For the first time ever, Amazon has appropriately priced one of their kindle devices. A keyboardless kindle with page turning buttons, $79, available today.

So far their misstep seems to be the introduction of multiple kindle models today. IMO, they should have had two only. Kindle Touch at $79 and Kindle Touch 3G at $149. Even better would have been a single model with 3G hardware at $79. But you'd pay the extra $70 to activate it and for unlimited services.

Regardless, I think while Amazon might have been the number 1 eReader seller (there's no definitive proof as far as I'm aware), this new product introduction is sure to put them there and/or keep them there by a wide margin.

It's also too bad the Kindle will serve you ads - and that Bezos touts this as a feature.

Now let's see if they release something in color to beat down the Barnes and Noble Nook.

EDIT: $199 for an LCD Kindle Fire as expected. No 3G radio on this model and no 3G option announced. This is going to hurt everyone else making 7-8" Android tablets. Not that those guys were moving any units anyway.

Only 8GB storage and no volume buttons. Works with Amazon's Android store, but only for Android 2.x apps.

Clearly a color ereader with some media capabilities, not a tablet computer.

Looks like $109, $139, and $189 for the eink Kindles without the special offer ads.

Still no ePub support, even on the Fire. My existing ebook library still can't move onto a Kindle natively.

Very interesting move though with the Fire. I do think this will be the first tablet to properly challenge the iPad in non geek circles. They have a good amount of content to offer, a well known name from the existing Kindles, and a CEO who isn't likely to kill the product a month after launch.

What will also be interesting to watch is the potential Android tablet fragmentation this brings. Honeycomb is still closed, meaning the Fire most likely is using the older open 2.x series versions of the OS. (I highly doubt Google would have certified the Fire and granted Amazon access to Honeycomb). Will app authors spend time making Honeycomb optimized tablet apps, and 2.x apps targeted at the Fire and Amazon store? Guess that will all depend on how well the Fire sells to end users.

The fact the original Kindles are still being marketed and at premium prices is another problem for Amazon.

If they really wanted to have multiple models, they should have divided only on eInk/LCD and 3G, making it 2 models if 3G was everywhere or 4 if not.

A $20 price point between the low end and the Touch model works more to fragment and confuse consumers rather than promoting the platform, IMO.

There's definitely no Honeycomb on the fire. There are also no Google apps as far as I know, as the UI is completely custom. Supposedly you can't tell it's Android at all for the most part. Which is a smart move, because frankly, the real Android experience sucks, especially if you want to offer this type of product.

The core question with the Kindle Fire is whether you can install apps from places other than the Amazon Store. This has important ramifications for security, among other things, since the Android Market moves updates instantly, versus the Amazon Store, which has humans in the loop.

If I was an Android developer, I'd be looking at the Fire and asking whether it was worth supporting, when Google is (presumably) going to be pushing hard to get everybody onto Ice Cream Sandwich, while Amazon is dragging behind with their proprietary Android fork.

Another issue that's only ever going to matter to the Slashdot crowd is that the new web browser, Silk, has the property that Amazon is your web proxy server and there's no way around it. Any web site you visit, whether SSL or not, will have its content visible to Amazon.

I expect Amazon to sell more Kindle Fire devices than any other manufacturer will sell Android tablets. From that perspective, yes, it does make sense to support it and get your app into the Amazon store.

I read someone comment that side-loading software would be allowed, but I haven't seen any official word. I would be surprised if it was, and I was fully expecting Amazon to make the devices compatible only with their own store. It doesn't make as much sense to allow side-loading since this is first and foremost a content delivery platform for Amazon. The content is what Amazon has over other random device makers.

Imagine Amazon coming out with a number of other devices also built on this OS. And all locked to Amazon's own app store and all with a completely Amazon-based UI, devoid of all native Google apps. Something closer to Apple and iOS. I can see such a platform doing well. Well enough to do more business than the other Android device makers. Enough business that Google might kick themselves in the ass for all the lost revenue.

The tech behind Silk seems likely to find it's way into a desktop browser.

Looks like we are getting stiffed here in the UK. Only the very basic model is available for pre-order. The other 2 versions they are offering appear to be the same old models. And I can't find info on the Fire anywhere on the .co.uk site.

I guess we will see it at some point down the line.

Cheers

Cris

So, if I wanted to buy a Kindle Touch while in the US, where would I go? Is it at all possible, or can it only be ordered from Amazon.com? I'd love to get a touch and I'll be in NY starting tomorrow for a week, but I'm afraid I may not have time to order one and get it delivered before I leave. Any physical store where I could get it?

You'll have to make another trip to the US in late November, because the Touch model won't be available before then.

But by the end of the year it should be available in Europe as well, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Speaking of the new Kindle, I decided to try the new OverDrive library support.

Houston Public Library does support it, so... free books! Unfortunately, the selection is poor, the web site is awful, and the delivery mechanism is clunky. You start at a web page like this (http://hadc.lib.overdrive.com/), then you "log in", which only requires typing a valid library card number. No password. You're then dealing with Overdrive's web site, which lets you query based on things like author or title, but there's none of the social filtering logic we're used to with Amazon (e.g., "people who like X also like Y"). When you find a book you do want, then if it's "checked out" you can ask for them to email you when it's available. ("Putting it on hold.") If a book is indeed available, you can check it out, which drops it into a shopping cart that expires in 15 minutes. Better hurry! When you finally check out, you're presented with a series of links that take you back to Amazon.com, where you can actually download the book to your Kindle.

I have to download the azw files and copy via the USB cable. (No 3G/cellular delivery is included with OverDrive and my 2nd-gen Kindle doesn't have WiFi.) Once I dropped the files on my Kindle, they just magically worked. So far as I can tell, the DRM support to auto-delete the books has always been in there.

Also, I was looking at prices on the new Kindles. It's interesting to see how they hit the $99 price point on the Kindle Touch. They include advertisements, as expected. Also notable, they don't include the power adapter! They'll be happy to sell you one for $10, while elsewhere on Amazon you can get USB power adapters for a fraction of that. I also suspect that the $29.99 sleeve is similarly overpriced.

The power adapter is just your standard AC-to-USB, which at this stage most people have a collection of.

I agree the user interface is clunky, I think my local region has ~2,500 books with rather low concurrent loans. You might want to check out the calibre e-book management tool.

... At twice the price, in €.

But still, out of curiosity, is Kindle available at any store, or is it only available line?

Best Buy appear to stock them linky

Sure. I just found it surprising that it's not included, and that the proper Amazon-branded accessory costs $10. Heck, they'll sell you an Apple-branded AC adapter for less than $5, never mind the cost of generics (which are visually indistinguishable from the Apple adapter).

Yup, $10 is steep for what it is.
During the setup process there is the option to de-registered it from the account it is registered, so if the one you sent you father is registered to your account it won't take much to reassign to his own. Over all getting it on wifi and ready to use is easy.

I must say I was quiet surprise at the resolution of the screen, clearly I've been living under a rock, as the K3 if not earlier are capable of displaying decent looking gray scale images. The new Kindle also turns the pages much faster than the K3 - based on briefly using a co-workers.

Time to load it up!

Huh?

Oops! Try replacing 'is' with 'if'.

They also have it at Staples, if anyone is interested.
But I decided to wait for the Touch to ne available.