gadgets

Millions of people are already reading on Kindles and Kindle is the number one bestselling item on Amazon.com for two years running. It's also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most five-star reviews of any product on Amazon.com.

The new Kindle uses Amazon's all-new electronic ink display with 50 percent better contrast for the clearest text and sharpest images. No other e-reader has this screen or this level of contrast. Unlike LCD screens, Kindle's paper-like display looks and reads like real paper, with no glare, even in bright sunlight.

Kindle's all-new, high-contrast electronic ink display is further optimised with Amazon's proprietary display, 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 grey level for an image or text. Amazon tuned the new Kindle's waveform and controller mechanism to make page turning 20 percent faster. In addition, 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. Amazon designed its proprietary font-hinting to optimise specifically for the special characteristics of electronic ink.

The new Kindle has a 21 percent smaller body while still keeping the same 6.0-inch-size reading area. At only 247 grams, the new Kindle is 15 percent lighter and still 1/3 of an inch thin, making it lighter than a paperback and thinner than a magazine. With Kindle you can read comfortably and naturally with just one hand for hours. The new Kindle Wi-Fi is even lighter at 241 grams.

With double the storage so you can carry up to 3500 books, the new Kindle has up to one month of battery life with wireless off. Keep wireless on and your Kindle will have battery life of up to 10 days. In addition to 3G wireless, Kindle now has built-in Wi-Fi support, so owners will now be able to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots at home or on the road.

At home, quieter page turns means you can read all night without disturbing your partner.

If you're feeling more sociable, share meaningful passages with friends and family with built-in Twitter and Facebook integration. The new Kindle uses a new web browser based on the industry-leading open source web browser engine, WebKit. The updated browser is faster, easier to navigate, and provides a new “article mode” feature that simplifies web pages to just the main text-based content for easier reading.

The new Kindle uses an improved built-in PDF reader with new dictionary lookup, notes and highlights, and support for password protected PDFs.

The all-new Kindle cover features an integrated, retractable reading light that lets you read comfortably anytime, anywhere. The light is a permanent part of the cover, so it's always with you, and hides away into the cover when not in use. The high-quality LED light illuminates Kindle's entire paper-like display, adding brightness without adding glare. Amazon’s patent-pending hinge system secures Kindle in place and conducts electricity from Kindle’s battery to the reading light, eliminating the need for batteries. The conductive hinges are gold-plated to ensure a reliable electrical connection. Gold is used because of its ability to make good electrical contact even with low force and for its corrosion resistance. The Kindle cover is sold separately.