Amazon's 3D Fire Phone now 99 cents with a 2 year data plan. A free year of (normally $99) Prime is included also. UPDATE1 for 64GB model price. UPDATE2 for AT&T Next 18 option

Amazon indicated today that the 3D Fire Phone is a key device for them and they've decided to be ultra competitive (the iPhone 6 is due to be announced tomorrow but it won't be a low-cost item nor have most of the features described below), and Apple is finally catching up to Android phones by making the larger phone so many have wanted but which Apple said was not the ideal size, until now. Those who rely on Apple apps should stay with Apple though!

FIRST, an UPDATE on November 2014, 2 months later than this article: - Amazon also made available the UNLOCKED version of the Fire Phone.  For details on the Unlocked phone, which can be used with any service (not tied to AT&T then) so that you can use the phone with better service plans for you, see the article on the updated offer.  This version, without a required data plan, is $199 but includes $99 Prime member for a year (or for an additional year for existing Prime members). [End of Update]

Below, I'm including most of the blog entry I made of the points made about the Fire Phone during their launch, with the original $199 cost now lower by $198, at 99 cents.

  And below that, I'll re-print the pertinent portions of their press release so you can read their new-pricing points, without interpretation.

  NOTE: Some reviews have said that the Fire Phone can't access Google Play for its apps.  However, as with the tablets, the phone has the regular Android Setting to enable installation of apps from "unknown sources" (meaning Non-Amazon store), I'm told (my review copy is late getting here), and that includes 1Mobile appstore, which has over 800,000 Android apps, most from Google, many from Amazon.  Get the apps from Amazon appstore when available there, as they go through heavy testing.

Here are added FIRE PHONE info-updates.

  Amazon still includes the Limited time offer that
offers a full year of Amazon Prime" (normal cost of Prime is $99)
  If you aren't a Prime member, you'll get a full year of Prime with Fire phone. If you already have Prime, we'll extend your membership for a full year."

UPDATE1 - 2:30 PM
  The Fire Phone starts now at $0.99 for 32GB and I received an answer to my question about the 64GB model this afternoon -- it'll be $99, down from $299, with a 2-year monthly data plan with AT&T.  That's for people who expect to store a lot on the phone, even with access to the Cloud storage.

  Essentially then, the phone with 32GB is is 99 cents with Prime also, thrown in (normally $99), with 2 yrs of a monthly data plan.
  And the 64GB model will be $99 (earlier it was $299).  The product pages are being updated.

UPDATE2 - 10:15 PM
Amazon's wording at the end of the Press Release mentions the cost of AT&T's "Next 18" plan (for those buying the phone and AT&T's new plan on a monthly basis and who plan to use only 2GB per month during a month):

' Fire is available exclusively on AT&T - the nation's most reliable 4G LTE network. Fire with 32GB is available for 99 cents with a two-year contract or $0 down and $18.75 per month (for 24 months) with AT&T NEXT 18. '

  The Nitty Gritty - Here is Amazon's Comparison Chart of actual costs for:
    the "Next 18" plan against the normal 2-year plan.
    BOTH require a 24-mo. plan.  However, after 18 mos. on the Next 18 plan,
      you're eligible to a free Update to a new smartphone, and the
    the activation fee is $0 vs the 2-yr plan's no free update plus $40 activation.
    It's a minor difference down the road.

  So, the normal 2-year plan saves almost $5 per month for 2 years, but there's no free update eligibility after 18 mos, and there's an activation charge.

  Phone-buying Reality -- As usual, even with $0 smartphones, one must pay the tax on the actual or normal cost of the phone, in this case $450 (even if paying just $0 or 99 cents for the phone).


The 3D-simulation on Amazon's product-page image is pretty impressive.  Am not placing it here, as eInk Kindle subscribers to the Kindle Edition of the blog can't view video. :-)  Thanks again to the subscribers for continued support of the blog.

Content described during launch is shown below

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While the 3D aspects should be novel and fun for awhile, many were looking forward to a good plan but especially since it's been said to be exclusive to AT&T (which seemed a hint they may have worked out a good deal for customers and Amazon with AT&T to get that exclusive).

 The limited-time offer of 1 yr of free Prime made it a better deal than most even at the original pricing, and now the cost of a new, very high-tech smartphone with advanced features is only $1~, coming with a Bonus of free Prime ($99 value) for the first year as well, if you get a 2-year monthly data plan with AT&T.

