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2011 Holiday Gift Guide: Amazon Kindle Fire

Amazon Kindle Fire

We continue our 2011 Holiday Gift Guide with the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. This is the Amazon tablet we've been waiting on for months, and it's has finally shipping. Amazon's looking to disrupt the tablet landscape with the Fire, and is pricing it aggressively at $199. The Kindle Fire weighs 14.6 ounces and packs a 7-inch IPS display, dual-core processor, 512 MB RAM, and 8 GB of on-board storage. It runs a forked version of Android that Amazon has prettied up in a major way. You also get Wi-Fi built-in as well.

Purchasers of the Kindle Fire also get a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime, which'll let you get a nice sampling of what the company's Video on Demand service offers. Other services you can access from the Fire include Amazon's Android Appstore, Kindle books, a host of magazines, Cloud Drive, Cloud Player, and the Amazon MP3 service.

You can pick up a Kindle Fire now for $199 on Amazon.

Read More | Amazon Kindle Fire

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Nook Simple Touch Reader price slashed to $99, battery life doubled

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Software

Nook Simple Touch Reader

In addition to announcing the Nook Tablet this morning, Barnes and Noble also announced that the Nook Simple Touch Reader would be seeing an immediate price cut, taking the cost of entry to $99 (down from the previous $139,) putting it right in line with the Kindle Touch that's set to launch later this month. That's not all, though. The Simple Touch Reader will also be getting a software update that'll result in doubled battery life, along with page turn speed doubling as well. All previous purchasers of the Simple Touch Reader will also get the update, as it's software based, not hardware. You can buy the Simple Touch Reader now.

Read More | Nook Simple Touch Reader

New Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader set for November 7

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds

Nook Color 2 event

Looks like Barnes and Noble is set to release some new Nook hardware on the heels of all the new Amazon Kindle goodness that's been all the rage in the e-reader world lately. It all goes down a week from today, and we expect to see a new Nook Color, but also wouldn't be surprised if the Simple Touch Reader got a facelift as well.


Amazon Kindle 3.3 update details

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Software

Amazon Kindle 3.3

While Amazon prepares to ship out the Kindle Fire, it has quietly released a significant software update to the Kindle Keyboard, which expands cloud storage support for personal documents.

The Kindle Keyboard Software Update, Version 3.3, adds four key features:

  • The ability to store personal documents to your Kindle, for viewing anytime and on any supported Kindle app or device.
  • Whipersync for personal documents. This automatically synchronizes your last page read, bookmarks and annotations for personal documents, not including PDFs.
  • Kindle users can now purchase, view, and redeem AmazonLocal deals straight from their Kindles.
  • A Voice Guide shortcut: you can now quickly turn on Voice Guide, which reads aloud menu options and content listings, by holding the Shift key and pressing Spacebar.

Click to continue reading Amazon Kindle 3.3 update details


Amazon Kindle Fire sells 95,000 units on day one

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Handhelds

Amazon Kindle Fire

Amazon and retail partners took 95,000 pre-orders for the first Amazon tablet, the Kindle Fire tablet on its first day, according to a digital marketing firm.

That's about a third of the 300,000 first-generation iPads Apple sold on its first day, but still impressive given Amazon is only shipping the Kindle Fire on November 15.

On Wednesday, Amazon launched its first and long-awaited tablet, the Kindle Fire, for $199. Though it won't be released until November, Amazon and select retail partners, like Best Buy, began taking pre-orders and expect to to have the product shipped out in time for the holidays.

Pre-sales of Amazon's three other Kindles launched this week, the $70 original Kindle, $99 Kindle Touch, totaled approximately $25,000 units.

Click to continue reading Amazon Kindle Fire sells 95,000 units on day one


Unboxing Live 074: Amazon Kindle (2011)

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Handhelds, Videocasts

We give you a first-hand look at the newly updated Amazon Kindle. The company just announced a new family of Kindle for the holidays, one of which started shipping immediately. We were able to get our hands on one of the new $79 Kindle ebook readers, and we hit you with an unboxing of the unit in this episode, along with some thoughts on the look and feel of the device.

