Kindle is our #1 bestselling item for two years running. It’s also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon. Now it's even better.
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Kindle at a Glance
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E-Ink 101: Compare Kindle's Screen to Traditional LCDs | ||||
How Electronic Ink WorksElectronic ink screens work using ink, just like books and newspapers, but display the ink particles electronically. People who see the display for the first time do a double take because the screen looks like real paper. Reads Like Real Paper, Not a Computer ScreenKindle's electronic ink display is ideal for reading because it does not create the same eyestrain as reading on traditional backlit LCD tablets or laptops. Clearer Text and the Sharpest DisplayElectronic ink uses actual ink to create crisp, print-like text similar to what you see in a physical book. Kindle's proprietary, hand-built fonts take advantage of the special characteristics of the ink to make letters clear and sharp. No Glare, Even in Bright SunlightKindle's screen reflects light like ordinary paper, eliminating the glare created by backlit LCD displays on tablets or smart phones. Kindle can be read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room. Longer Battery LifeElectronic ink screens require no power to maintain a page of text, allowing you to read for up to a month on a single charge versus hours on a tablet or smart phone. This low power consumption also means that Kindle, unlike a laptop, never gets warm so you can comfortably read as long as you like. Read Before Bed Without Affecting SleepAccording to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, sleep experts say that reading on closely-held backlit screens before bed inhibits melatonin production, which is critical for a good night's sleep. "The take-home lesson is that insomnia and electronic gadgets emitting light should not [be] mixed before bedtime...Kindle is better for your sleep." |  Fonts on Kindle's ink-based display looks smoother and more natural than an LCD display. 
 Kindle lets you read for up to one month on a single charge versus hours on a tablet or smart phone. What Customers Say About Kindle's Electronic Ink Display"My first impression of Kindle's screen was: 'That's a screen?! It doesn't look like a screen.'... It looks like a book page, only perfect. No grain or pulp."—Jeremy "I love how the screen really looks like a page, because I do work at a computer all day, and the last thing I want to look at is another screen."—Amy P "I found the contrast to be soothing and I was able to read in direct sunlight with no glare."—M. H. | |||
Kindle Comparison
Kindle (Wi-Fi) is a great choice if you already have a high-speed internet connection and wireless router set up in your home and do not need the added convenience of a 3G connection. 3G enables you to download books anytime, anywhere, while on the go. If you do not have Wi-Fi set up in your home, Kindle 3G may be a better option. Kindle 3G (Free 3G + Wi-Fi) is the easiest option because there is no wireless setup—you are ready to shop, purchase, and read right out of the box. Built-in Free 3G connectivity uses the same wireless signals that cell phones use, but there are no monthly fees or commitments—Amazon pays for Kindle’s 3G wireless connectivity. The added convenience of 3G enables you to download books anytime, anywhere, while on the go—without having to find a Wi-Fi hotspot connection. With wireless coverage in over 100 countries and territories, Kindle 3G is a great option for travelers. Check 3G coverage area. See How the Latest Kindle Compares to the Previous Generation
Founder Jeff Bezos Discusses the All-New Kindle Features All-New Design Lighter & Thinner - Only 8.7 Ounces When reading for long periods of time, we know that weight matters. That’s why we worked hard to make our newest Kindle lighter than ever – only 8.7 ounces – so you can read comfortably for hours with just one hand. Kindle is lighter than a typical paperback, and thinner than a magazine. Just a third of an inch in profile, Kindle fits perfectly in your hands. Ergonomic Design Kindle is easy to hold and read. We designed it with long-form reading in mind. When reading for long periods of time, people naturally shift positions and often like to read with one hand. Kindle's page-turning buttons are located on both sides, allowing you to read and turn pages from any position. The new soft-touch, textured back is comfortable to hold and never gets hot in your hands. Never Gets Hot Unlike a laptop or tablet, Kindle never gets hot so you can read comfortably as long as you like. Simple to Use, No Computer Required Unlike most electronic devices, we wanted to keep Kindle simple. Kindle is wireless and ready to use right out of the box – no setup, no software to install, no computer required. Long Battery Life - Up to a Month Battery Life of Up to One Month A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off. Keep wireless always on and it lasts for up to ten days. Battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as shopping the Kindle Store, web browsing, and downloading content. In low-coverage areas or in EDGE/GPRS-only coverage, wireless usage will consume battery power more quickly. Charge Via USB Kindle ships with a U.S. power adapter and a micro-USB cable for charging your Kindle from a computer USB port. The U.S. power adapter supports voltages 100V-240V. Get Books in 60 Seconds Whispernet utilizes