Kindle Touch

I've been a Kindle owner since the very old and chunky Kindle 2 device. Here's my personal pros and cons on the new Kindle Touch:

PROS ON THE KINDLE TOUCH:

1) Smaller and lighter than my previous Kindle Keyboard model. Dispensing with the physical keyboard and using an on-screen keyboard has saved a lot of space. This makes it nice and light to hold and also it's now small enough to fit into most of my handbags too.

2) The touch aspect is very responsive which is both good and bad. It's ever so easy to turn pages with a very light press on the right side for moving on a page or left for moving back. You can also swipe to turn pages too which again is very easy. I love the fact that Amazon have added up and down swiping while reading which means you can move to the next or previous chapter very quickly - if chapter markers have been added by the publishers in the book.

3) Using a touch screen is probably more intuitive for most people who are used to tablets and touch screen gadgets. It's great to be able to simply touch a word and you get your dictionary definition rather than having to navigate down to a word using buttons and then select it which is tedious.

4) I was very concerned about fingerprints over the reading screen but I've been pleasantly suprised with that. You do get fingerprints but they are admittedly very difficult to see on the matt finished screen unless you look closely. So hopefully that shouldn't put you off if fingerprints are a worry.

5) The text is clear and easy to read with lots of options of changing the size of the text and a few options on the font - just the same as with the Kindle Keyboard model. I compared both screens on my old and new device and noticed no difference with clarity of text between the two models.

6) Great new X-Ray feature (only works with some books where the publisher has provided it) which means you can see more info about characters, events and places with your book. This has been brilliant with reading the Harry Potter books where sometimes I want more detail. No having to go online to look it up - the extra info is there for you.

7) Some operations are made a lot easier with the Touch model like selecting words to get a dictionary definition, highlighting your favourite passages and quotes, adding a bookmark by just pressing the top right corner etc.

CONS ON THE KINDLE TOUCH:

1) I can't type as quickly on a touch screen keyboard as I can on the physical one on my Kindle Keyboard model. This may not be an issue for most people but I use my Kindle as a research tool as well as to read books so sometimes I can make extensive notes. This will be a pain for me with the touch model - plus sometimes my fingers press the wrong key on the Touch model because they're not very big.

2) The touch screen is very responsive which has its good points as I mentioned in the pros. But it also causes some issues too because if I don't press the power button when I'm done reading to activate the screensaver right away then any accidental movement on top of the screen causes something to happen which has ended up with me losing my place while reading a few times. Also my clumsy fingers have pressed on screen items by mistake on a number of occasions causing me confusion as to where I was.

3) I definitely seem to get more screen ghosting with this model than with my Kindle Keyboard so I'm a little disappointed in that. First thing you might want to do when you get your Touch is to go to settings and make sure you get the device to refresh the e-ink on every page turn. If you don't then I kid you not, you will see parts of the previous screen 'ink' on the current page that you're reading and this is known as screen ghosting. It's very annoying. Even having the page refresh on every turn, I still get a little of this ghosting so that's a slight con for me.

4) My BIGGEST CON with this new Kindle is the lack of physical page turn buttons. Yes, I know it's a Touch model but personally I'd prefer the option of being able to use page turn buttons while reading OR to use the screen to navigate. Problem with using the screen is that your thumb (which you'll use to move forward and back whether tapping or swiping) ends up obstructing some of what you're reading. If you're a fast reader and turning pages quickly, this can be pretty annoying. I love the physical page turn buttons on my Kindle Keyboard and I just wish that Amazon had provided them as well with this model. Personally I don't want to have to touch the screen to do every single thing.

So while I think this new model is great and has many advantages over the Kindle Keyboard, I'm not giving it a full-out 5 star rating because the device isn't quite perfect for me. I don't see any improvement with the sharpness or clarity of text over the previous model, I do get a little of the annoying screen ghosting and I just wish Amazon had provided those physical page turn buttons as well so you're not forced into having to read by touching (and covering) the screen.

And that's my very honest take on it. Great model but just missed the mark of being the perfect Kindle model for me.

