Many people are thinking of whether to buy Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire. It’s true that you can’t decide unless a clear picture what are the similarities and differences in physical and technical specifications and contents available between two devices. Here I’m not looking at the similarities, rather differences so that the capability of two devices can be distinguished. I put my comments in the third column. However, I’m not going to suggest one over another. You better make your judgment.

After Amazon announced its new set of Kindles we didn’t hear anything from its competitors like B&N. However, it was well-known at that time that B&N will announce a new Nook Color in the early November. And now we know the announcement is coming on November 7. In preparation of that B&N is going to lower the price of Nook Color 1 according to some leaked Wal-Mart flyer. Now we have another leaked document showing Nook Touch is going to be sold at $99.

Amazon is selling Nook Touch wifi-only version at $99 which is ads supported. Now B&N says that the company can also sell the similar device at $99 without “annoying ads” support (see the picture). The original price of Kindle Touch wifi with ads support is $139. Amazon subsidizes $99 Kindle Touch with ads.

It seems now we are heading towards another round of device war to capture the market share. I’m not sure how B&N would be able to sell Nook Touch at $99 without making loss on device itself, and how Amazon will respond to such an announcement.

Another problem is Nook Touch is already in the market for couple of months. Kindle Touch is still at pre-order level. If Amazon makes any decision to cut the price in response now, then they company must sell it at new price to all pre-ordered customers. I guess this would be a great dilemma for Amazon.

Kindle Touch OR Nook Touch?
	The All-New Nook! The Simple Touch Reader jat BarnesandNoble.com!

Kindle Touch – both wifi and 3G – is expected to be released November 21, and a lot of people are excited to have multi-touch ereader from Amazon. While Amazon has added new features (with touch Kindles)like X-Ray (a new feature that lets customers explore the “bones of the book.” With a single tap, readers can see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics that interest them, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon’s community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers), and EasyReach (a new type of touch experience that eliminates the fatigue caused by continuously swiping to turn the page, and that allows readers to hold Kindle with either hand while still turning pages comfortably. With EasyReach, Kindle Touch users can effortlessly page forward in a book or a periodical while holding the device with either hand. Tapping on most of the screen area will page forward, the most common action done when reading; tapping in a narrow area near the left edge of the device turns to the previous page; and tapping on the top part of the screen brings up the toolbars for further options), the company took away one important feature called Voice Guide from the new Kindles. As you can see the screenshots of experimental features of Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch below, Voice Guide is missing in Kindle Touch.

Kindle Keyboard	Kindle Touch

Voice Guide is part of the Kindle’s software, not any hardware issue is related with it. Since Kindle has Test-to-Speech, it would be easily installed in the device without any additional costs. It is unknow and seems to be mysterious to take Voice Guide away from new Kindle Touch.

There are now five different variants of Kindle available on Amazon Kindle Store. While Amazon website has a great details regarding each models, they are not enough to compare the models so easily due to scattered information – little bit here, little bit there. I’ve tried to compile the information pointing to the differences between different models rather than similarities. This makes buying decision easy. I hope it will help you. If you’ve any question, please drop a line in the comment area. If I miss anything let me know. I’ll add that later.

*Amazon invented X-Ray, a new feature that lets customers explore the “bones of the book.” With a single tap, readers can see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics that interest them, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon’s community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers.
Amazon built X-Ray using its expertise in language processing and machine learning, access to significant storage and computing resources with Amazon S3 and EC2, and a deep library of book and character information. The vision is to have every important phrase in every book.

**Amazon invented a new type of touch experience that eliminates the fatigue caused by continuously swiping to turn the page, and that allows readers to hold Kindle with either hand while still turning pages comfortably. With EasyReach, Kindle Touch users can effortlessly page forward in a book or a periodical while holding the device with either hand. Tapping on most of the screen area will page forward, the most common action done when reading; tapping in a narrow area near the left edge of the device turns to the previous page; and tapping on the top part of the screen brings up the toolbars for further options. This is another way that Kindle helps readers get lost in the author’s world.

Amazon has enabled an option to remove the in-built advertisements from Kindles those are being sold “with special offers”. For example, you have purchased a new Kindle wifi at $79 with special offer. The ads are shown on the Home screen of the Kindle. They are not shown while you’re reading. However, you have decided to get rid of adds. The only way you can do it by going to “Manage Your Devices” page and unsubscribe from “Special Offers”.

