Kindle Touch 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display – includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers
Kindle Touch 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display – includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers
Top-of-the-line e-reader, with touch and free 3G wireless – Free 3G wireless, no annual contracts or monthly fees – Download books anywhere, no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots – 3G wireless works globally – Most-advanced E Ink display, now with multi-touch – New sleek design – 8% lighter, 11% smaller, holds 3,000 books – Text-to-speech, plus audio books and mp3s – Massive book selection, over 800,000 titles are .99 or less – New – Borrow Kindle books from your public library
List Price: $ 149.00
Price: $ 149.00
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A Solid Successor to the Kindle Keyboard,
For my review, I’m going to focus it on the differences between the previous Kindle Keyboard, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display – includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers (which I’ll refer to as the K3), and the Kindle Touch (KT)
USE – As far as the reading experience, I really like the touch compared to the physical buttons on the previous generation. At first I was worried that I would constantly be turning the page from accidentally touching the screen, but this didn’t become much of an issue. The screen is broken up into mapped sections, so if you touch the far left side that covers about 1″ of the left of the screen, it goes to the previous page. If you touch anywhere on the other 80% of the screen beside that, it goes forward. Touch the top 1″ margin, and it will bring up the menu. There is also a physical button on the bottom of the touch that serves as the Home button and will take you straight to the Home menu. The area where I found the touch most useful is the dictionary. Previously, if I wanted to look up the definition of a word, I had to use the clunky joystick to navigate through the text. If a word was at the very bottom at the end of the sentence, sometimes I’d usually just ignore it rather than go through the trouble of pressing that joystick 15 times. With the Touch, I can simply touch the word and hold it down for about 1.5 seconds (so it knows I’m not trying to turn the page) to access the dictionary, which is incredibly useful and time-saving. Underlining phrases and highlighting works almost the same way. You hold down the first word in the sentence, then after two-three seconds it will recognize what you are doing, and then you drag your finger across the rest. I never used to do this before but now I do it all the time. The Kindle Fire actually handles the dictionary search much better. Though this is probably one of the only things the Fire does better than the Touch as far as ebooks. When you swipe your finger across the page or drag it down to change, the page changes just like it did with the Kindle Keyboard, in that it draws the next page. So there is a very short flash. It does not seamlessly and fluidly switch like it does with an iPad or what you would expect if you scrolled your mouse down a web site. This doesn’t detract from it at all for me. There is a new X-Ray feature that you can click on to bring up more ideas and common features of the book, but it is apparently only available on select titles and none of my books had it so I couldn’t try it out.
Form Factor – Even though the changes are fairly small, they feel significant. The KT is only .1″ less width, and a little over half an inch shorter than the K3, but after several hours of using it, I feel like I can hold it longer with one hand than with the K3. I think the main contributor to this is that this Kindle is one ounce lighter than the K3. This is a very noticeable difference from the K3. One ounce adds up after hours of holding it in front of you with one hand. I never had a real problem holding the previous version, but this one seems even easier.
Real Page Numbers – the K3 only displayed a percentage of the book completed or some weird “location” setting that I never understood. The KT displays the actual page number, regardless of what zoom setting you have it on. This is a big improvement for me, especially after I realized how difficult it is for them to be able to do this. This does not work on every book, but most of the popular books I have checked it with have it.
Book Lending – This is another huge improvement and just another reason to make the jump from regular books to a Kindle. You can finally lend your books to other people with Kindles. You can lend a book only once, and only for 14 days. I am okay with that because I understand the need to curb piracy. My only problem is that the book has to be eligible for this option and so far, most of the books in my collection aren’t.
Display – Same as before on the K3, with a few improvements. The short flash that you get when turning the page (although I never really notice it) while the Kindle loads up the next page, occurs less frequently. This makes the Touch feel a lot more like a real book. Even though the display is monochrome, the KT delivers very crisp black and white images, and renders photos and images very well. I have tried out the Kindle Fire as well, but I still prefer the Kindle Touch due to E-Ink, which I think looks much better than backlit text, especially since I like to read for 4-5 hours at a time. Reading in the sunlight with E-Ink compared to a backlit screen is no contest. It is the difference between night and day (pun intended). Newspapers, magazines, and PDFs all look better on the Fire though…
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|A worthy upgrade over other Kindles!,
Customer Video Review Length:: 9:09 Mins
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|Kindle Touch 3G is NOT a 3G Web Browser—A PUBLIC SERVICE REMINDER,
Before I do my Touch review I just want to mention something VERY IMPORTANT for prospective buyers. The Kindle Touch 3G only allows free 3G web browsing for Wikipedia and the Amazon store. The experimental browser does not work on the Touch via 3G for other websites and for checking e-mail and the like. You need a Wi-Fi connection for that.
The facts about the 3G not being useable for web browsing has been discussed to death on the Kindle forums and many, many other websites since September 28. However, many people are still not aware of this. Amazon has not sent out any e-mails about this or clearly explained this limitation on it’s product description page.
I chose the 3G because I do a lot of extended traveling where I do not have a Wi-Fi connection. This 3G version allows me to buy books, apps and use Wikipedia to look up information whenever and from wherever I am. If you want the Touch for it’s easy interface and can wait until you are at a Wi-Fi hotspot or on your home network, save yourself the $50 and buy the $99 Touch Wi-Fi.
See first comment for website links about restricted web browsing.
UPDATE 11-25-11: If you bought a Kindle Touch or Fire and aren’t real happy with it, don’t be in a big hurry to send it back(unless you’re asking for a replacement). You have until Jan 31 to return it. In the meantime you can still enjoy it through the holidays and beyond. I have a Touch and a Fire right now and if I decide against the Fire that certainly isn’t going back until sometime after Jan 18th. We’re having too much fun with it! This would apply to the $79/$109 Kindle as well is you bought it more recently. You can check your recent orders to see how long you return window is.
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