In addition to the five total front cameras, the back camera uses optical character recognition that can capture and convert text (and will recognize many videos and songs by 'hearing' or 'seeing' them).

  Turns out that the Fire Phone can read an image to get, say, a phone number but, not only that, it can realize that a graphic element confused it and that the area code is not a valid one and then can fetch the information to correct it).

Prime apparently has "tens of millions" of subscribers -- and we know that Prime will be the big factor here, as we've seen with video and music features (along with Kindle book loans and 2-day free shipping) on millions of items.  As you saw in a previous blog entry here, the original 5,000 Kindle books in the Prime Library for free lending of one-book per calendar month has grown to over 500,000.

Opening PR at the launch reminded us that Foresee and YouGov branding charts both list Amazon as No. 1 in customer service.

The Fire Phone with FIREFLY scanning
Claims on slides shown, for the most part:  (I'll double space these after editing, and also highlight a few aspects that were more interesting to me, for easier reading.)

. Rubberized frame, Gorilla Glass, aluminum buttons.

. Premium materials, scratch resistant

. 4.7" inch IPS LCD HD display

. Quad core 2.2 Ghz processor, Adreno 330 graphics processor, and 2 GB of RAM.

. Designed to be "Beautiful, comfortable, durable"

. Injection-molded steel connectors

. Focus on making it Better than usual for outdoor viewing

. Great imaging hardware
      with 13 MP rear-facing camera, f/2 5-element lens, optical image stabilization

. "Don't miss the shot" -- instant fast access to camera from a button.

. Free Unlimited Photo Storage

. Dual stereo speakers (Stereo audio in Landscape), Virtual surround sound, Dolby Digital Plus

. Free Mayday Help/Support feature -- (video support by customer reps and AT&T reps within 15 seconds when you need help) is included.  You see the rep, who does not see you but you can hear each other, and the reps can not only show you how to do something, they can do it for you.)

. You can watch material on HDTV, 2nd screen, Miracast, plus Xray for movies and tv

. Flat cables, earphones included

. Netflix, HBO Go, ESPN, Youtube, and Showtime apps are included and ready to go.

. includes of course the new Prime Music feature (free for members) -
      over 1 million songs with unlimited free streaming.

. More than a few Music apps and services

. "Semantic Boosting" helps to get the phone number right by eliminating invalid numbers.

. Firefly scanning feature "scrapes" the image for relevant info [via optical character recognition], compressing a large image file to a smaller one with only small bits of info.  That helps the phone send the info to its cloud service to process the image and get appropriate info or answers quickly.

. Reminder about the X-ray feature, now using Firefly also.  As with tablets, if it recognizes the show, it pulls up info on the actors, specific episode, and scene via Amazon's IMDB database.  I expect this works with Amazon Prime but not with Netflix and Hulu Plus etc., as they control the stream with Prime video.

    HOWEVER, the Firefly scanning feature has had a lot of training by Amazon and itself can "recognize" movies, TV episodes, music, and get info for X-Ray.  I've added Amazon's description of Firefly functions at the bottom of this post, as it is a very impressive feature, activated by the press of a physical button on the phone.

. Firefly recognizes a hundred million different items in real-world situations.

. The image changes as you move your phone (or head) and perspective.

. A MAP application was shown next, in 3D

. They zoomed into the Empire State Building image, and it's said this looks a lot better than previous attempts at 3D on similar devices

. Various web sites are very impressed with the 3D implementation.  Most writers I read had been skeptical about it based on previous attempts by other companies.

. In the web browsing -- "auto scroll" - you can scroll by tilting the phone (I'm not sure I'd want that, but they pointed out that can be turned off when wanted, which is what I would do.)

. You can pin other apps to the app grid.  They have the Carousel with latest apps accessed at the top.

. Get in and out of apps with widgets (shown on slide) without having to load up a full app

. Music app.  As with the tablets, we can see the lyrics synchronized (highlighting current line) with songs for which they received the rights for that.
      Song info is in one panel - lyrics in a panel to the right.

. Games: You can tilt the phone to look at different perspectives in a game.

. "Dynamic Perspective" - They started working on this 4 years ago and had prototypes working in the first week.