However, you’ve to remember that you’ll be charged $30 additional once you do that since the price difference between ad-supported and non-ad-supported Kindle wifi is $30.

Here is the list of all Kindles that support special offers. The price differences are shown in the table. These differences are what you’ve to pay if you want to opt out in-built ads:

Kindle wifi………………………………………………. $109
Kindle wifi (special offer)…………………………… $ 79

Price difference………………………………………… $30

Kindle Touch wifi…………………………………….. $139
Kindle Touch wifi (special offer)…………………. $ 99

Price difference………………………………………… $ 40

Kindle Touch 3G……………………………………….. $189
Kindle Touch 3G (special offer)…………………… $149

Price difference………………………………………… $  40

Kindle Keyboard wifi…………………………………. $139
Kindle Keyboard wifi (special offer)……………… $ 99

Price difference………………………………………… $ 40

Kindle Keyboard 3G…………………………………… $189
Kindle Keyboard 3G (special offer)……………….. $139

Price differences……………………………………….. $ 50

Warning:

This process is not reversibale. In other words, once you opt out and ged rid of ads by paying extra fee, you can’t revert to the previous ad-supported model and get a refund. So be decisive whether you want to do that.

[kindlethis]

Amazon store has now at least 6 Kindles to choose from: 5 e-ink Kindle, 1 Kindle Fire Tablet. For a new Kindle enthusiast it’s sometimes hard to figure out which Kindle is more appropriate given some variations in design, interface, connectivity, functionality.

Here we ask you five questions, you answer them, and we’ll suggest you which one best for you. You don’t have to share your email addrerss with us. No information is saved on our database. You can take the test as many times as you want. Just reload the page, and do it again.

We call this KIndle Choice Tool.

If you’ve any question, please let us know in the comment area.
[wp-simple-survey-1]

[kindlethis]

The rule is simple:

• you can have a touch screen 3G Kindle for the price of 3rd generation 3G Kindle now with only $10 difference. There is definitely no reason to buy a touch screen 3G Kindle unless some strong fascination for physical keyboard.
• If don’t need 3G service, then you can save $50 – go for a touch screen wifi-only Kindle for $99.
• If you don’t care about touch screen or physical keyboard, the you can save even more – almost $70. Go for a new basic Kindle at $79.
• If you have strong inclination towards tablet and you like to read magazines, and occasionally ebooks, and don’t need longer battery time – then go for Kindle Fire at $199. It’s cheaper than many other tablets in the market. More importantly, you know Amazon can support you with desired content – ebooks, magazines, MP3, movies, apps etc. etc.

Amazon is going to announce a new tablet on this Wednesday – Kindle Fire. It’s not clear, even though there are some speculations, that a new touch screen e-ink Kindle will also be announced. However, it seems a tablet is creating more buzz than a eReader like Kindle. The crave for low-cost tablets has reached such an hype that nearly every electronic company is jumping on releasing one. Now Kobo is on board with Kobo Vox. According to TechCrunch

The device is listed as being an “eReader Tablet,” so perhaps it’s something more akin to Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color or the Kindle tablet reportedly in the works from Amazon.

Of course, it started with B&N when the company released Nook Color. Now there are rumors that B&N is going to release another version of Nook Color. Sony might have one in pipeline – we don’t know yet. It’s clear that all the eReader companies are on board with LCD tablets. Is anybody thinking about e-ink reader? What about e-ink color screen? What about mirasol screen? What about pixel Qi screen?
[widget "AmazonSimpleAdmin"]

AppleInsider reports by refering Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who has detailed three new kindle products that are expected to be announced at Amazon’s media event this Wednesday. These products are:

• A new 6″ e-ink kindle
• A new 6″ e-ink kindle with touch screen
• A 7″ IPS (e-ink and LCD) kindle tablet

According to AppleInsider report, the tablet ” is expected to be fairly spartan, as it will reportedly not include a camera, GPS, cover glass or 3G data functionality. Kuo also noted that the tablet will run an older version of Google’s Android mobile operating system”. And the price of the device is expected to be $199. The low-end Kindle would cost $99. No word about touch kindle.