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It’s old news by now, but the Kindle 3 recently came out and… well, I bought it. Yes, I already have the Kindle 2, but… but… Ok, I have no good excuse, I just wanted it. 😛It arrived about a week ago – since then I’ve been putting it to good use and I have to say that it is definitely a step up compared to its predecessor. I won’t wax rhapsodic on its virtues since it essentially takes everything good from the Kindle 2 – and does it better. You can see what I had to say about my first Kindle here, here, and here.
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It’s SMALL – while I thought that the Kindle 2 was sleek, the Kindle 3 definitely one-ups it. They’ve trimmed the buttons and the edges down into a tidy and compact frame, while still maintaining the original screen size. Actually it got here just in time for me to take it on my trip to Yakushima, where it fit very tidily into my camera bag (whereas the Kindle 2 was just a tad too big).Yes, the screen is still black/white/grayscale, but it’s /sharp/ and I have no problems reading it in pretty much any kind of lighting.
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They’ve also reorganized the keyboard and buttons into what I feel is more intuitive layout – both edges now feature the next & back button, instead of the right edge holding the “home” button. The joystick is also replaced by a 4-way keypad that’s much easier to use. Oh, and by the way – it can now hold up to 3,500 books!! 😀Another thing they’ve tweaked that I really like is the software and text input. I set a password on my Kindle and on the previous model, I would have to type a few letters, wait for the cursor to catch up, and type some more. If I typed too fast, it wouldn’t register the key input and miss/skip a couple of letters, leading of course to an incorrect password. On the Kindle 3, that is no longer an issue and I can type at normal speed. It’s a small thing, but it adds to the overall user-friendliness of the device.
Finally, and though I don’t use it that much (I bought the Kindle for reading after all!), the browser functionality on the Kindle 3 is head and shoulders above the Kindle 2. Where the Kindle 2 would display a stripped down version text version of a site, the Kindle 3 shows a web page pretty much exactly as it was meant to be shown. It also displays Japanese fonts (!) and of course 3G browsing remains free.
Below are some pictures comparing the two devices. Sufficed to say that I give it a big thumbs up!
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