. The phone has a wider range of view for the front camera to cover the area needed for tracking head movement and whatever else needed to make the 3D simulation work well.

. At least two of the Fire Phone's four corner cameras and center camera can find your eyes, creating stereovision.

. To have it work in the dark, they added infrared lights, one in each camera.

. Dynamic Perspective sensor system -- "uses four ultra-low power specialized cameras -- the smallest globally shuttered cameras in existence -- plus four infrared LEDs for invisible illumination, real-time computer vision algorithms, and a custom graphics engine rendering at 60 fps" [frames per second]."

. They used "millions of images from thousands of faces from all around the world" while testing this.

. While trying to find the user's head and eyes for perspective-use, the cameras -could- during development be fooled by another head that happened to be in the picture (as in an image on a t-shirt).  They say they fixed the usual problems with seeing multiple-faces in that case.

. Developers can develop 3D apps for viewing homes while shopping, etc.

. You can silence your ringer for 3 hours.  After that, it turns back on.
      This would help me since I forget to turn it back on and then can't use a landline to call my cellphone to find out where it is :-)

. Price: Now 99 cents for 32GB phone (to be $99 for a 64GB model), with a 2 year monthly data plan, and this includes a limited-time offer of a free one-year Prime membership, w/ 2 yr contract and same Prime deal.

Addendum: More about Firefly and what it does (from product page)
  You just press the physical button on the side of the Fire Phone to "take action on"

' Phone numbers, web, and email addresses
Firefly identifies printed text on posters, magazines, and business cards -- make calls, save new contacts, send emails, and visit websites without typing long addresses.

Movies & TV
Firefly recognizes over 240,000 movies and TV episodes, and 160 live TV channels.  Firefly uses X-Ray, powered by IMDb, to show information on actors, plot details, and related content -- add titles to your Watchlist or download to watch later.

Music
Firefly recognizes songs so you can access artist information, play related songs, download albums direct to your Fire phone, or add them to your Wish List to purchase later on.  With Firefly-enabled apps like iHeartRadio and StubHub, you can create radio stations based on an identified artist, or even find tickets for their next show.

Over 70 million products
Recognize household items, books, DVDs, CDs, video games, and more.  Access product details, add items to your Wish List, or order on Amazon straight from your Fire phone. '

Amazon's 3D FIRE PHONE at 99 cents with a 2-year plan is available here

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From today's press release

Title: Amazon Fire Phone Now 99 Cents with Two-Year Contract

Date(s): 8-Sep-2014 11:11 AM

Plus, one year of Prime membership included

Free unlimited cloud storage for photos

World-class customer support with Mayday--24x7, 365 days a year

32GB Storage--Standard

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 8, 2014-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)--Dynamic Perspective, Firefly, world-class customer support with Mayday, free unlimited cloud storage for photos, 32GB of storage--and, for a limited time, customers get 12 months of Prime membership with Fire phone, which includes unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes from Prime Instant Video, access to over a million songs to download or stream from Prime Music, over 500,000 books to borrow from Kindle Owners' Lending Library and free two-day shipping on tens of millions of items. Now there's another great reason to buy Fire--it's just 99 cents with a two-year contract. Customers can purchase Fire on [and at AT&T stores nation wide].

"Fire is now 99 cents with a two-year contract, plus customers get one full year of Prime included," said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Devices. "With access to all of the Prime content, Mayday, 32GB of memory and free unlimited cloud storage for photos, plus the exclusive Dynamic Perspective and Firefly features, Fire is another example of the value Amazon delivers to customers."

See what Amazon Fire customers are saying:

• "The best part of the phone is the integration with Prime - I've switched all of my iTunes music over to Amazon Music and have bought a few albums from my phone. The sound from the included headphones is amazing. I've watched some movies and read some books - all synced to my Kindle Fire HDX and the movies with my Fire TV."
• "Mayday: I feel this truly separates this phone from every other phone in the market. It's like having someone available 24x7 to help you out with your phone...and, there is no charge for that 'ever.'"
• "Love it, better than the iPhone I had, Better pictures and better screen...My wife is switching from her iPhone 5 to Fire since she has checked out my FIRE."
• "I've had three Kindle Fire tablets, and this Fire phone hooks seamlessly to their ecosystem of books and videos, which I use heavily in my professional work so that's important to me."
• "The Firefly feature is fun, and the camera takes fabulous pictures and videos."
• "If you're an Amazon Prime user, it can't get better than this. The support for the Amazon ecosystem is amazing."