Up to this point I was completely against Kindle's for a number of reasons of which I'll discuss in the hopes to reassure people like me that the Kindle is the way forward. First of all let me tell you why I chose the Kindle Touch. For me, Kindle Touch seemed the most inviting because I was used to Touch screen but I was still a little worried about it's features. So here's what I was worried about and what I found out:

1. I was worried about the sensitivity of the touch screen: The Touch IS sensitive but in a great way - it takes only a very light tap or brush of the finger to turn the page. Additionally there are features which mean that if you press a certain area of the "page" or screen you can go forward, backwards or bring up some further options (like adding annotations or going to a specific page). In comparison to other touch screens, like the iphone let's say, it's less sensitive in my opinion. In particular, if you wanted to scroll down the page of a website (because yes, you can use the internet too) this is bit less sensitive and also, it can take a second or two to refresh the page that you're scrolling down to because of the E-ink mechanism.

2. What would this E-Ink mechanism actually mean for my reading experience?: Well E-ink to be honest just looks like any other reading format, the difference you'll notice is that when you change the page the screen refreshes almost instantly OR it will flash. Now this flashing can happen after every page if you set your Kindle to refresh it's E-ink after each page. Why would you want to do that? Well some people have noticed some sort of "ghosting" which essentially means you can still very faintly see the words from the previous page. I have never noticed this myself (probably because these people are experiencing a fault of some sort rather than a drawback of the Kindle). But anyway, you can select this option to refresh your ink and get a shiny new page. For me, E-ink is great. It takes a bit longer if you use the internet for the Kindle to refresh but overall you'd never know it wasn't just as always.

3. Would I be able to download books straight to my Kindle or is there a "middle man" if you don't have 3G?: At first I thought that maybe you'd need to hook up your Kindle to your computer in order to download books - like any other USB stick - but that's not the case at all. The Wi-Fi options for the standard Kindle Touch means that as long as you have an internet connection and a wireless connection to join you can download books onto your Kindle at any time. For example, if you're in a "hotspot" and you join the wireless network (which is simply one button push on the kindle) you can download straight away. The drawback maybe if you don't have 3G is that you can't do this ANYWHERE you can only do it where there's a wi-fi connection to join. With the 3G you can do this absolutely anywhere you like and amazon funds it. Personally, I chose the standard Touch because I don't travel a great deal but also if I knew I was going to be travelling I would just stock up on e-books before I left - therefore I wouldn't need 3G. But of course, if you're away for a great deal of time this may not be appropriate but for any week or two week holiday stocking up should be fine.

4.Can I keep my books forever? Well that seems to be the case because you have an "Archive" within amazon. Much like when you purchase a book normally, you have a previous history of purchases in your account which shows what you've bought and how much it cost you. Well now with Kindle you have a log of all of the e-books you download which is great because if you were to lose your Kindle, bought a new one or yours became damaged and was replaced you can go straight into this archive and re-download everything you already had. This is a tiny bit different for newspaper subscriptions in that after 7 years they delete because the Kindle deems them as out-of-date. BUT if you're not happy about this you simply archive certain articles or an entire paper so that you can keep it until you choose to delete it.

5.Would I miss books?: It's tricky because my favourite authors or books I know I'll love I still buy in paperback because sometimes a good book on a shelf is nice to look at. But no I don't really miss books because I still have them just I don't have to hold a heavy book in my hand anymore. And actually, I was getting tired of having book dents in my hands from where heavy books had been digging in whilst I'd been reading. I don't think the Kindle should be looked at as a book replacer unless you're looking for that. It has everything you could possibly want out of a book so it could be used in that way but for me, and I think for a lot of us, the Kindle is a way of reducing luggage whilst travelling, book dents in our hands and it's just something different and new for reading. For children, this thing makes reading seem fun but for adults it's an add-on to the reading experience. So what I'm saying is, don't look at the Kindle as the end to books, just as a different way to read if you wanted to - you can still read books too and have them age on your shelf.

6.Would it be too difficult to use?: Not in the slightest! This is something I was really concerned about because for some people reading is a relaxing way to spend our time and adding technology to it would inevitably confuse us right? Wrong. This is such a simple but brilliant device that has everything so easily laid out and structured that it's obvious how to use it. There's also a free e-book which comes on your Kindle that you can read straight away which is a step-by-step of how to use your Kindle. After reading maybe half of this I was well on my way. The buttons are not ambigious, they are very well labelled and categorised so that it's easy to see what you're looking for. The "Menu" button is your best friend because it brings up all these options for you.