Amazon's optimized technology plus a high-speed data network to enable you to wirelessly search, discover, and download content on the go. Your books and periodicals are delivered via Whispernet in less than 60 seconds. Wireless download times can vary based on 3G or EDGE/GPRS coverage, signal strength, and file size. See wireless coverage map for availability. No Monthly Wireless Bills or Annual Contracts No monthly wireless bills or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so you won't see a monthly wireless bill. There is no wireless setup – you are ready to shop, purchase, and read right out of the box. See Wireless Terms and Conditions. Your Kindle may use wireless connectivity to make other services available, such as wireless delivery of personal documents, which may require an additional charge. For more information, see Wireless Terms and Conditions. Global 3G Coverage Travel the globe and still get books in under 60 seconds. Kindle uses GSM technology—the most popular mobile wireless standard - with wireless coverage in over 100 countries and territories, such as Australia, Hong Kong, Germany, Japan, Norway, Spain, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and many others. Stay in touch with news from home by having your newspaper and magazine subscriptions delivered wirelessly while you travel. See wireless coverage map for availability. For U.S. customers traveling abroad, additional charges apply for wireless delivery of periodical subscriptions. For details, click here. To avoid any charges, you can always download items via your computer and transfer them to your Kindle using USB or a Wi-Fi connection. New, Built-In Wi-Fi Kindle automatically detects nearby Wi-Fi networks at school, home, or your favorite café. At a hotel or café that requires a password? Simply enter the password and connect to the network. Once you have added a Wi-Fi network, Kindle will automatically connect to that network the next time you’re near the hotspot. Kindle does not currently connect to enterprise or peer-to-peer networks. Free Access at AT&T Hotspots Enjoy free Wi-Fi access at AT&T hotspots across the U.S. for shopping and downloading Kindle content — no AT&T registration, sign-in, or password required. Carry Your Library in 8.7 Ounces Holds up to 3,500 Books The ultimate travel companion, Kindle weighs 8.7 ounces and holds up to 3,500 books. No longer pick and choose which books fit in your carry-on. You can always have your entire Kindle library with you. Worry-Free Archive Delete with abandon. We automatically keep an archival copy of your Kindle books—-re-download for free, anytime. We even back up your last page read and annotations, so when you re-download to the device you can pick up where you left off with all of your notes still in place. Please see more information about your library content. Collections Organize your Kindle library into collections, or categories, to easily access any book you are looking for. You can add an item to multiple collections to make organizing and finding titles even easier. For example, you can add the same book to your "History" and "My Favorite Authors" collections. Reading, Revolutionized Lose Yourself in Your Reading The most elegant feature of a physical book is that it disappears while you're reading. Immersed in the author's world and ideas, you don't notice a book's glue, the stitching, or ink. Our top design objective is to make Kindle disappear — just like a physical book — so you can get lost in your reading, not the technology. Paper-Like Screen with 50% Improved Contrast Our latest Kindle uses Amazon's all new, high-contrast E Ink screen with 50% better contrast, for the clearest text and sharpest images. With our new display, text "pops" from the page, creating a reading experience most similar to reading on printed paper. Sharp and natural with no glare or backlight, reading on Kindle is nothing like reading on a computer screen. Those who see it for the first time always do a double-take. New Proprietary Screen Technology - Faster Page Turns, New and Improved Fonts Kindle’s new, high-contrast display is further optimized with Amazon’s proprietary waveform and font technology to make pages turn faster and fonts sharper. Waveform is a series of electronic pulses that move black and white electronic ink particles to achieve a final gray level for an image or text. We have tuned Kindle's waveform and controller mechanism to make page turning 20% faster. This waveform tuning, combined with new hand-built, custom fonts and font-hinting, make words and letters more crisp, clear, and natural-looking. Font hints are instructions, written as code, that control points on a font character's line and improve legibility at small font sizes where few pixels are available. Hinting is a mix of aesthetic judgments and complicated technical strategies. We've designed our proprietary font-hinting to optimize specifically for the special characteristics of electronic ink. Read in Sunlight with No Glare Kindle's screen reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlighting, eliminating the glare associated with other electronic displays. As a result, Kindle can be read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room. Adjustable Text Size Kindle has eight adjustable font sizes to suit your reading preference. You can increase the text size of your favorite ebook or periodical with the push of a button. If your eyes tire, simply increase the font size and continue reading comfortably. Now