The first thing that concerns me is the price point for the vanilla Kindle. In the US it's priced at $79, whereas in the UK it's priced at £89 Sterling. Now I'm no exchange-rate guru or anything, but this stinks to high heaven. Of course it's relatively cheaper than the previous incarnation, but still it sticks in the craw a little. Perhaps they think we're all richer than the Americans?
UPDATE: The US cheapo (relatively speaking) version has ads in it, but they can pay to have one without ads, and judging from my browsings the UK version has no ads by default, so the price is more understandable now.
My next main concern is the actual touch screen of the Kindle Touch variants. I think perhaps Amazon gave into peer pressure a little in implementing this, I mean everyone is doing it these days, so why not Amazon? I however liked the fact that the Kindle was different originally, that the screen was different and it was clearly a well thought-out device aimed at book readers - it was ergonomically sound. What's so wrong with having the page turn buttons at the side of the device, where your thumb already is as you hold it? Now instead of this effort-saving work of genius you need to actually move to turn the page. Maybe I'm being petty, but surely they thought of that when designing it?
So maybe a touch screen is useful in some situations, but why remove the buttons altogether? Why not give people the option of not smudging up their screen with greasy fingerprints after the bagel melt they just had in the cafe whilst sitting down to read the latest hulking SF novel on their Kindle?
On another note the keyboard has disappeared from all variants. This may help in terms of size and aesthetics but at the cost of usability. I don't much fancy trying to type stuff in with the directional pad, Xbox-style, but the unit is nice and small.
On the plus side they haven't gone down the backlit route, their 3G is still free and the screen size remains the same. One caveat - how about a non-touch version with 3G?
Why why why? Always why?
It just seems a little bit like Amazon has lost sight of what they want Kindle to be. A touch screen screams to me to be the next step toward yet another tablet device - and yes, I do know they are bringing out one of those as well in the Kindle Fire - into an already overburdened marketplace. I don't want Kindle to be another tablet - I want it to be the different thing that it was. I like my Kindle 3 with the navigation buttons and the keyboard. I like the fact that it's just different.
Then we have Kindle Fire, possibly Amazon's answer to not yet having colour e-ink. You can now read kids books and graphic novels in lovely colour...on a screen. Yeah. It is however relatively inexpensive in comparison to other tablets of similar capabilities - the Nintendo DS of the tablet world, and look how well it did.
If I were to get any one of these variants I would get the vanilla non-touch version, but right now that seems like the only option in the UK. However I think I will stick with my Kindle 3 for now. Damn the future!
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