Update Sept 2011: The Kindle 4 has arrived in the UK. Smaller, faster and far cheaper you can order now.
Currently priced at only £89 this is a far more affordable choice for those that desire an ebook reader to simply enjoy reading on. It is far more “pocket sized” than the earlier models, measuring 166 mm x 114 mm x 8.7 mm and weighing only 170 grams.
You get the same great looking Pearl E-ink display with the 4th generation Kindle so you know it will look great even if we finally get any sunshine! The big difference is that Amazon have done away with the keyboard. This makes more room so the whole thing could be down-sized. A simple 5 way controller is all you need, and if you should want to write notes or send an email, you can still do that with a pop up on-screen virtual keypad (this is not a touch-screen Kindle though so it might take a little time!).
The memory is a little smaller than the 3rd Generation models, but it still allows around 1600 books to be stored (and you have limitless storage in the “cloud” anyway. The battery is also a little smaller too, so this model will last for around a month on a full charge (as opposed to two months for the keyboard versions). The model also does away with any audio output, but come on what can we really expect for 89 quid?
I think the compromises are perfectly acceptable, if like me, you really just want to read on the thing! After all you can now do that for less money and get a device that is smaller and lighter to boot (don’t worry if you love keyboards the old versions are still being sold).
Now my 4th gen Kindle has arrived here’s the:
Kindle 4 Hands On Review
Well, firstly let me say just how much I love the new look, feel and price of the latest UK ebook reader! I bought it with the intention of letting the other half use it (he has been lusting over my old model since his very clever iPad is so useless in the sun, and heavy in bed!). You can probably guess that in the end I’ve decided to let him have the 3rd gen model, so I get the shiny new lighter one instead! 
Here’s why…
4th Generation Kindle – The Good
- Well size really does matter. I thought the old model was light and comfortable to hold (and indeed it is) but making it smaller and lighter makes it so much better!
- The side paddles you use to turn pages feel more solid, and are curved more into the sides. They didn’t really look all that different, but I don’t accidentally turn pages anything like how I used too!
- The keyboard always seemed a little redundant since I never personally used it. Now I don’t have to feel guilty about not taking notes or searching things since it would be one heck of a chore to do with the on-screen keypad!
- The price; £60 off is not to be sniffed at.
- Comes with more language options (so you can use the reader in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Brazilian Portuguese. This totally makes no difference to me, but does make it better overall than the English only Kindle 3 (if I had lots of foreign friends to lend it too!).
The Bad
This is quite difficult to write, since for the way I use my Kindle there are no negative sides to the latest model. But for others there are a few things to know:
- The battery will only last around half as long on the latest generation reader.
- You can “only” store around 1600 ebooks, rather than the 3500 you can with the keyboard model (has anyone ever got to that many ebooks on one device? Surely it would be a real pain navigating through them – I would rather delete stuff off the reader itself and leave it in the “cloud” to download again should I want to re-read something.
- There is no 3G option. Not a biggee for me since I only ever had a wi-fi model anyone. I think most of us have such regular access to wi-fi hot-spots adding 3G is unlikely to be that important for the majority.
- The lack of keyboard might make it a turn off for those that enjoy typing on tiny round buttons!
- There is no text-to-speech so if you like listening to computers reading to you whilst driving you’ll still need the third gen model.
- There isn’t any headphone socket either.
So there you go folks – as you can see I am a fan. This is a stripped down ebook reader, no frills, no fuss, just the perfect device on which to read!
No I won’t be relegating my 3rd gen version to the bin – there’s nothing wrong with it, but the smaller, lighter and cheaper model is the one I would buy if I didn’t have one of each already!
The bad news is that even though there now is a touch-screen Kindle, it won’t be sold in the UK just yet!
Back to our original article:
The current Kindle available in the UK is bound to be upgraded at some point in 2011. Not that we don’t love its current incarnation, you understand – it’s just that we cannot help wondering what the Kindle 4 will have to offer us gadget loving book readers.
If you want to be kept up to date on confirmed new Kindle 4 (and Amazon tablet) specifications, and release details sign up at the right.
Well, in the spirit of dreaming about how such a great device might be made even better, here are some of our guesses on what could be next for our favourite eBook Reader:
Touch Screen Kindle 4?
Well with touch-screen phones and tablet PCs all the rage it would seem pretty natural for just about all our handheld gadgets to go down this route. Love them or hate them, on the whole consumers find touch navigation easy and intuitive. Give a Kindle to someone that hasn’t seen one before and they will probably start touching the display since it is now assumed just about everything works that way.
Whether this is your preferred navigation doesn’t really matter that much either. A move towards this type of display could have other advantages for the ebook reader. The whole thing could be shrunk even further in size by eliminating the QWERTY keyboard, but the display would be the same. Or alternative make the display larger without making the device itself any more bulky. Sony have done it with their latest range of ebook readers and you can see from the picture that it can really make a huge difference to the scale.
And, now that the Nook Simple Touch Reader is providing a real bit of competition against the current crop of Kindles expect a touchscreen to come sooner rather than later. After all, Amazon won’t want to continue seeing reviewers suggest that Barnes & Noble are actually producing something better than a Kindle!
A Colour Kindle 4?
Of course we always could have had a colour Kindle reader. But it would have meant a back-lit LCD display. Those are used on laptops and tablets and though vibrant use a lot of power, get hot and are generally considered more of a strain on the eyes than e-ink displays. All in all that makes an LCD ebook reader a far less attractive option for many, and borders quite distinctly into iPad territory.
