I just received the Kindle Touch in the mail a couple of days and I already think I will be reading a lot more now. This is my first e-reader and I truly am amazed by it.
Some quick specs on the Kindle Touch before we get into the review:
- Built in Wi-Fi
- EasyReach touch technology lets you read with one hand
- 4GB hard drive holds 3,000 books
- Two month battery life
- 6″ E-Ink Pearl Display
- 7.5 ounces and dimensions of 6.8″ x 4.7″ x 0.40″
- $99.00 with special offer screensaver
The Best Parts
The Kindle Touch has a lot of great things going for it. Here are the highlights:
- The Battery Life Lasts Forever
Because of it’s e-ink technology that only uses significant battery life when you need to refresh the display (turning a page, highlighting a sentence, etc.). This makes it a superior device to use beyond any tablet devices that try to do the same thing and run out of battery life in a few hours. - The Syncing Is Simple And Quick
The ease with which to sync a device with your Amazon cloud of books that you may already own or just recently purchased is incredible. Within 60 seconds, you can have every book on your reader in only a few clicks of the finger. - The e-Ink Is Amazing
This is by far the best aspect of Amazon’s product. The screen’s contrast is better than previous versions and makes it simple to read in any light that you could read a book. Sure, if you need to read in the middle of the night, you will have to use their desktop or mobile app, but you really should be sleeping anyways.
The Worst Parts
Unfortunately, there are a few things that could use improving:
- Slow Response Time
For those that may have used an iPhone all their life, they will be upset with how slow the Kindle Touch responses to requests and refreshes the display. For the fast typers, you will need to type several letters and then wait for the device to catch up with you. If you are navigating the menu, you need to develop a little bit of patience while it loads. A definite down-side because of its low end processor that allows for the cost to be so low. - Navigation Not Very Intuitive
When I first started using the device, it gave a quick ten second tutorial on how to navigate from page to page as well as back to the main menu. Beyond that, it was quite difficult to initially learn where to go to sync the books, how to change books, and access many of the devices extra features. This must be addressed for e-readers to expand to new markets. - Missing The Little Details
The device is missing some of the small stuff like auto-updating your clock, a better web browser experience, and deleting ebooks from the reader. Because of these specific things, one may wish to have an iPad or Kindle Fire compared to this version of the Kindle.
Overall, I give the device a 3.5 out of 5 stars because it does exactly what it is advertised to do and has some little features that make this specific e-reader worth getting above the rest if you do not have one already, but nothing that would make you need to upgrade from the previous generations.
Adam Shields says
I have owned a Kindle 1, 2, and 3. So I have some ereader background. Theoretically, a touch device makes sense. But I am not planing on upgrading because my experience with eink (which I really love) is that it is too slow of a refresh to do touch really well.
I also use my keyboard a lot to make notes (and already have a case and other accessories). But I really want to encourage people that do not have an ereader to really look at getting an eink machine to read on and get a tablet to do everything else on if you can afford it.
Jeremy Smith says
The response time On the e-ink is noticeable. Not a problem for reading books as it is intended, but makes it impossible to browse the Internet. I am sure your keyboard is better, but with my ignorance, it is “good enough.”