Amazon Kindle 3 Review: Head to Head Against the Nook and iPad

Kindle 3, a tasteful change to the a lot of accepted e-book reader, and now it fits in your stocking. The redesign of the Blaze adds a beautiful new graphite finish. Meaning it no best looks like a comically ample additional bearing iPod had a adulterated adolescent with a PDF reader. It appearance a new 6.5″ E-Ink affectation with 50% bigger adverse than the Blaze 2. Images are brittle and sharp, blacks are abysmal and rich. At the aforementioned time it had a 15% abridgement in size, and a 21% abridgement in weight at alone 8.7 oz. Page about-face is now 20% faster although still a little laggy. A new adaptable accomplishment was added to the back, which absolutely lends itself to one-handed reading, and keeps your award from sweating.
Although the redesign is far from revolutionary, it has some notable concrete changes, besides accommodation and color. The top row of numbers has been removed, and transferred to the attribute menu. The directional rocker now lays about even with the body. Which may be a disadvantage to users with larger, sausage like fingers. A new sliding ability button, aggregate buttons, micro usb port, and headphone jack were relocated to the basal of the device. The headphones hag added comfortably. The ancillary buttons acclimated to about-face pages accept been flattered, and confused to the sides. Some humans accuse they are now easier to absence if you're active in your book. I, personally, acquisition them abundantly natural, and they accomplish a acceptable about aside bang if pressed. Advantageous if you're account in bed while your accomplice is sleeping.
They've aswell angled the accumulator amplitude to 4GB, almost 3,500 books, and angled the array activity to 4 weeks (without WiFi disabled.) Just as the accomplished archetypal avowal chargeless 3G advantage so does this one but the $189 archetypal aswell has WiFi capabilities. Including but not bound to appointment Audible audio books after the use of a computer. This leads me to the beginning appearance which are accessory not necessary.
Have you anytime wondered what the interweb would attending like as a bashful film? Wonder no added candied citizen! The Webkit delivers the internet in august (hilarious) gray-scale. Blaze 3′s browser, (as blah as it may seem) is a massive advance on the antecedent generations. Abounding page view, now with photos! and page amount speeds commensurable to any acute phone. Article mode, which is declared to change online writing into argument alone format, leaves a lot to be desired. We've encountered no instance area it does annihilation cogent at all, let forth advance readability. It mainly just causes issues with margins and leads to a lot of scrolling. The new webkit can about zoom, affectation sites in absolute size, or fit to device.
Although it doesn't abutment EPUB,(booooo) because of DRM issues, it does about abutment PDF with a cursor for highlighting text, and 6 new adverse options. You can aswell email PDF's anon to your kindle, and download them via WiFi.
Other new appearance cover a microphone, download monitoring, abounding awning mode, 2 dictionaries, The Oxford Dictionary of English, and The New Oxford American Dictionary. Aswell Alt-Del aggregate for allowance text.
What We Like;
+ Light and attenuate ( awful portable)
+ Ablaze brittle display
+ Price $139, $189
+ 450,000 titles (30,000 are accessible domain)
+ Readable in absolute sunlight
+ Archive, collections, actualize addendum & bookmarks, as able-bodied as abridgement articles
+ Callibre appliance to catechumen books to Kindle-friendly
+ Quality options such as text-size, blazon face, etc
+ Abundantly simple interface
+ Whispernet(over 100+ countries
+ Array life!
What We Dislike (Or would've admired to accept seen)
- No color
- No EPUB
- No video abutment (We capital B&W youtube)
- Not abundant for argument books or manuals (Sorry engineers)
- Board Games would be nice (Chess or Sudoku)
- Price $189 ( $99 would absolutely accomplish it a must-have)
- No back-lightingRecommended Accessories:
Kindle Lighted Leather Cover, Comes In 7 Colors
$59.99 (A little big-ticket but absolutely takes affliction of the back-lighting issue) accessible at Amazon.com and a lot of places that advertise the Kindle.
The Competition:
The Alcove - Barnes & Noble $199
How it Outperformed:
+ In-house-support
+ Browsing with abounding argument examples
+ Added titles 100,000,000+ (and over 500,000 free)
+ E-Ink visplay LCD blush display
+ LendMe- chargeless book rentals for 14 days
+ EPUB, PDB support
+ Virtual keyboard
+ In-store discounts
+ Chargeless wifi from AT&T at Barnes & Noble
+ Replaceable battery
+ MicroSD agenda slot
+ SonyReader library can be transferred
+ Sudoku and chess
+ Runs on Android
How it Underperformed:
- Smaller affectation - 3.5″
- Weight 12 oz
- Array activity 10 canicule (without WIFI)
- 2GB storage
- Price $199
- Awning contrast
- No text-to-speech
- No microphone
- No stereo speakers
- No Audible audio books (only mp3)
- No.txt,.doc,.docx support
- Slow and aloof touchscreen (basically useless)
- Illogical and adorning interface (Seriously I'm not aggravating to be beggarly but it's as if a dark being fabricated it)
- Very buggy
- Horrid page brace rate
We alone anticipate the Blaze 3 assault the alcove away. The aspects in which it performs bigger are overshadowed by it's faults. Which are confusing and frustrating, not lending to a able account experience. Which is the point of an e-book clairvoyant right?
The iPad - Apple - $486 $788
How it Outperforms:
+ Larger, color, capacitive blow screen
+ Video abutment (but no beam bawwwww.:[ Yeah I said it. )
+ iTunes
+ 1 GHz processor (no brace amount issues here)
+ 16, 32, or 64GB storage
+ Bluetooth
+ Abundant for magazines and papers, abstruse manuals, and argument books (due to blush display)
How it Under-performs:
- Price $458 - $788
- Pay for 3G
- Weight/Size
- Array life
- Oh you try to apprehend in the sun, I cartel you
- No notes, not even on the Blaze app
- Less titles (only 60,000 on iBooks for iPad)
- Books are added expensive
- Distractions while account (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
I could sit and breach down comparisons about who has added accumulator or a bigger awning all day. The absolute affair at duke is what do you wish out of it? What do you charge the e-reader for. If you wish bright, bold, blush pages, annual articles, and YouTube videos. Then ahem up the added money and buy an iPad. If you wish blush affectation but don't affliction that the user interface may or may not accept been coded by the mentally disabled. Then pay the added $10 for the Nook. Barnes and Noble does accept a broader alternative of books. But if you're like us and you wish a hand-held accessory because you like reading, not the accretion and whistles. (Don't get me amiss who doesn't like toys.) Then the Blaze 3 is the chrism of the crop, an ardent readers dream of their absolute library in the approach of their hands, in a amalgamation that weighs as abundant as a individual album book.