There’s a fresh Amazon Kindle in town, an update to the most entry level unit in the segment and a device that’s now thinner and lighter than the predecessor. It also comes with an affordable price of just $80. The product is up for preorder here and will ship in early July.
It comes in black or white and measures 0.36 inches in thickness, which makes it 11% slimmer than the model before. It’s also 16% lighter, according to the official data. Amazon offers 4 GB of storage inside, double the amount of last year and enough for thousands of eBooks. A premiere here is the fact that this device is the first Kindle eReader with Bluetooth audio support.
Basically you can pair a Bluetooth speaker or headphones to use with Amazon’s VoiceView screen reader, that’s able to read everything aloud, including the on screen menus. There’s no backlight or bumped up resolution and folks looking for more may like the $120 Kindle Paperwhite better. The good thing about the $80 reader mentioned above is the lack of glare, even in bright sunlight.