every ebook in your library can be large print. New Font Choices Kindle now has three font styles to choose from - our standard Caecilia font, a condensed version of Caecilia, and a sans serif option - so you can change your font style along with the font size. Screen Rotation Manually rotate the display from portrait to landscape to view maps, graphs, tables and Web pages. Newspaper Reading Using Kindle's 5-way controller, you can quickly flip between articles, making it faster and easier to browse and read the morning paper. Want to remember the newspaper or magazine article you just read? Clip and save entire articles for later reading with a single click. Newspapers are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle before they hit newsstands. Sharp Display of Images and Photos Kindle's high-resolution screen boasts 16 shades of gray and 50% improved contrast, for the sharpest text and images. Support for Non-Latin Characters Kindle can now display Cyrillic (such as Russian), Japanese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Korean characters in addition to Latin and Greek scripts for certain file types. To view your personal documents with non-Latin characters on your Kindle, send your file as a Microsoft Word document (DOC) attachment to your Kindle's e-mail address ("name"@free.kindle.com). The file will be converted to Kindle format and sent to your Kindle via the Wi-Fi connection and also to the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account at no charge. See more details about Kindle’s Personal Document Service via Whispernet here. Loading TXT files containing non-Latin characters over USB is currently not supported as some characters may not display properly. Full Image Zoom Images and photos display crisply on Kindle and can be zoomed to the full size of the screen. Precise 5-Way Controller Kindle has an easy-to-use 5-way controller, enabling precise on-screen navigation for selecting text to highlight or looking up words. No on-screen fingerprints. Search, Annotations, Dictionary, and Wikipedia Search Kindle's keyboard makes it easy to search within an ebook, across your library, in the Kindle Store, or even the Web. To use the Search feature, simply type in a word or phrase you're looking for, and Kindle finds every instance in your ebook or across your Kindle library. Looking for the first reference of a character in your ebook? Simply type in the name and search. You can extend your search to the Kindle Store to find related titles you may be interested in. Explore even further by searching Wikipedia and the Web. Web access is not currently available for some customers outside the U.S. Check your country. Bookmarks and Annotations By using the QWERTY keyboard, you can add annotations to text, just like you might write in the margins of a book. And because it is digital, you can edit, delete, and export your notes. You can highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use. You'll never need to bookmark your last place in the ebook, because Kindle remembers for you and always opens to the last page you read. Share Meaningful Passages Share your passion for books and reading with friends, family, and other readers around the world by posting meaningful passages to social networks like Facebook and Twitter directly from Kindle, without leaving the page. Want to post or tweet about a great new novel or newspaper article? When you highlight or create a note in your book or periodical, you can easily share it with your social network. Help your network of family and friends discover new authors and books. Popular Highlights See what our community of millions of Kindle readers think are the most interesting passages in your books. If several other readers have highlighted a particular passage, then that passage will be highlighted in your book along with the total number of people who have highlighted it. Now it’s easier to review, remember, and learn more from the books you read. Learn More. Built-In Dictionary with Instant Lookup Never get caught without a dictionary. Kindle includes The New Oxford American Dictionarywith over 250,000 entries and definitions, so you can seamlessly look up the definitions of English words without interrupting your reading. Come across a word you don't know? Simply move the cursor to it and the definition will automatically display at the bottom of the screen. Never fear a sesquipedalian word again - simply look it up and keep reading. Wireless Access to Wikipedia Kindle also includes free built-in access to the world's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org. With Kindle in hand, looking up people, places, events, and more has never been easier. It gives whole new meaning to the phrase walking encyclopedia. Carry and Read Your Personal Documents Improved, Built-In PDF Reader Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go. With Amazon's Whispernet service, you can send your documents directly to your Kindle and read them anytime, anywhere. Now you can add notes and highlights, use the dictionary look-up, and read password-protected PDFs. You can also magnify PDFs by viewing them in landscape mode, and zoom into any area of a PDF up to 300% and pan to easily view small print and detailed tables and graphics. You also have the option to have your PDF document converted to the Kindle format so that it reflows. Learn More Personal Document Service Via Whispernet Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you, eliminating the need to print. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address. You can set your unique e-mail address on your Manage Your Kindle page. This allows you and your approved contacts to send Word, PDF documents, and pictures to your Kindle via Whispernet for a small fee—see details. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX), PDF, HTML, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files. Some complex PDF and DOCX files might not format correctly on your Kindle. To avoid any charges, you can always download personal documents via your computer and transfer them to your Kindle using USB or a Wi-Fi connection. Learn more Password Protection With new password protection functionality, you can choose to lock your Kindle automatically when you’re not using it. The Kindle Store - Over 725,000 eBooks, Plus Newspapers, Magazines, and Blogs You can search and shop the Kindle Store wirelessly right from your Kindle, allowing you to click, buy, and start reading your purchases in 60 seconds. The Kindle Store offers the same great Amazon.com customer experience you're used to, including customer reviews, personalized recommendations, and low prices. We auto-deliver your selections wirelessly, so the next time you hear about a great book, just search, buy, and read. Over 725,000 eBooks We are fortunate that we have tens of millions of book customers at Amazon, and as a result, we know the books customers want to read and we prioritize getting those titles. With over 725,000 titles, the Kindle store contains the largest selection of the ebooks people want to read including 107 of 111 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list. Our vision for Kindle is to have every book ever written, in every language, available in 60 seconds from anywhere on earth. We have worked with publishers to get the most popular ebooks you want to read. Low eBook Prices Of the 725,000 titles available in the Kindle Store, over 550,000 are $9.99 or less, including 73 current New York Times® Best Sellers. For non-U.S. customers, content availability and pricing will vary. Check your country. Over 1.8 Million Free, Out-of-Copyright, Pre-1923 titles Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 ebooks are available to read on Kindle, including titles such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, andTreasure Island. Learn more Read First Chapters for Free No need to judge a book by its cover. Kindle lets you download and read the beginning of ebooks for free. Sample a new author or ebook-–if you like what you read, simply buy and download the whole ebook with 1-Click, right from your Kindle, and continue reading. Sample length will vary by ebook. Kindle Store eBook Exclusives Along with new releases, New York Times® Best Sellers, and over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright titles, the Kindle Store also features many ebooks exclusive to Kindle. UR by Stephen King, The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey are just some of the digital titles you won't find in any other e-bookstore. Buy Once, Read Everywhere Our Whispersync technology synchronizes your Kindle library and last page read across your devices, so you can read a few pages on your phone or computer and pick up right where you left off when you return to your Kindle. Experimental Features The experimental category represents features we are still working on to enhance the Kindle experience even further. Try them out and let us know what you think. Read-to-Me With the Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read English newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book's rights holder made the feature unavailable. You can switch back and forth between reading and listening, and your spot is automatically saved. Pages automatically turn while the content is being read, so you can listen hands-free. You can choose from both male and female voices which can be sped up or slowed down to suit your preference. In the middle of a great story or article but have to jump in the car? Simply turn on Text-to-Speech and listen on the go. Voice Guide With Text-to-Speech, Kindle can read out loud to you. New Text-to-Speech enabled menus allow customers to navigate Kindle without having to read menu options. In addition to listening to ebooks aloud, users now have the option of listening to content listings on the home screen, item descriptions, and all menu options. To turn Voice Guide on or off, press the Menu button from your Home screen. Select Settings and then press Next Page to go to Page 2 of Settings. Select "turn on" or "turn off" next to the Voice Guide setting. New WebKit-Based Browser Kindle's new web browser is based on WebKit to provide a better web browsing experience. Now it's easier than ever to find the information you're looking for right from your Kindle. Experimental web browsing is free to use over 3G or Wi-Fi. The experimental web browser is currently not available for some customers outside the U.S. Check your country. Listen to Music & Podcasts Transfer MP3 files to Kindle to play as background music while you read. You can quickly and easily transfer MP3 files via USB by connecting Kindle to your computer. Buy Once, Read Everywhere Our Whispersync technology synchronizes your Kindle library and last page read across your devices, so you can read a few pages on your phone or computer and pick up right where you left off when you return to your Kindle.  Technical Details
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