Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Amazon has responded to the Nook’s release quickly – Kindle’s Nook response includes consolidating Kindle 2 into one line (the international Kindle) and throwing in a $20 kindle discount, introducing a Kindle for PC Application with great use of multi-touch and Windows 7 Jumplists, and adding notes and highlights capability to Kindle for iPhone.

First Here’s a video covering two of the 3 big Kindle moves -

The Kindle for iPhone update went out either yesterday or day before (different people saw different things). Note that Kindle for PC won’t be available until November. You can sign up with your email address to get notified.

Kindle for PC – Great Video, Feature List

Here’s a great video showing all the goodness of Windows for PC (on Windows 7 – no jumplists or multi-touch on XP and Vista) –

Wish more product videos were as clear as this and focused on the product like this one is.

Here are the good features -

1. WhisperSync to synchronize your bookmarks and place in the book. Notes are currently not supported.
2. 360K books in the US. Varies by Country.
3. Access all the books you’ve bought previously and view notes and highlights you made previously (you can’t add notes and highlights on Kindle for PC though – only bookmarks).
4. 10 Font Sizes.
5. Supports XP, Vista and Windows 7.
6. Mac Support in a few months.
7. Shop and Browse the Kindle Store – including free samples. Blogs, Magazines and Newspapers are NOT available at the moment.
8. Create bookmarks (not notes yet).
9. Color Images and Color in general.
10. On Windows 7 – Support for Multi-Touch including Pinch and Zoom.
11. On Windows 7 – Jumplists. This is a really cool feature that saves a ‘Recently Reading Books’ list with the Kindle for PC icon. Combine it with the fact that Kindle for PC saves your place in the book and you’re set.
12. On Windows 7 – Turn pages with a swipe of your finger (coming soon - not in the first release).

Kindle for PC will be available in November.

For the Press Release -

“Kindle for PC is the perfect companion application for folks who own a Kindle or Kindle DX,” said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Kindle for PC is also a great way for people around the world to read the most popular books of today even if they don’t yet have a Kindle.”

Kindle for iPhone gets Notes and Highlights

Notes and Highlights were a much-needed feature for Kindle for iPhone – the lack of which had caused me to put Kindle for PC behind Stanza in my iPhone Reading Review post.

Here is what we get -

1. Press and hold down on a word to get the option to add a Note or a Highlight.
2. When held down, you can change what text is selected.
3. The Notes and Highlights show up in your Notes and Marks list (earlier it was just bookmarks).
4. It’s a simple, well done feature.  
5. The Kindle for iPhone page at Amazon isn’t updated yet with the new feature. However, it works.

Kindle Discount and One Kindle

Amazon discounted the International Kindle by $20 to $259 and phased out the Kindle US Wireless. You can still get Kindle US as a refurbished Kindle for $219.

Both good moves – It was confusing to have a Kindle US and a Kindle US and International – especially as the difference was solely the global wireless support Kindle International had. It’s also good to move the price down to $259 – so much better than $279, and it matches the Nook’s price.

Amazon claim that great sales of the international kindle led to the consolidation and the lower price – Yeah Right .

Kindle vs Nook is making things great for reading and readers. Kindle’s response to Nook is really good for readers in general and Kindle owners in particular, and this is just the first 2 days.

Filed under: eBook Reader Devices, kindle Tagged: | kindle for pc, kindle nook, kindle vs nook