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Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader is an Apple-circumventing HTML5 browser app

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Internet, Software

Kindle Cloud Reader

Amazon on Wednesday unveiled its Kindle Cloud Reader, an HTML5-based reading app accessible via the Web.

The feature is accessible at amazon.com/cloudreader and provides access to e-books through the browser, offline and online, with no downloading or installation required, Amazon said. Cloud Reader will automatically sync with other Kindle apps, allowing you to start reading on the Web and pick up on an iPhone or Kindle, for example. Books that you are reading will automatically be made available for offline use.

At this point, Kindle Cloud Reader works with Safari on the iPad and desktop and Google's Chrome.

Click to continue reading Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader is an Apple-circumventing HTML5 browser app


Bleeding Edge TV 386: Nook Simple Touch Reader

We talk to Michelle Warvel, the Barnes and Noble Nook User Experience and Design Lead at GDGT Seattle. Michelle talks to us about the new Nook Simple Touch Reader, the first real mainstream touchscreen e-ink ebook reader to hit the market, shows how it all works, and then tells us about how they settled on the unique shape and design of the Simple Touch Reader product. We will have more videos from the GDGT event.

Big thank you to Carbonite and JackThreads for sponsoring the show - be sure to check them out! Carbonite offers off-site backup of your computer, and you can get two free months (no credit card needed!) by visiting Carbonite and using promo code TPN. As for JackThreads, we've got exclusive invite codes that give you $5 to use towards anything you'd like.


Nook Simple Touch Reader unveiled, aims sights at Kindle

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds

nook simple touch reader

Today, Barnes & Noble unveiled their revamped Nook e-reader, which they are calling the Simple Touch Reader.

The $139 device is available for pre-order immediately and will be in stores on or around June 10 at Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Walmart, and Staples.

The Android-based, e-reader measures 5 x 6.5 inches and weighs less than 7.5 ounces, which is 35 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than the first Nook. During a New York launch event, B&N CEO William Lynch promised the "longest battery life of any e-reader," or up to two months on a single charge, and 80 percent less flashing on the 6-inch touch screen; the white-out that occurs when flipping pages. There is 50 percent less contrast than the first-edition Nook.

The device has built-in Wi-Fi and will feature 2GB of onboard storage, expandable up to 32GB with microSDHC. It runs Android 2.1 and a 800MHz TI OMAP3 processor.

Click to continue reading Nook Simple Touch Reader unveiled, aims sights at Kindle

Read More | Nook Simple Touch Reader

Amazon working on two Android tablets, codenamed “Coyote” and “Hollywood”?

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Handhelds, Rumors

Amazon coyote hollywood tablets

Rumors that Amazon well be releasing a Kindle tablet are looking a bit more clear, with a report saying that the company is actually working on two different tablets, according to Boy Genius Report.

An entry-level tablet codenamed Coyote will be powered by Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 mobile platform, while a more powerful device codenamed Hollywood will sport Nvidia's upcoming quad-core "Kal-El" chip, the website reported Monday, citing a "tipster."

The source did not provide screen-size details, according to BGR.

The processor details put the theoretical release of the rumored Hollywood tablet at no earlier than the second half of 2011. Nvidia's Kal-El upgrade to its Tegra lineup isn't expected to be released until then.

Kal-El promises a significant boost to Tegra. The System-on-a-Chip (SoC) for mobile devices like tablets and smartphones boasts a 1.5GHz, quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 central processor and a 12-core Nvidia graphics processor that's purported to deliver five times the performance of the GeForce GPUs in the Tegra 2 SoC.

Click to continue reading Amazon working on two Android tablets, codenamed “Coyote” and “Hollywood”?


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