Amazon Introduces Four New Kindle Models, Including Color Version
SEATTLE—Sept. 28, 2011—Amazon is excited to introduce an all-new Kindle family: three Kindle eReaders that are smaller, lighter and more affordable than ever before; and Kindle Fire, a new class of Kindle that brings the same ease-of-use and deep integration of content to movies, TV shows, music, magazines, apps, books, games and more.
“We’ve now reached the magical two-digit price point for Kindle—twice: the new Kindle and Kindle Touch are only $79 and $99. Kindle Touch 3G is the new top of the line eReader with free 3G—no monthly fees or annual contracts—and is only $149,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Kindle Fire brings together all of the things we’ve been working on at Amazon for over 15 years into a single, fully-integrated service for customers.
“With Kindle Fire, you have instant access to all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, the convenience of Amazon Whispersync, our revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser, the speed and power of a state-of-the-art dual-core processor, a vibrant touch display with 16 million colors in high resolution, and a light 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand—all for only $199. We’re offering premium products, and we’re doing it at non-premium prices.”
New Latest Generation Kindle—Fits In Your Pocket—Only $79
The new latest generation Kindle is for readers who want the lightest, most compact Kindle at an incredible price. The latest generation Kindle features a new design that is 30 percent lighter at just 5.98 ounces, 18 percent smaller, and turns pages 10 percent faster. Kindle is now small and light enough to fit easily in your pocket and carry with you everywhere, yet it still features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.
The new latest generation Kindle is only $79 and is available starting today.
New Addition to the Kindle Family—“Kindle Touch”—Only $99
Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes—still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch is also lighter, smaller, eliminates battery anxiety with extra-long battery life and holds thousands of books.
New “X-Ray” Feature
Amazon invented X-Ray, a new feature that lets customers explore the “bones of the book.” With a single tap, readers can see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics that interest them, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon’s community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers. Amazon built X-Ray using its expertise in language processing and machine learning, access to significant storage and computing resources with Amazon S3 and EC2, and a deep library of book and character information. The vision is to have every important phrase in every book.
The new Kindle Touch is only $99 and is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order with shipments starting Nov. 21, 2011.
New Top of the Line Kindle eReader—“Kindle Touch 3G” —Only $149
Kindle Touch 3G is a new addition to the Kindle family for readers who want the top of the line eReader. It offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch—small and light, easy-to-use touch screen, storage for thousands of books, and extra-long battery life—with the convenience of free 3G. Kindle’s free 3G connection means you never have to hunt for or pay for a Wi-Fi hotspot—you simply download and read books anytime, anywhere in over 100 countries around the world. Amazon pays for the 3G connection so there’s no monthly fee or annual contract.
The new top of the line Kindle Touch 3G is only $149 and is available to customers in the U.S. for pre-order with shipments beginning on Nov. 21, 2011.
All Kindles have instant access to the Kindle Store with the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. Millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle devices, and Kindle customers can now borrow Kindle books from their public library. Kindle books are “Buy Once, Read Everywhere”—on Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G, Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PCs, Mac, Android phones and tablets, BlackBerry, Windows phones, and web browsers with Kindle Cloud Reader.
All three new Kindle eReaders also come with special offers and sponsored screensavers that appear when you’re not reading. Customers enjoy special money-saving offers delivered wirelessly sponsored by AT&T, the Dove beauty brand and Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card by Chase. Kindle eReader customers will also receive special offers in their own backyards from AmazonLocal, Amazon’s local deals marketplace with discounts on local services, products, and experiences. Customers can also choose to purchase a Kindle without special offers and sponsored screensavers.
New Class of Kindle—“Kindle Fire”—Only $199
Kindle Fire puts Amazon’s incredible selection of digital content at your fingertips:
• Over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video.
• Over 17,000,000 songs from Amazon MP3.
• Over 1,000,000 Kindle books, including thousands of bestsellers, children’s books, comic books and cookbooks in rich color.
• 100 exclusive graphic novels.
• Hundreds of magazines and newspapers—including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Wired, Elle, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan and Martha Stewart Living—with full-color layouts, photographs, illustrations, built-in video, audio and other interactive features are available from the new Kindle Fire “Newsstand.”
Cloud-Accelerated Web Browser—“Amazon Silk”
The Kindle Fire web browser Amazon Silk introduces a radical new paradigm—a “split browser” architecture that accelerates the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud. The Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).
With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity, and cached content. The result is a faster web browsing experience, and it’s available exclusively on Kindle Fire. To see a video about Amazon Silk, go to www.amazon.com/silk.
Simple and Easy-To-Use
Amazon designed the Kindle Fire user interface from the ground up to make it easier than ever to purchase, manage, and enjoy your digital content. Just like with Kindle eReaders, Kindle Fire comes automatically pre-registered to your Amazon.com account so you can immediately start enjoying your digital content purchased from Amazon or shop for new content. All of your digital content is instantly available to enjoy and manage with a simple, consistent experience across all content types.
Free Cloud Storage
Just like Kindle eReaders, Kindle Fire offers free storage for all your Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud. Amazon digital content is automatically backed up for free in the Amazon Cloud’s Worry-Free Archive where it’s available for re-downloading anytime.
Brilliant Color Touchscreen
Content comes alive in rich color on a 7-inch full color LCD touchscreen that delivers 16 million colors in high resolution and 169 pixels per inch. Kindle Fire uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology—similar technology as used on the iPad, for an extra-wide viewing angle—perfect for sharing your screen with others. In addition, the Kindle Fire display is chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, which means it is incredibly durable and will stand up to accidental bumps and scrapes.
Fast, Powerful Dual-Core Processor
Kindle Fire features a state-of-the-art dual-core processor for fast, powerful performance. Stream music while browsing the web or read books while downloading videos.
Free Month of Amazon Prime
Right out of the box, Kindle Fire users will experience the benefits that millions of Amazon Prime members already enjoy—unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of over 11,000 movies and TV shows with Prime Instant Video and the convenience of Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of items from Amazon.com.
The all-new Kindle Fire—with all the content, Amazon’s revolutionary cloud-accelerated browser, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, brilliant color touchscreen, and a fast and powerful dual core processor—is only $199. Customers in the U.S. can pre-order Kindle Fire starting today and it ships Nov. 15, 2011.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.
Source: Amazon.