Fire is the only smartphone with Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, two breakthrough technologies that allow you to see and interact with the world through a whole new lens. Fire features an advanced, 13MP rear-facing camera with backside illumination, LED flash, 5-element f/2.0 lens, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities for beautiful, crisp photos, even in low-light conditions. Fire also includes a 2.1MP front-facing camera, and photos taken with Fire receive free, unlimited cloud storage.

Additionally, the Amazon Appstore has seen tremendous growth with the rate of app submissions to the Appstore more than doubling in the weeks following the Fire phone launch in the U.S. Recent additions include: Fly Delta, Bank of America, MLB.com At Bat, Tetris Blitz, Uno With Friends, Venmo, and World Series of Poker as well as the tens of thousands of others already available for Fire - Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Flixster, Instagram, Pandora, Pinterest, Spotify, StubHub, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Customers are also enjoying the use of Dynamic Perspective within apps and games--3 of the top 7 downloaded apps and games, incorporate features of Dynamic Perspective.

In the U.S., Fire is available exclusively on AT&T  - the nation's most reliable 4G LTE network. Fire with 32GB is available for  99 cents with a two-year contract or $0 down and $18.75 per month (for 24 months) with AT&T NEXT 18.

[ End of the press release segment ]

Note you can also buy it from AT&T at one of their stores.  But when buying a device, many prefer to buy from Amazon.

Again, in addition to the 32GB model at 99 cents with a 2-year data plan with AT&T, Amazon is pricing the 64GB model at $99 ($200 off the opening price in July), although the product page isn't updated for that yet.

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Kindle Fire News: Why a Kindle Fire HD? Why price reductions - why not free? Real questions as headlined. UPDATED

Kindle-related news over the last few days

Apologies to Kindle-Edition blog subscribers, as I needed to be away the last few days.  I used my tablet to look at the news and, as far as the Kindle world goes, not much was happening except tons of reactions to the reduction in prices on the Kindle Fire 8.9" HD and what it all means, including the expansion of the tablets to Europe and Japan.

  The reviews of the 8.9" model were similar to what we've read before but far less detailed.  They were actually more restatements of the product page information, so those past reviews, linked, are a bit more informative.  At the end, in response to people in the forums asking whether to get a Kindle Fire HD 7" or 8.9" (if wanting a Kindle Fire HD at all), I'll add links to a couple of earlier blog articles and the earlier basic comparison chart of Kindle Fire HD, Google Nexus, and Apple iPad mini, so those are the most popular 7" to 9" models.

BUT, a reaction column that most struck me was one that didn't wonder why the prices are now lower but asks instead when will Kindles (the topic being tablets) become free, and the writer, Beth Bacon, for Digital Book World, asks further why one would get one when the Apple iPad is available, which she considers more fully featured.
  She seems sincere in thinking most wanting a tablet would prefer a pure Android tablet or a Microsoft OS or spend $230+ more for the most basic iPad because, as she explains, Kindle owners would mainly want to read books and Kindle books can be read on an Apple while Apple books can't be read on any other system.

?  Hasn't the general complaint by general gadget writers and news-site commenters been that Amazon's attitude is wholly proprietary and you HAVE to buy a Kindle to read their books?  Yet it's Apple, she points out, that keeps other devices unable to read Apple iStore books.  And this is written as a Plus!

  As many know, you can read a Kindle book on almost every operating system under the sun, which can make words on an LCD screen somewhat hard to read.  You don't need a Kindle at all, to read a Kindle book.

  But what many general gadget reporters aren't familiar with are the many convenient features the Kindle Team has given their devices, and just a few of these are;
  1. Syncing of the reading of a book among all your devices (Apple doesn't even try);
  2. a free, private, password-protected personal webpage for your annotations on all your books;
  3. features that tell you which actors are in the current streaming Instant Video scene you're watching;
  4. the quickly-findable X-Ray'd info on any character or event name in a book you're reading, and
  5. if you choose a Prime Shipping program feature for free 2-day shipments of physical purchases, you also get the now 16,300+ no-fee Prime Eligible instant videos to watch at any time.

