Since the Kindle, in its 2009 incarnation, has been around long-enough, Amazon has decided that it was about time to refresh it, releasing today the next-generation Kindle, which is 21 percent smaller and 15 percent lighter design than the original, with 50 percent better contrast, 20 percent faster page turns, up to one month of battery life and double the storage.

So, according to Amazon, the all-new Kindle has a new electronic-ink screen with 50 percent better contrast than its previous e-reader, a new sleek design with a 21 percent smaller body while still keeping the same 6-inch-size reading area, and a 15 percent lighter weight at just 8.7 ounces. The new Kindle also offers up to one month of battery life, double the storage to 3,500 books, built-in Wi-Fi and a graphite color option.

Amazon's new reader also delivers quieter page turn buttons and allows readers to share meaningful passages with friends and family with built-in Twitter and Facebook integration.

As mentioned earlier, the new Kindle also promises 20 percent faster page turns, and is able to achieve this by using Amazon’s proprietary waveform and font technology to make pages turn faster and fonts sharper. Waveform is a series of electronic pulses that move black and white electronic ink particles to achieve a final gray level for an image or text. Amazon tuned the new Kindle’s waveform and controller mechanism to make page turning 20 percent faster. In addition, this waveform tuning combined with new hand-built, custom fonts and font-hinting make words and letters more crisp, clear, and natural-looking. Font hints are instructions, written as code, that control points on a font character’s line and improve legibility at small font sizes where few pixels are available.

Naturally, the launch of the redesigned Kindle is definitely related to the increased competition on the portable eBook readers' market. For this reason, the price point (just 189 US dollars, which helped the company sell a lot of last-gen Kindles) should surprise no one, and we're pretty sure that it will help the company push out even more products that it did up until now, since, after all, we're talking about a brand-new model here.

However, if you're looking for even more convenience and lower pricing, you should also know that also today, Amazon introduced a new addition to its family of portable reading devices—Kindle Wi-Fi. Readers who don’t need the convenience of free 3G wireless can now enjoy the new generation Kindle for the lower price of only $139.


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