however, that Barnes and Noble’s own listing for the Nook GlowLight still shows a $139 price tag (as does Target’s online listing – only the in-store ad shows a price of $119), so it’s possible that Walmart and Target are just bringing their prices down to move some units quickly before the Paperwhite arrives. One thing is certain, however: if you’ve been waiting to pick up a Nook GlowLight, now is the time to buy.

That’s especially true when you consider that Amazon won’t be shipping new Paperwhite orders until near the end of October. Demand is apparently so high that Amazon had to push the ship date for new orders back to October 22, but whether that’s because of sheer popularity or a component shortage is unknown. Whatever the reason, this shipping delay should allow Barnes and Noble to net a few extra Nook GlowLight sales now that the eReader is sporting a lower price tag at some retailers.

[via CNET]

Nook GlowLight gets a price cut as Paperwhite launch approaches is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s Friday once again folks, with most of you already enjoying the weekend. Today, the iPhone 5 launched in 22 additional regions around the world, setting Apple’s plan to have it in over 100 countries by the end of the year on track. Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized for the sad state of Apple Maps today (recommending some other Maps apps in the process), and we took a closer look at his words in a new column. Even more surprising is the fact that the iOS App Store now features a download page specifically for other Maps applications.

All of you Apple dissenters will definitely want to watch the iPhone 5 get destroyed by some powerful lasers, and Sharp reassured today that it’s making plenty of iPhone 5 screens, which are rumored to be the bottleneck on production. Today we got a closer look at the vibrator inside the iPhone 5, and learned that it costs less than $1 to charge your iPhone for an entire year. Microsoft has assured that it has tested Windows 8 thoroughly ahead of next month’s launch, and it seems that Kodak will soon be dropping out of the inkjet printer business.

Google now lets YouTube creators re-download their movies in their original format, and the FCC has approved an auction to reclaim broadcast TV spectrum. HP has launched Open webOS 1.0, and Amazon gave us a little video detailing the technology behind the Kindle Paperwhite. Good news for all of you Call of Duty fans: Modern Warfare 3 is free-to-play on Steam this weekend, and there are rumors floating around that HP will soon be jumping back into the mobile market.

Microsoft was spotted lamenting the lack of highly skilled technology workers today, and Notch is refusing to certify Minecraft for Windows 8, despite Microsoft’s requests. For the first time ever, Instagram has beat Twitter when it comes to daily mobile users, Sony has invested $640 million into slowly dying camera company Olympus, and a new BlackBerry 10 video gives us our first look at RIM’s new QWERTY device. Finally tonight, Chris Davies takes an up-close look at RIM’s Q2 results, which were posted yesterday, while Chris Burns has a new review of the movie LOOPER, starring Bruce Willis and Jason Gordon-Levitt. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy your weekend everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: September 28, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Amazon has released a video showing their team of engineers that’ve worked on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite explaining the technology that makes it a top of the line device in the e-reader universe today. What you’ve got here is sharpness and brightness enough to view in many conditions – but it’s more than that. Because it’s not optimal to look at a book with the area around the letters shining brightly directly into your eyes, the Kindle crew here has turned the whole show on its head, shining light from the side of the screen across it, down toward the display through a reflecting film layer just 0.5mm thin.

The light you’ve got here around the rim of the display is captured and reflected across the face of the area you’re looking at. This area is called the Light Guide – it’s nanoimprinted and acts like a fiber-optic cable, blasting light through itself and down towards the capacitive touch screen instead of up at your eye. The best LEDs the group could find for the job were chosen, the construction of the Light Guide was adjusted from tight to loose so that one light source could be used in an even manner, and the whole device was tweaked to perfection over the course of 8 years.

The 8 years timeframe has been mentioned several times, including by CEO Jeff Bezos, this being the amount of time that the company has researched and developed the Paperwhite technology. This reader is getting ready to hit the market early next month, our Kindle Paperwhite hands-on prepping you for the big drop coming up quick. This device takes what you know about e-ink and the ease in reading you’ve experienced in Kindle devices in the past and bumps the quality to a new generation.

This new technology works to keep your battery life long, the entire product is extremely light, and the whole product is taking on the e-reading universe in a completely different way than the Kindle Fire HD. Stay tuned for the final device review we’ll have right here on SlashGear before you know it! Have a peek at the timeline below for more information on the Kindle Paperwhite and get pumped for the final release in just weeks!

Kindle Paperwhite technology explained by Amazon in simple video is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.