  On Friday, before leaving, I did respond to The Digital Books World article, and Bacon was good enough to print it (this is not always the case when a commenter adds some conflicting information).  Here's what I wrote -- not even mentioning the 5 points above! -- plus a correction I'm making:

' Andrys on March 15, 2013 at 8:42 pm said: [to]
Why would anyone buy a Kindle when there are full-featured tablets like Apple’s $500 one or the $900 Microsoft Surface Pro?

Factors include what features people are looking for.  David makes good points about ease of accessibility to the media mentioned.

Others:
1. A microHDMI port out to an HDTV (the Apple doesn’t have this) and people have used it to watch their Kindle tablet videos (even Prime Instant) on hotel HDTVs that way. **

2. A stereo set of speakers that are placed on on each end when watching movies or TV show videos and with Dolby Stereo for unusual spatial qualities and automated frequency emphasis depending on whether it’s speech or music.
  The iPad has two small speakers almost side by side on one short end – no stereo effect during movies unless you put on headphones or use external speakers

3. Amazon allows apps from "unknown sources" (Non-Amazon app stores) and Kindle Fire users can download, direct to the tablet, the popular Dolphin browser which supports the older Adobe Flash Reader still available that can be used easily, despite Adobe’s dropped support for mobile devices using the later Android 4.x systems.

  Because of this, Kindle Fire users can watch free network TV full-episodes like ABC’s entire primetime programs (and some daytime shows) when they missed an episode, as the network TV websites still use Flash for that, and Apple's Steve Jobs disdained running Flash on iOS, depending on sites to use HTML5. ***

4. The 7" size is proving very popular and Amazon’s has Retina-type high resolution while Apple’s iPad mini has lower, standard resolution but costs more.

5. It's like deciding not to bill for purchase of an economy car (giving them away instead) when an advertised-full-featured car is available (and when the fuller-featured car does not have some high-valued features that the less-expensive car does have).

6. There are now many Android app stores, including 1mobile.com, which carries over 200,000 apps, which are directly downloadable and usable for Kindle Fire devices. '

Here's the blog article on how to install non-Amazon appstore apps, which is done with Amazon's own settings option (an option which Barnes and Noble kept off the Nook system so that people have to find risky 'rooted' solutions to get the same features, which is one reason the Nook tablets haven't done as well in market share, in addition to having far less of an ecosystem for tablet entertainment).

In-depth Reviews comparing the Kindle Fire HDs, the Google Nexus and the Apple
Here are what reviews-in-depth reported in comparisons of similar-sized tablets, which found aspects not touched upon by the more superficial reviews citing pure speed or direct access to Google Play (and I would recommend that those who love games most get a Nexus and those who want apps that are compatible with their iPhones get the iPad models)

  1. Reviews of Kindle Fire HD 7 vs Nexus

  2. More on iPad mini vs Kindle Fire HD


Also, I'm placing below, the basic comparison table I put together in September, which has been updated for changing prices (please let me know if I've missed anything in that).

QUICK table of differences in features for price, with Google Nexus and IPad mini

Kindle Fire HD 7" $199 7-inch display 1280 x 800 resolution 216 ppi 16GB storage 1GB RAM Dual stereo speakers   w/ Dolby Plus HDMI-Out to HDTV Front-facing camera, 1.2MP Dual core TI OMAP 4470 w/ Imagination PowerVR 3D graphics core Dual band, 2 antenna WiFi Battery-life claim: 11 hrs Customized Android, does Amazon store w/setting that allows apps from other app stores 50,000 apps + access to getjar.com, 1mobile.com, etc for google-play apps $10 more for a charger if you need one  Older Kindle & smart phone chargers work $15 add'l: no lockscreen ad $229 for 32GB model ($269 for 16GB 8.9" 1920x1200 resolution, 254 ppi) ($299 for 32GB 8.9" 1920x1200 resolution, 254 ppi)

Google Nexus 7" $199 7-inch display 1280 x 800 resolution 216 ppi 8GB storage (up'd to 16GB) 1GB RAM One mono speaker * No HDMI-out to HDTV Front-facing camera < 1 MP Quad core Tegra 3 Basic WiFi Battery-life claim: 9-10 hrs Pure Android and can do direct Google Play store ~600,000 apps $249 for 32GB model

