Royston Chen asked:




Finally, Kindle 3 is officially launched on 28 July 2010 for ordering. With Kindle 3 being the latest kindle, it is to outbeat its competitors including iPad, Ereader and The Nook in terms of the offered prices and features. Kindle 3 review will be shared here to compare its fantastic improvements over the 2nd generation Kindle 2.

Kindle 3 Size and Weight

Kindle 3 is really 21% smaller and 17% lighter than its former Kindle 2 family model. The 6″ display size still remain as it is even with this smaller form factor. This has greatly enhanced Kindle’s portability and to outshine against all of its other competitors in the similar category. With only 8.7 ounces in weight, Kindle 3 can be read comfortably with only one hand as it is even lighter than a typical paperback and slimmer than a magazine.

Kindle 3 Battery Life

Former Kindle 2 battery life is about 14 days without wireless connection. The new Kindle 3 has certainly pushed its battery life even further to a longer period of one month without wireless condition. In real reality, its battery life may be even longer than its official stated specifications.

Kindle 3 Screen Display And Size

This 3rd generation of 6″ kindle reader has the same improvement of over 50% contrast than any other e-reader for the optimum reading experience. Kindle 3 can be read with its latest, high contrast E-ink for the sharpest texts and images. With this latest display feature, the reading experience can be almost the same like reading on printed book. Its screen display is also sharper and more natural with no glare or backlight. Therefore, it is even more comfortable to read on Kindle than reading on a computer screen. Those who know Kindle 3 for the first time will love it at the first sight.

Kindle 3 Fonts

Besides having a better display quality, its proprietary font technology has also improved to make pages turn faster even with more sharper fonts. This better feature has led to the making of words and letters more crisp, clear and natural looking. Kindle 3 also comes with 2 additional font options of condensed Caecilia and Sans Serif. It can also allow a broader range of characters like Cyrillic used in Russian, Tajik, Bulgarian and dozens of other languages like Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Greek and etc.

Kindle 3 Storage, Wireless Connectivity And Price

Kindle 3 now has a bigger 4GB of internal flash memory for storing about 3,500 books. This is more than double of the Kindle 2′s storage capacity. Similarly to Kindle 2, it has eliminated external memory card storage. For Kindle 3 with both 3G and Wi-Fi option pricing at US$189, its faster 3G connectivity has removed the need for large internal buffer storage. It can now also take advantage of its neighbouring 3G Wi-Fi hotspots for quicker download speed and to download stuffs without telco coverage. For Kindle 3 with only Wi-Fi option, it only cost US $139 and 0.2 ounces lighter to match the expectation of budget conscious book readers.

Other Kindle 3 Features

Kindle 3 has the similar social features for supporting Facebook and Twitter integration. It also gets voice-accessible menus along with text-to-speech feature to make Kindle a fully accessible device that can be used in a classroom.

Troy Richards asked:




It is now undisputed that e-book readers will one day replace paperback books. This revolution is spearheaded by Amazon’s Kindle a couple of years ago. The Kindle was the best-selling digital book reader since its launch and shows no sighs of waning in its popularity. Early this year, Amazon released the highly anticipated follow up to the highly successful Kindle, the Kindle 2. The new model not only features many improvements in function and design, but also a whole new host of applications.

To date, no digital book readers in the market come close to rival the popularity of the Amazon Kindle. But if you have to pick the best alternative to the Kindle 2, it will have to be the new Sony PRS-700 e-book reader. Since the launch of Kindle, Sony has worked very hard to grab a market share with the launch of the Sony PRS e-book reader series. Here is a quick look at how well these two popular models fare against each other.

Pricing: The price of a product is always one of the biggest factors in influencing a decision to purchase something. At the time of writing, the Kindle 2 costs $359 while the Sony PRS 700 cost $399. Although not a great price difference, the $40 gives Amazon’s model a slight edge over Sony’s model.

Features:The new model from Amazon feature tones of new features. One of my favorite new features is the dictionary function. Just glide the cursor over a particular word and the meaning automatically shows up in a pop-up box. There is no dictionary function in the Sony PRS model. Nevertheless, Sony’s reader does have some features not found on the Kindle 2. For example, it has LED backlighting that allows you to read in the dark. In totality, although the Sony reader does have some unique features, Amazon’s model has much more functions that are not found on any other digital book reader (e.g. free wireless capabilities through Whispernet, Wikipedia access etc).

Battery Life: Both these models have similar battery life spans. On a single charge, both models can last up to two weeks (with the wireless function off).

Storage: The Kindle 2 has 2 gigabytes of built in memory, while the PRS 700 only has 256 megabytes. Nevertheless, the Sony model supports memory cards and can handle up to 16g of memory.

Design: The Kindle 2 has a white casing with soft, rounded corners. The Sony PRS on the other hand, sports a black casing with hard and squared edges. Amazon’s reader has a little keyboard below the screen and a 5-way controller for easy navigation. Sony’s reader large depends on its touch screen to access the various functions. I personally prefer Amazon’s design. It has a sleek ‘cool factor’ to it and the strategically placed buttons adds to the convenience of use. It seems that the designers at Amazon gave the design a lot of thought compared to Sony’s designers.