Amazon launched in November the new generation of basic Kindle in Brazil. Costing 299 dollars, it is the gateway for those who are about to read ebooks on a screen more comfortable and does not care to spend much money. Compared to the previous model, the 7th generation Kindle’s main novelty the touch screen, playing aside the old physical buttons to change page and navigate the interface.
It is worth buying new Kindle? The update is important for those who already have a basic Kindle last generation? And what you lose by saving 180 dollars in relation to the immediately more expensive model, the Kindle Paperwhite? After almost two weeks using the reader of ebooks, I leave my impressions in the following paragraphs.
Design and screen
The new Kindle is very similar to the Kindle Paperwhite, but a look of close already shows that we are facing a more expensive phone. The back, with rubberized touch on the more expensive brother, comes out to make way for a hard plastic on the base model. Shy texture not seem to help much in the grip, but I had the feeling that the unit could fall from my hands – especially because of the weight, which decreased to 191 grams. For a product that is often used for hours on end, any gram less are welcome
The e-ink screen 6 inches is not bad, but not impressive. The contrast is good with dark sources and a sufficiently clear background so you can see even when lighting is less than ideal. On the other hand, Amazon decided to keep the same resolution of 800 × 600 pixels. More detailed sources (and I particularly like), such as Baskerville and Palatino, are with small serrations that bother you the most demanding, but that, fortunately, does not affect readability.
Software and ecosystem
With the new touch screen, the basic Kindle received a beautiful software upgrade: now he has the same interface and the same features of the Kindle Paperwhite, with the obvious lack of illumination adjustment knob. And bringing the same software older brother and a very similar hardware, user experience and reading the new Kindle is very good.
Not that the physical buttons and the directional old Kindle were a bug seven heads, but some actions, such as highlighting a book excerpt, search the definition of a word in the built-in dictionary and make little notes, are much more practical – it is difficult to develop something easier than simply touch the screen and drag your finger.
The book covers are displayed miniature format on the main screen, and there are good software features to help in reading. The Vocabulary Builder is a record of all the words you searched in the dictionary, which is useful especially if you are dealing with a different language. The Kindle offers free English dictionaries, Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and other languages, so this is a nice complement to enrich their vocabulary.
Other good features of Kindle include the Page Flip, which you can page through the book quickly without losing the page where you are; vocabulary tips that uncomplicated expressions in English; and the estimated remaining minutes to finish the current chapter – great for those who, like me, do not like to stop reading a book in the middle of a chapter
It highlighted the ecosystem that third parties and Amazon itself formed around the Kindle. The Whispersync, which syncs your data with the cloud, allows you, for example, start reading a book on the Kindle and finish on the iPad, continuing from where it left off, with all your notes and markings. It is a completely invisible to the user process, and why it is so good.
The Amazon cloud also changes the way you store documents on Kindle. You can do things the traditional way, by connecting Kindle to a USB port and pasting the files in the internal device memory, or simply send them to your email @ kindle.com. DOC or PDF files are converted automatically by Amazon’s servers for better readability, simply put the word “convert” in the email title.
I also like to use the Kindle to read long articles on the web. For this, except pages in Instapaper, which sends me daily a compilation of articles that have not read, including links within the document to archive or enjoy each of them. Another option is to use the Send to Kindle extension for Google Chrome, done by the Amazon, or Klip.me, for those who do not use Chrome.
Hardware and battery
The fluidity in the software, one of the points where Kindles stand out over the competition, was not left out in the basic model. In fact, the touch response seems even more agile and precise that in my old Kindle 1st generation Paperwhite therefore slowness is a problem that you definitely will not find here. . Everything is very fast, the page turns to the queries on the dictionary
The battery life promised by Amazon has not changed from the previous generation of the basic Kindle: up to one month of autonomy with 30 minutes of reading a day and Wi-Fi turned off. I confess that I could not drain the battery during the day trial, with Wi-Fi on and somewhere around 7 hours of reading, then the estimate is quite realistic. In practice, it will be very difficult to get caught by surprise in the middle of reading a book.
Following the Kindle Paperwhite, the internal memory of the basic Kindle doubled to 4 GB. No support for memory card as the competitors. However, I could never fill the memory of my Kindle Paperwhite 2 GB and with ebooks that rarely spend of 2 MB in size, I find very difficult to have problems with space. If so, the additional 5 GB in the Amazon cloud should help.
Relevant Notes
- The Amazon sells the official hood for the new Kindle for $ 119 It is good quality and has the ability to wake the Kindle when it is open. But with such a high price, I’m still adept at spending a few dollars on an eBay of life – even if the case takes weeks or months to get
- Even with the conversion of the Amazon and software. third parties (such as Calibre), it is always good to note: e-reader was not meant to read PDF. If you really depends on a lot of this type of file, the ideal is to look for a tablet.
Conclusion
It’s hard to find negative points in the new Kindle. Amazon managed to make a much more complete player ebooks than the previous generation charging the same amount of 299 dollars. Quite often, a retail and Amazon itself make deals, dropping the value for 199 reais. At that price, the 7th generation Kindle is a right choice and hardly cause regret in those looking for a good and cheap e-reader.
Perhaps the lack of physical buttons to change pages, a feature that I very much liked the 5th generation Kindle, is a minor inconvenience in the new model. Still, the additional features that come with the touchscreen were so great that it would be unfair not state that the reading experience is much better. The most elaborate interface, ease to make scores and highlights, the vocabulary of resources, synchronization with the cloud, all this makes reading on Kindle is better than on paper.
The Amazon is also making a great job in selling ebooks. Of course, digital books are not significantly cheaper than the paper versions (and in some cases, are even more expensive). But Jeff Bezos shop often runs promotions ebooks, then it is always good to follow the offers. Moreover, recently the Amazon launched the Kindle Unlimited, which charges US $ 19.90 per month and gives unlimited access to a collection of nearly 800 thousand books. The variety of work still needs to improve, but this is a good advantage.
I buy? . How often not read before bed and sometimes get in under-lit environments, the built-in light of the Kindle Paperwhite is essential for me – and I still think the 479 actual model the best value for money of the Brazilian market. But if you do not need the more expensive Kindle lighting, the new basic Kindle is sure to meet your expectations
Specifications
- Battery:.. Up to four weeks duration
- Connectivity. Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n USB Micro
- Dimensions:. 169 x 119 x 10.2 mm
- formats: AZW, AZW3 ., PDF, Mobi, PRC, converted images (JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP) and text (TXT, HTML, DOC and DOCX)
- Internal Memory: 4 GB (3.1 GB available for the . user)
- External Memory:. without support for microSD card
- . Weight: 191 grams
- Processor:. 1 GHz
- Screen:. e-ink 6-inch with a resolution of 800 × 600 pixels
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