The new Kindle Fire may have gotten most of the attention
when Amazon refreshed its Kindle lineup this year, but Amazon is still very
much in the e-reader market. The fourth-generation Kindle, the Kindle Touch,
and the Kindle Touch 3G all promise to deliver the traditional Kindle
experience in a lighter and less expensive package - continue reading for our
thoughts on the new $79 Kindle.
Hardware and Tech Specs
The new Kindle’s 6”, 600x800 E-Ink Pearl screen is basically
the same as the previous model’s, but that’s where most of the hardware
similarities end: the keyboard, a mainstay of all previous Kindles, has been
removed and replaced by four physical buttons and what Amazon calls a “five-way
controller,” a directional pad surrounding a button. Typing is now done using
this controller and an on-screen software keyboard, which I’ll complain a bit
about later.
For all the inconvenience of text entry, the keyboard’s
removal does noticeably reduce the Kindle’s size and weight - the new unit is
6.5” (166mm) tall, 4.5” (114mm) wide, and 0.34” (8.7mm) deep, and weighs just a
shade under 6 ounces, down from the 8.5 ounces of the previous model. As a
result, it’s comfortable to hold in one hand for most extended reading
sessions. Many promotional shots show it nestled in the back pocket of
someone’s jeans, which you can do, even though you feel like you’re
going to snap it in half when you sit down. Suffice it to say that it slides
easily into most bags, cases, and purses without issue.
On the inside, the Kindle is outfitted cheaply (to hit that
$79 price point) but well enough, given its intended function - the fine
folks over at Blog Kindle have done a very thorough, device-bricking
teardown of the Kindle so that we didn’t have to. The action is driven by a
Freescale i.MX50-series Cortex A8 SoC running at 800MHz, while an Epson
KCRE7000 E-ink display controller handles the visuals. An Atheros AR6103 chip
provides wireless b, g, and n Wi-Fi speeds of up to 72.2 Mbps on the 2.4GHz
band. 256MB of RAM from Hynix and 2GB of flash memory from Sandisk round out
the rest of the Kindle’s important chips.
All of this hardware is powered by a 890mAh 3.7 V battery,
which Amazon says is good for about a month, and while I haven’t had the thing
for a month I can say that this sounds about right - after a week of daily
usage, I’ve used about a quarter of the Kindle’s battery life. There’s no
charger included in the box, but the included micro-USB cable can be connected
to any computer or USB charger - the Kindle had no problem with my iPhone’s
charger, and I expect that most micro-USB chargers will work without issue.
Amazon also sells its
own branded adapter for $10.
The basic Kindle’s 2GB of storage space (which in practice
works out to be around 1.3GB after the system software) is half that of the
previous generation Kindle and the forthcoming Kindle Touch, though it’s
certainly as much as you need to store anything you’re actively reading.
Amazon’s cloud storage lets you archive anything you’re not reading, and you
can re-download it to your device in short order if you’ve got a Wi-Fi
connection.
Aside from Amazon’s .AZW format books, this Kindle supports
TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, and PRC files natively. HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF,
PNG, and BMP files can all be viewed after being converted by Amazon or another
program. You’ll notice that there are no audio files on this list - the low-end
Kindle doesn’t support audio in any way, so audiobooks, the “read to me”
text-to-speech feature, and music are incompatible with it. The Kindle Touch
will include audio support when it launches in November, and the Kindle
Keyboard (a rebranding of the previous-generation device) continues to support
audio.
Plugging the Kindle into your PC puts it into USB drive
mode, where you can charge the device and move files into its flash memory. To
continue to charge the Kindle while using it normally, eject it from the
computer.
The Kindle comes in a simple, unadorned cardboard box with
“Kindle” emblazoned on the side. Open it up, and you’ll find the device and the
micro USB cable nestled in an all-cardboard enclosure that should be familiar
to anyone who has experienced Amazon’s “frustration
free” packaging - the lack of plastic makes it both easier to open and more
environmentally sound. A simple slip of cardboard tells you how to navigate
with and charge the Kindle, and there’s no other manual in sight.
source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4988/amazon-fourthgeneration-kindle-review
by Andrew Cunningham
http://www.buyetail.com
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