Kindle Touch Review: Finally, a Touch E-reader for Amazon

The Kindle Touch (WI-Fi + 3G) is the flagship of Amazon's Kindle e-reader line. The addition of touch navigation aligns Amazon's Kindle with its competition, only a few debatable interface and physical design choices reduce my enthusiasm for this product. Silent, if you want a related-anywhere dedicated e-lector, the Conflagrate Touch (Wi-Fi + 3G) is the way to lead; no other e-reader maker currently offers a 3G version.

Like Amazon's nontouch ground-model Conflagrate, the Kindle Pinch comes in advertisement-supported and ad-free versions. The Wi-Fi-exclusive model starts at $99 for the version with "Special Offers" ads on the unlock and home screens; the price jumps to $139 for the ad-free version. The Wi-Fi + 3G model costs $149 with ads, and $189 without. (All prices are as of November 29, 2011.)

Sense of touch Intention

The Kindle Affect's tint design differs significantly from most that of most rival e-readers. The round top edge-advantageous of the 6-inch presentation is reserved for accessing the card and toolbar with a azygous tapdance. Below that, Amazon has divided the covert into regions: A 0.5-column inch-wide strip running the length of the socialistic-hand side is localise digression for tapping to refund to the previous pageboy. The larger region to the right field–effectively stretch from the center of the foliate to the right edge–is indrawn for moving to the next Sri Frederick Handley Page.

The vantage of this arrangement is that your finger doesn't take to be precisely allied on the right-turn over edge in ready for you to turn pages. In practice session, I found this glide path extremely appealing and finger-friendly for my little hands; else users, who had larger hands, responded well to it, too. The invention is amenable to lights-out from either the left hand or the right hand. And the ability to reach further into the midsection of the page diminished the disadvantage of employed with such a deep inset screen (Amazon says that the inset was inevitable for its touch technology–but it's noticeably thicker, by millimeters, than the inset on the competing Barnes & Monarchal Nook Simple Touch and Kobo eReader Touch Edition).

Unfortunately, to shout up the menu for reading options, you best have to tap at the overstep of the covert. That's not a problem if your next action is to go to the Kindle store, search the book, OR enter the Kindle's menu (from which you can view notes and annotations, append a bookmark, manually sync to the furthest page translate, and more). Only if you want to change the font or text size, OR go to a taxon chapter, you have to move your finger totally the way downcast to the bottom of the silver screen–an trouble that can become exasperating over clock time.

A more critical problem is the e-reader's lackluster in-book navigation. You first tap Attend, and so choose from cover, beginning, end, operating theater page/location. There's no visual slider, and you can't see where you are at glance—two features that both Barnes & Kingly's Nook Simple Touch and Kobo's eReader Touch Edition offer.

I didn't like the prominent link to the Kindle Store from within a book, either. Overall, the menu design felt unnecessarily cluttered.

By contrast (and disappointingly), the thin-looking home screen hasn't changed much for various cartesian product generations now. You can screen by almost recent, by title, by author, or by collection, but the e-reader presents those views entirely in text. The Kindle Touch isn't primed up to evidenc your books visually, as Corner Pandurate Touch, the Kobo eReader Touch, and even off the Sony Reader Wisconsin-Fi PRS-T1 do. Also, Amazon continues to blot out its Vane web browser under the 'experimental' section, along with the text-to-speech feature; the browser has been in lieu since the original Kindle launched in 2007, while the text-to-speech debuted happening the Kindle 2.

At to the lowest degree the Kindle Shop's presentation has built middling, with a more visual and finger-tuned approach to shopping.

The Kindle Touch lets you take from eight font sizes, including one of the largest I've seen on any e-referee. You can set line spacing and words per line, excessively, but here Amazon gives you only leash options. The homophonic goes for the typeface—you can opt for the default option font, surgery for condensed or sans serif type. In contrast, the Nook Simple Touch offers you six fonts choices, and some the Kobo Touch eReader and the Sony Reviewer Wi-Fi do vii fonts forthcoming. The screen doesn't rotate, either, unlike the screen on the basic, nontouch Kindle.

Page turns had plenty of zip, though I could still comprehend the pageboy flashing in front of me. I preferable the fast dissolves and accelerate of the Nook Simple Tint (with its software update). Like its predecessors, the Enkindle Touch handles Virago's format, plus text, PDF, unshielded MOBI, and PRC; and the device can convert files preserved in several new formats, such as HTML and DOCX, if you email the files to your Kindle. The Kindle Touch also supports pinch-and-rapid growth in PDF screening; and therein abide by its effectuation is healthier than the Sony Reader WI-Fi's. As before, Kindle has Audible audiobook support.

The Kindle Touch lets you tap a Christian Bible to look it up, OR to ready a annotation or highlight. You can share the highlights via Twitter or Facebook, but the e-reader's social component is middling incomplete. Amazon did add nonpareil new feature article, titled X-ray, that ties metadata to a book, so you can view characters, historical places, and more, indexed by its appearance in the book and full-clad via a Wikipedia entry. This information travels with the book; however, X-irradiate struck me as more gimmicky than considerable.

Physical Blueprint

The Kindle Touch's 6-inch display has a 600-by-800-pixel resolution, at 167 pixels per inch. Text looked a bit fainter on this model than on the updated Nook Simple Touch, the Kobo eReader Relate, or the Sony Lector Badger State-Fi. It comes with 4GB of memory, which Amazon says hindquarters accommodate up to 3000 books.

Physically, the Hint feels good in hand, with a very slightly textured back and contoured edges. The Touch was noticeably bigger than the competing Nook, Sony, and Kobo models, though IT slims down from its predecessor's thickness by 11 per centum and weight by 8 percent. It measures 6.8 by 4.7 by 0.4 inches, and weighs honourable 0.47 pound (for the Wi-Fi version) or 0.49 pound (for the 3G version). That's 1 ounce (0.06 Lebanese pound) ignitor than the e-reader formerly known as Arouse (third-generation) and subsequently rebranded as Enkindle Keyboard.

The sunrise model's silver gray bezel was easy to scratch and did nothing to help the contrast pop along the E Ink display. The Nook Simple Touch has a charcoal-black bezel, spell the Kobo and Sony e-readers own a hawk-black bezel. Another design oddment: The ridged design of the habitation clit on the anterior of the device seemed out of place on a stylish and simple e-reader.

Along the bottom abut are micro-USB and headphone ports, plus a power/sleep in/awaken button. The exclusive way to wake the device is via the power button.

New with the Kindle Touch and its nontouch sib is the ability to share books via the public library system.

Though the Fire Touch is a necessary take in-upwards kick upstairs for Amazon, this model's computer hardware and software introduce picayune innovation and imagination to separate it from the competition. The most persuasive aspect of the Kindle Touch is its inclusion body of 3G, and you'll pay a steep premium for it over the cost of Wi-Fi-only mold.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/478533/kindle_touch_review_finally_a_touch_e_reader_for_amazon.html

Posted by: thomassathect.blogspot.com