Today, Amazon announced the newest generation of Kindle, its popular e-reader.
As hardware is wont to do, the newest version of the Kindle has become smaller and lighter while retaining its 6-inch reading area. Contrast on the screen has improved by 50%, and page turns are 20% faster. Storage on the device has doubled, and battery life is up to an entire month. And for you type geeks, new custom fonts and hinting on the device mean that words and letters will be more crisp, clear and natural-looking.
What more consumers will be interested in, however, is the price on the WiFi-only version of Kindle: a cool $139, which undercuts Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader by $10.
Kindle with 3G wireless connectivity will still retail for $189, and Kindle’s larger, newspaper- and magazine-oriented DX model is selling for $379.
The new devices will ship to customers in more than 140 countries and 30 territories starting on August 27.
We last saw some significant Kindle price cuts in June, when the device’s price tag dropped $70 from $259 to $189. At the time, we chalked this move up to a price war with the Nook, which is Kindle’s closest competitor in terms of price and features. Although the iPad is competing with e-readers for consumer dollars and is a popular hypothetical choice among this blog’s readers, single-purpose e-readers are priced to win this particular battle.
And Kindle’s not doing too badly in terms of selling e-books, either. One author has already sold a million copies of his novels in the Kindle Store. And Amazon says their Kindle editions are now outselling their hardcover books.
Given the low new price of the WiFi-only Kindle, would you be more inclined to purchase this device, either for yourself or as a gift, than you would have been previously? Ultimately, do you think consumer demand is broad enough to continually support both tablets and e-readers indefinitely, or will the does-it-all functionality of tablets win out in the long run?
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