Amazon Kindle Touch (with Special Offers, Wi-Fi)

Pros: Smaller than my old Kindle Keyboard in surface area. Faster than the outgoing model. Generally cleaner design. Touch screen works good. Battery life appears to be better. Touch screen is more intuitive in navigation and organization.

Cons: Not a giant leap in technology, other than the touch screen and elimination of the keyboard. Very much thicker than the outgoing Kindle keyboard.

Summary: OK. I'm a technology geek. I saw the new Kindle announced and I ordered it (3G version, touch) before even reading a review. I've had Nook envy for 8 months or so-- and I wanted this Kindle to level the playing field.

It does and it doesn't. This is a catch-up model to the Nook. Amazon is very late in reacting to the Nook touch (e-ink reader)-- and I confess I have had Nook envy for some time now. The rubberized, contoured back, with hardware buttons on the back of the device, as well as a touch screen-- I wanted one, but I'd been tied to Amazon because of all of the books I'd purchased, so I waited. And waited.

It's stunning at first glance. It's a much cleaner design than the outgoing Kindle Keyboard (Yes, Amazon still sells it, but let's face it-- it isn't going to be around forever). The smaller footprint is a welcomed reduction in form factor. Comparing to the old Kindle it's an inch shorter with the loss of keyboard, and slightly less wide. Good.

However the top bezel is actually wider than the Kindle Keyboard, and this is a surprise. Assuming they needed it for battery (more on that in a second), the Kindle touch has wider bezels at the top and bottom of the device-- with thinner bezels running down the sides. They placed the e-ink screen in the middle of the device. From a design standpoint I consider this a misstep. They should have evened out the bezels on top and sides, leaving a wider bezel at the bottom, where a lot of people hold it. Doing this would have made this device feel even smaller, and actually balanced the aesthetics a bit.

The silver bezel looks clean, but a darker bezel would have been a wiser choice from a reading standpoint. The screen gets lost in the bezel a bit, a darker bezel, would have made the screen pop more.

If you are looking for a jump in e-ink screen performance, don't bother. This screen is identical to the old one. No jump in contrast or sharpness or response. I would have liked to see Amazon make an incremental jump in e-ink. One new feature is that the screen will update for 6 pages before needing to do a complete refresh. But I found the screen gets annoying ghosting after just one page turn. You can see residual letters from the previous page-- very distracting-- and have since turned the feature off (there is a menu setting for this). It now refreshes on every page.

Another piece of good news is battery life. I seem to be getting even longer battery life out of the new Kindle than the old keyboard model. Though it could be that the new battery isn't a year and a half old.

Other niggles-- this Kindle is thicker than the keyboard version (a LOT thicker)-- almost twice as much. I'm not sure I understand why. The e-ink display is inset by an eighth of an inch-- this is wasted space. The only reason I can figure is they wanted it to be more difficult to accidentally brush the screen (which I still do anyway). So that's a bit disappointing.

It's also a bit heavier, though this isn't really that noticeable. The power button is now a push, instead of a slide, and yes, I have bumped it by mistake a few times. This may not happen as much once I get a case with a light. Amazon hasn't delivered it's case with the light built into it-- my favorite accessory from the old one.

Conclusion-- I still managed to get lost in what I was reading, which is good. But this Kindle update isn't a home run. It's more like a double to the gap. It does what Amazon needed to do, but nothing more. There are aspects of this Kindle-- particularly the lighter bezel color and inset screen which are actually worse than the old Kindle. I'm still on the fence about missing a hardware page advance.

Great that we now have a touch screen Kindle with a smaller footprint, but it doesn't grab my attention the way the Nook touch screen did almost a year ago. It's a decent update that doesn't surprise. If I were buying an e-ink e-reader, based only on the e-reader, I'd have purchased the Nook touch.