So….my new Kindle Fire arrived yesterday! As a loyal Amazon Kindle fan, one of the first things that I did with my Kindle Fire was to turn to the page in the book that I am currently reading and see what the difference was…
Probably the biggest and most evident difference between the Kindle Fire and the Kindle Touch is that the Kindle Fire is backlit…if you’ve been reading on the regular Kindle, you know that there is no backlighting whatsoever with the e-Ink Kindle pages. In fact, that is one of the things that most distinguishes the Kindle as an eReader device. The lack of backlighting is what makes the Kindle Touch readable in bright sunlight, but for Kindle Fire? I must admit there is some glare on the screen at certain angles, and the backlighting does make reading for long periods of time on the Kindle Fire somewhat uncomfortable for the eyes after a while. With the Kindle Touch, I can literally read for hours…with Kindle Fire, not so much.
Another interesting difference is that the Kindle Fire weighs quite a bit more than the Kindle Touch…you might not think that this makes much difference at first, but after about 10-15 minutes, I was looking for a place to prop my Kindle Touch. I ended up propping it on a pillow, since I was reading in bed. But, for everyday reading….like sitting in your favorite chair on a rainy Saturday afternoon…or reading under the umbrella on that next trip to the beach…Kindle Touch beats Kindle Fire hands down!
Now, obviously, there are a lot of differences between the two, however, in this post, we are talking about actual reading. Not surfing the net. Not updating my Facebook status. Actual reading. Where you simply lose yourself in a book for an hour or an afternoon. And, as much as I love my Kindle Fire, for actual reading of a normal book, I will still use my Kindle Touch.
What does that mean for the market? To me, that means that there is still a need for both devices, and that there are lots of people like me. People who will own and use both the Kindle Touch and the Kindle Fire. Two devices. Two separate reasons for owning both.
To me, that’s definitely a WIN-WIN situation!
