Mole sheds light on incoming illuminated Amazon Kindle
No colour reader, though
The E Ink display in Amazon's Kindles may be great for reading in bright sunshine, but it's pants on gloomy days and totally useless in the dark. But that may soon change: Amazon is said to be preparing a front-lit version of the popular e-book reader.
Citing a source who claims to have seen the prototype, Reuters reports the lit-up Kindle could be on sale in July.
Read it in the dark
Whenever the tablet is released, it comes as no surprise, not least because Amazon's US rival, Barnes & Noble, has already announced an e-book reader, the trips-off-your-tongue Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, with an Indiglo-style illumination.
Adding a wee LED lighting strip into the upper bezel would not tax Amazon's engineers. The company's bean-counters wouldn't be troubled by the move, either.
Reuters' source poured cold water on speculation that Amazon has a colour Kindle in the works, saying it's not likely to happen this year. But do expect an 8.9in Kindle Fire in Q4... right in time to compete with the Fire-targetted tablet Google is expected to announce Real Soon Now. ®
COMMENTS
Poppycock
"The E Ink display in Amazon's Kindles may be great for reading in bright sunshine, but it's pants on gloomy days"
Er, what? No it isn't. The gloomiest of days I've yet encountered still provides comfortably more than enough natural light to read a book by. Or an e-reader, since as Barry points out, they're almost identical in this regard.
The dark, yes, you have a point. But a gloomy day? Rubbish.
Welll duh....
"The E Ink display in Amazon's Kindles may be great for reading in bright sunshine, but it's pants on gloomy days and totally useless in the dark"
Like a paperback you mean?
The whole point of e-ink is that it's readable like a paperback. That has good points and bad points.
Re: Unlikely
Because they now have competition which is a lot cheaper.
Re: Welll duh....
What, so they should never try to improve it?
In case you hadn't noticed, a book doesn't require batteries to be charged, and will happily survive a fall downstairs. Many times.
That would make the book better. But E-reader hold lots of books. That make them better.
Add light to the e-reader. Better still.
The whole point of an e-reader is convenience, and to IMPROVE the 'book' experience.
Progress eh? Gotta love it.
B&N not announced, shipping
A friend recieved her GlowNook last week, so it's shipping not announced. :)
