Nothing makes my heart tingling more with joy than having electronic devices that aren’t so depending on the traditional power sources. For an instance, keyboard that is powered by solar cells would be something that I won’t hesitate in having to yearn for. Now, my heart just a tad happier than usual since there is now a Kindle cover which uses solar cells for powering the Kindle, and this solar-powered Kindle cover will make its appearance in CES 2012.
I’m a Kindle user, and my Kindle rocks in term of lasting for days if not a week before I even think about recharging it. Nonetheless, the idea of prolonging the Kindle’s battery life per charging cycle even much much more, to a point of forgetfulness is almost making my heart sings. Why almost? Unfortunately, this solar-powered Kindle cover will cost around $79.99. You can check out this solar-powered Kindle cover at solarmio.com/en/.
Amazon is generously buying back your Kindle, but you won’t be getting back the same amount of money you had paid for it in the first place. According to Wired, Amazon pays people $28 Amazon.com Gift Card for the first generation Kindle, $135 Amazon.com Gift Card for DX Kindle, and $37.75 Amazon.com Gift Card for the latest generation Kindle with keyboard and Wi-Fi. Wired reports that all Kindles can be traded in for prices. You can trade in your Kindle for $dollars Amazon.com Gift Card by visiting Amazon’s Electronics Trade In > eBook Readers & Accessories page. After trading in, I assume customers can use appropriate credits in Amazon.com Gift Card to pay for items on Amazon.com.
I also notice that you can trade in your Apple iPad 2 MC769LL/A Tablet (16GB, WiFi, Black) for $330 Amazon.com Gift Card, but this price might change for obvious reasons. Browsing other categories of trade in programs on Amazon is an eye opening for me, because Amazon is willing to pay users some Amazon credits (sometimes good amount Amazon credits) for their old electronic devices. Perhaps, Amazon will resell the buyback electronic devices for profits? Amazon might also make even more profits by having users spend their Amazon credits on Amazon.com. Anyhow, users are also the winners since they can get some Amazon’s credits for getting rid of their unwanted old electronic devices.
Amazon are sorting trade in items in 3 different categories, Like New, Good, and Acceptable. According to the trade in items categories, Amazon pays users with certain Amazon credits for their items. For an example, users who trade in brand new item such as iPhone 4 gets the most Amazon credits.
Amazon announces their new devices that soon to be shipped out to customers starting in November 21 of this year. Meanwhile, Amazon is taking pre-orders of Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch, and Kindle 3G Touch. These newest models yet of Kindle are completely reinvented and digressed from the older models. These newest models yet completely abandon the physical tiny keyboard that the older Kindle models carry.
Android powered Kindle Fire is a color 7 inch screen tablet. Even though it is powered by Android, the custom Android OS on Kindle Fire is much more simplistic and different than the standard Android OS. Perhaps, Amazon could not work out deals with operators, because Kindle Fire isn’t coming with 3G connectivity. Instead, Kindle Fire taunts Wi-Fi connectivity only. Without a camera on Kindle Fire, it makes Kindle Fire one less important feature that almost all devices in the market are carrying. Yes, Kindle Fire has touchscreen display. Within the device, dual core Texas Instruments OMAP processor will be the heart and brain of Kindle Fire. It’s sufficiently to say Kindle Fire’s 8 hour battery life isn’t satisfactory as E-Ink Kindle models, but it’s comparable to other color tablets on the market in term of battery life.
The lighter and buttonless Kindle Touch and 3G Touch are the other two newest yet Amazon’s Kindle devices. Without a physical tiny keyboard, Kindle Touch and 3G Touch users have to rely on tapping on specific areas to interact with the Kindles. These two newest models yet use Infrared Touch Screen technology. Kindle Touch and 3G Touch sport the more advance E-Ink display than the older Kindles. Sources say battery life of Kindle Touch and 3G Touch are also longer than the older Kindles.
Amazon plays it smart by pricing newer Kindles way cheaper than competitors such as Apple. Kindle Fire prices at $199. Kindle Touch prices at $99. Kindle 3G Touch prices at $149.
Even though Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos doesn’t think Kindle Fire as a tablet but as a service, I’ve to say Kindle Fire is comparable to the tablets on the market. Whether Apple likes it or not, Kindle Fire is less than half of the price of the cheapest Apple’s iPad. Unlike HP Touchpad which sold half the price of iPad also and had driven customers to a buying frenzy, Amazon’s Kindle Fire is a gateway to Amazon’s formidable services such as Kindle’s ebooks, instant streaming movies, and magazines. Also, Amazon has released its own mobile web browser known as Silk to be used with Kindle Fire, toying that it will be faster than other mobile web browsers in a sense it utilizes Amazon cloud service for processing and calculating, alleviating the workload of a browser through the processing power of the cloud.
Kindle users who are familiar with Whispersync technology of Amazon might be glad to know that besides ebooks, other contents such as movies are now utilizing this very technology now. Whispersync will synch the farthest page of an ebook or location of a movie (and other contents) so the users won’t have to manually recovering the last page of an ebook or last location of the movie that they had read or seen. It’s very convenient for users just to jump right back into the contents that they had not the chance of finishing earlier.
Personally, I think Amazon’s Kindle Fire isn’t an iPad killer, because it is not more powerful or better than iPad in technological specification. Then again, if Amazon does a better job at wooing customers to use their services more such as buying more ebooks and watching instant streaming movies and reading more electronic magazines, then I think Amazon’s Kindle Fire and all other Amazon’s Kindle devices will be iPad killers. Seriously, content is king! Without the contents, the hardware are just soulless. Lastly, when the price is right, everything becomes king of kings. Amazon has priced their new Kindles with the right prices. I’ve a feeling many people will rush to buy more newer Kindles and buy less iPad in this upcoming holiday. Which? Christmas, of course (i.e., December 25, 2011)!
Vinh Nguyen
