The Kindle Touch is an extremely useful e-reader power-packed with a multitude of features. As one of the highly recommended and sought after e-readers in the world market, it is the only e-reader with audio books, text-to-speech and mp3 support. With multi-touch technology, a wider screen, and a much more advanced E Ink display, Kindle Touch renders an authentic reading experience to all those avid readers. It is also lighter, sleek, and easy to carry with a capacity to hold about 3000 books. Some of the other noted features of the Kindle Touch include the built in Wi-Fi, X-Ray, and EasyReach touch.
Design highlights
Kindle Touch has a simple touch design. It wakes up by pressing the power-sleep-wake button at the bottom. A tap on the 6â touch screen at the very top displays the menu and the toolbar, and another tap on the left takes you to the previous page. A large portion of the rest of the display screen is dedicated to moving to the next page, which is a very convenient feature in the Kindle Touch for the readers to effortlessly slide to successive pages. The e-reader has a silver-grey bezel edge and at the very bottom, it houses the ports for micro-USB and headphone.
Specs
The height is 6.8 inches, width 4.7 inches, depth 0.40 inches, and weight is 213 grams. It has a 6â display with E Ink multi-touch technology, a USB 2.0 (micro-B connector) USB Port, and 3.5 mm stereo audio jack. The device has a capacity of 4GB, which is enough to store about 3000 books. It connects to both private and public Wi-Fi networks with 802.11b, 802.11g, or 802.11n with WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password credentials only and not with 802.1X methods. It does not connect to peer-to-peer Wi-Fi networks. It uses Amazon Whispernet through AT&T in USA and other networks outside USA. For a single full charge of 4 hours, it lasts 6 weeks with wireless on and lasts 2 months for 30 min reading everyday with wireless off. For all content on Amazon, cloud storage is free.
Special features
E Ink technology
The Kindle Touch uses E Ink technology, the âE Ink Pearlâ, which imitates print on paper. Clear, accurate, and sharp font with 100 percent aperture ratio and a uniform contrast ratio enable the readers to view content from any angle. It also boasts of no glare, a boon to those who love to read in broad daylight for an extended period. The E Ink screens consume less power than LCD screens and thereby have a longer battery life.
EasyReach
With the EasyReach touch approach, the Kindle Touch offers the readers a unique and easy reading experience. A tapping on the wide screen allows the reader to access the menus, flip through the pages, and search for keywords with the virtual QWERTY keyboard.
X-Ray
Just as Amazon puts it, the X-Ray feature explores the âbones of the book.â Be it any character, historical figures or events in a book, X-Ray displays the specifics and occurrences of the same throughout the book with a single tap.
Whispersync, annotations, and bookmarks
Whispersync displays the last viewed page and makes it a lot easier to continue reading from the page that was last read. If there are any notes to be added to a passage, all the reader has to do is tap the same on the virtual keyboard, edit, and delete the notes. Any important passage can be highlighted for future reference as well.
Wi-Fi connectivity
Wireless connectivity to download or shop for books is an easy score with the Kindle Touch 3G. Neither is there any set-up equipment needed nor are there any password credentials or any monthly subscription fees. Connecting to nearby Wi-Fi networks is quite easy, anytime, anywhere. Access is free in all AT&T hotspots across USA.
Unique reading experience
Reading is an easy breeze with the Kindle Touch with the option to choose from eight different fonts with adjustable font sizes that can be zoomed in and zoomed out based on the readerâs preference. It supports Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese characters. An added advantage is the pinch-and-zoom for PDF documents.
Documents on the Go
Apart from shopping and downloading books, the Kindle Touch offers e-mailing Word, PDF, and similar documents between Kindle approved contacts. Such documents can be stored in the Kindle library and can be browsed in Kindle format.
Dictionary and Web
The Kindle Touch 3G has a built-in word lookup tool â The New Oxford American Dictionary. Without jumping to a different page, the synonyms are displayed right at the bottom of the screen. A significant aspect is that the e-reader can search for any word in the Kindle library/store, Wikipedia and even Google.
Facebook and Twitter
Everything is connected to Facebook and Twitter and so is Kindle Touch. Passages or any set of information about the books and its authors can be shared online with friends and family.
Lending books
Books can be lent to other Kindle users for a period of 14 days. This is however restricted to certain books based on publishing rights.
Customizing Kindle
When not in use, the Kindle Touch can be password-protected and automatically locked. It also provides easy organization of the books under user-defined book collections making it easy for the reader to pick a specific book from a huge collection.
Kindle Store
With a massive one million plus collection of fiction, non-fiction, magazines, periodicals, newspapers, blogs and journals, the Kindle Store can be accessed with a simple wireless search on the Kindle Touch 3G. Around 800,000 of the books are available at $9.99 and less. Others include a whopping 60,000 plus Audible.com audio books narrated by celebrities. Be it the current happenings on Newsweek, Gizmodo blogs or some wonderful games like Number Slide, the Kindle Touch offers download of a large collection of such data.
Text-to-Speech
If in the mood to being read too, then the special Text-to-Speech feature takes the reader through the books, newspapers, or magazines at ease. With automatic turning of pages, switching between pages and seamlessly moving back and forth, this feature is a hit when the reader is on the move.
Play MP3
A quick USB transfer and any MP3 music file can be played in the background of the Kindle Touch.
Since there is no wireless setup required for connectivity, the Kindle Touch is a highly simple and efficient e-reader for the non-technical bunch. Lightweight, portable with reduced eyestrain E Ink feature, Whispersync, X-Ray, the Kindle Touch is necessary for any voracious reader.