Apple iPad mini 7.9 inch/ $329 7.9-inch display 1024 x 768 resolution 163 ppi 16GB storage 512MB? Per A5 chip specs. TBC. Built-in speakers *   Nov. 2, Apple finally added an 's' to 'speaker' * No HDMI out to HDTV ** Front (HD) & Back (to 1080p) cameras Dual-core A5 Dual-Band WiFi Battery-life claim: 10 hrs iOS 6 275,000 heavily-curated tablet-optimized apps  (Can also run small iPhone apps - any w/ Retina resources can scale w/o pixelating. 450,000 add'l.) 23% & 53% lighter than iPad. Lighter than the other tablets. $429 for 32GB model

  * iPad mini: See Speaker discussion - to be changed when Apple changes its iPad mini specs page.
    Update - On Nov. 2, Apple finally updated their iPad-Mini specs page to show "Built-in speakers" instead of "Built-in speaker" -- something I requested they do since Specs pages are official reference pages.  The speaker grilles are about an inch or two apart, on one short side, and maybe that's why they don't mention 'stereo' after the correction.  The whole thing has been bizarre.  This might be the first iPad w/ two speakers with separate baffles but they can do nothing for movies or videos viewed the usual way, as they are close together on just one side.

    Google Nexus: See Nexus owner forum thread about the speaker.

** Those w/ Apple TV's can do AirPlay Mirroring to them.
   Contributor Tom Semple adds: Apple's new $49 "Lightning" adapter can provide HDMI out.

***Tom Semple adds he uses Puffin app to access Flash video on his iPad.

**** 7" HD Kindle Fire pricing was changed from $249 to $229 on April 11, 2013.

Table updated March 19, 2013, April 11, 2013

For the initial comparison article, I didn't include the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet HD,
which has higher display resolution - but it has no cameras, not even one for Skype (important for family & friends who like to communicate via video chat), and B&N will not allow owners to enable installation of apps from non-B&N sources.  I may do an additional table later though.

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Kindle Touch and its X-Ray Feature. Kiplinger on Best Color E-Readers

KINDLE TOUCH AND ITS X-RAY FEATURE
[Revised: Eliminated the one-day Oscar apps header]

I've been spending more time with the Kindle Touch (photo from physorg.com) because I finally went back to reading the Steve Jobs book by Isaacson, and there are SO MANY characters whose function and place I don't remember the 2nd or 3rd time I run across them, that I've been using the X-Ray feature more and really enjoying it for a book like this.  I took screenshots but will add them later as am rushed right now.

But, essentially, for a guy like Andy Hertzfeld, say, who was a member of the Macintosh team in the 80s, I can:
  . click on the top center of the page to get the Menu and options and
      choose "X-Ray" at the bottom-right
      to see a list of all names mentioned on that page and then
  . click on his name to get a Wikipedia summary on him
      (with a link to the full article) and,
        below that, a scrolling list of each mention of Hertzfeld
        in that book, in page/location order,
        with surrounding words for context and a link to each of those pages.

  I saw that although he was doing intense work for Jobs in late 1979 to March 1984 and remained close to him after leaving, the Wiki summary tells what he's done since then, and the last part reads:

  "Hertzfeld joined Google in 2005, and in 2011 was the key designer of the Circles user interface in Google+."

  Google Plus and its Circles are something new in the last year, and many of us find ourselves using them this last year, so he is still very much in the zone.

  I do like the X-Ray feature for non-fiction especially.


KIPLINGER'S MONEY POWER ON "The best color e-readers"
Kiplinger's Money Power's Jeff Bertolucci chooses the Kindle Fire, mentioning the "vibrant color display" -- and, about the 7" form factor, says --

' And smaller can be better.  The paperback-like Fire weighs nearly 7 ounces less than the iPad and is easier to hold with one hand.  The weight difference may not seem like a lot, but it matters when you're watching a two-hour flick or spending the afternoon reading a novel.

Recent software upgrades have corrected many early shortcomings.  Given the Fire's software and content, it gets our nod as the best of the current crop of color e-readers. '

He finds the Nook Tablet's screen is the best of the roundup and the unit has better specs but that the Kindle Fire has the better overall package, and he feels that the Kobo Vox isn't "as easy to navigate" and that the touch screen is "a bit balky."



Kindle Touch 3G, US-only   Kindle Touch WiFi (US)   Kindle Touch WiFi-Only, outside US    Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

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