7.Will it remember my page?: If you want it to, yes. There are bookmarking options but also the standby option. What this means is that, if you leave your Kindle for a short while it will put itself into standby whilst remembering what you were last looking at. Additionally you can tell it go into standby by very briefly touching the on-off button. Also, this button is well out of reach of being pushed by accident because it's right down the button and on the edge of the Kindle.

8.Are Kindle books more expensive?: That again was something I wondered about because to me, whats the point in buying a kindle if the books cost just as much. Well Kindle books range in price as you'd expect but a lot of them are FREE. Some other books are the same price as paperback, some are more expensive but these prices fluctuate. I've found the Kindle most useful for books which aren't published in paperback but are published as e-books. Some of my favourite authors write smaller novellas to go between their main novels which are only available in e-book format so that's a fantastic addition for me. I've found that a lot of the books I read, predominately young adult, are much cheaper in Kindle format so it's worked out well for me. I have noticed though that new books are often very close to the same price as a paperback so if you only read newly published books this might be something to take into consideration if you're just looking to save money.

But is there anything I don't like? At the moment, after having used it religiously, I just can't find anything worth mentioning. You can have free books, cheaper books sometimes too, it's easy to use and it looks quite nice too. If I had to pick something I'd pick the web browser feature.

Web browser feature: This feature had a couple of issues for me because initially my Kindle decided that even though all my settings were for UK that my primary source for the Kindle Store should be Amazon US. Now as I live in the UK I didn't really understand this but after using the browser to search for amazon UK it re-set itself and figured out that I'd be buying my books from the UK site. Additionally, something that annoyed me a little bit is the e-ink capabilities for web browsers. If you were to scroll down the page it's jumpy and quite slow because the ink has to reset and reprint new information - this is very different to turning a page in your book so don't think this will be the case whilst reading, it's just the web browser. Now the Kindle has labelled this feature as "experimental" so I suppose you have to expect some room for development. Still, it does the job and I'm able to buy e-books which is all I really wanted the feature for anyway.

So overall, if you're like I was and you're worrying that the Kindle just isn't for you then hopefully I've addressed some of the worries you might have. If there's anything I've missed out please comment below and I'll try my best to answer your question. The Kindle Touch is a great device. I can't compare it to previous Kindle's because I haven't owned one but I can more than recommend this - it's completely changed my mind about e-readers. Hope this helps.

I wasn't immediately keen on the idea of the Amazon Kindle as I thought I would lose some of the enjoyment of the reading experience - I suppose I thought it would be like reading from a standard computer screen. That was until I had a look at my mum's Kindle and from the moment I started reading I knew I had to have one!

I ordered the Touch, as for £20 more you get a more slimline product, and I am delighted with it.

It is light, attractive and comfortable to hold;

The screen is responsive, but not excessively so;

It is nicer to read than paper. I activated the 'refresh e-ink after every page turn' feature to avoid the ghost writing that people have warned of and have not found it to be a problem whatsoever;

It is simple to shop for books using the Touch screen, and downloads take less than a minute to appear on your Kindle;

It has superb features such as the 'x-ray' which, if the book you're reading is enabled, allows you to 'dig deeper' into the story. Such a good feature! I also love the automatic bookmark, the option to highlight text and save quotes in a 'cuttings' file;

When you touch a word with which you are unfamiliar or do not understand the meaning of, the Oxford definition comes up. This has enhanced my reading experience immeasurably;

The screensavers are very nice and enhance the product and my enjoyment of it - they have an artsy feel, which I love;

The thing I love most is this: when you're lying down and reading it is so comfortable. I used to like the idea of relaxing with a good book, but trying to read the words which had been printed too close to the binding, folding back pages and then losing my place, bulkiness, heaviness... all these things and more used to make reading difficult. The Kindle has actually enabled me to love reading again, and I really can relax with a good book now (or 3000 - which is what it holds) while lying down or even in bright sunlight.

I love it, and could probably go on and on about how good I think it is.

I would love to own a Kindle Touch cover by Amazon but they are too expensive, which is a shame, as that would be the 'icing on the cake'. I will have to buy a generic one from eBay instead!

I would wholeheartedly recommend this product - I will never go back to ordinary books after reading from a Kindle. In fact I sold most of them!

5 big, flashing, bold, bright and beautiful stars from me :-DD