The makers of e-ink have now though, created a full colour version of their low energy, comfortable to read screens. The first manufacturer to bring these colour e-ink based ebook readers to market is Hanvon. Announced at the 2011 CES gadget show in Las Vegas they have had a distinctly mixed reception. Yes they are color but perhaps not quite as we know it.
The truth of the matter is that if people do demand colour Kindles they will need to either get used to slightly more subdued hues or demand LCD. Colour e-ink is great. The definition is fantastic, but there is not the same vivid, saturated look that we are used too. This is going to be a tough one.
Colour ebook readers are highly desirable for those reading periodicals, reports or children’s books and so on. But will muted colour be good enough for them, whilst the majority of us are happy with a monochromatic fiction?
Or a Kindle 3.5?
Forgetting for a moment, the regular software updates such as the Kindle 3.1 firmware upgrade, will we get a major or a minor change when the next ebook readers are released?
There are plenty of tweaks and minor changes that customers might appreciate. Better support for foreign characters and language might be one. Or an improved filing system for your MP3s. Perhaps the Kindle 3 will be with us for a whole while longer. We shall have to wait and see. My guess though is that we won’t be hearing definite news of a Kindle 4 release date until the summer holidays at the very earliest.
Kindle 4 Wish List
Previous readers have kindly told us what they would like from the next generation Kindle Reader.
Vote for up to 3 features you want from the Kindle 4:
- Touchscreen (60%, 670 Votes)
- Colour Display (58%, 645 Votes)
- Improved Web Browser (41%, 450 Votes)
- Bigger Screen (40%, 448 Votes)
- Larger Memory (25%, 280 Votes)
- Something Else (tell us in the comments) (5%, 59 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,109
Loading ...Kindle 4 Release Date
The Kindle 4 is available for now.
Related posts:
This site is for UK Kindle Buyers. International Customers head on over to the 
I woulld like to know about the next generation of Kindle.
My mother of 91 and partially sighted, used to be an avid reader, but for the last 10 years has had to depend on audio books. And how difficult is that getting now the cassette player and cassettes getting as rare as hen’s teeth.
A device that is not as small as an ipod (or similar) that gives audio readouts would be wonderful. Showing the cover of the book on the screen and plug-in ear phones to listen to the dialogue, a chapter at a time. This type of thing with easy to see and easy to navigate buttons would be wonderful for the elderly, as long as they have someone who will sort out the downloading for them. So a little run down:
book cover on screen – of the book that is being read
press play largish button (old people have poor sensory on the finger tips for tiny buttons)
1 chapter at a time ( this is what they are used to reading)
Large display icons to show library
available with over the ears headphones – (in-ear are uncomfrotable for the elderly)
If this doesn’t suit the KINDLE range then please someone develop one !!!!!!!!!!! There are lots of elderly out there !!
Please keep me updated on kindle 4 release date. Thanks
Pixel density is IMHO one of the most important things that should be improved, but everyone seems to not care about it.
I would like to be able to be able to read in bed when my husband is sleeping and I am not! He wakes up even if I use a booklight. Adjustable levels of light would be great.
IMAP email client / iCalendar clients.
Please can you let me know when the Kindle 4 release date is out
please keep me updarwd on the Kindle4
Please keep me updated on the release date for the Kindle4. Here’s hoping it will be in colour which will be great for my studies. Can’t wait!
please keep me updarwd on the Kindle4..Thank you!
Kindle 4 with touch scren and a keyboadr product such as SlideIT, Swype or similar will be a great asset compared with products that use touch keyboard character at a time tapping
please keep me informed on the new Kindle
Please keep me updated on the Kindle 4. Thank You.
Personally i’d like to see an sd (or similar) slot and compatabitity with more ebook types Epub etc
I’m interested in the Kindle 4 – please could you keep me updated. Many thanks.
Off and on back light
Bigger memory
Job done!
(any more and it starts to be a iPad wanna be)
I would liketo be informed about any updates of the Kindle
Regards
Martin
I was going to get the current kindle for my holiday in the summer but then I decided to wait to see if a new version comes out
Please keep me updated on Kindle 4 release. Thank you.
All the kindle needs:
A touch screen but keeps the QWERTY key pad. Everyone knows the touch screen keyboards aren’t up to much.
A good web browser.
Anyone agree?
It would be great to navigate up and down through a book by holding the respective key for a few seconds and then allowing fast page changes. Often it is needed to refer back quickly to a part of a book as reminder, maybe a character, a topic or a research item, In a regular book you can do this by thumbing through pages and browsing the book. I haven’t found a way of doing this easily on Kindle.
Could it not be a 3.2 update?
I would also like to see SD card slot on any new Kindle so as not to be tied to (limited) internal memory…
My wish is so simple. I would love it if Kindle put the page number / total pages instead of the percent or a bar. It makes a huge difference if the remaining 23 percent is 10 pages or 70 in a regular book…. I miss the geography of a book…. The passage was near the front…. etc
@Will – I don’t know who the everyone is that you’ve been talking to, but I find the touch-screen keyboards great. I think Apple’s is still better than Android’s, but I don’t have a problem with either. They do require a bit of practice, and you have to trust them to auto-correct when you’ve missed the target… but a touch-screen keyboard on the Kindle would be larger anyway.
@Gayla – agreed! Page numbers are necessarily more complicated to keep track of since they change with text size, but there’s no real reason not to have this. I would also vote for a permanent progress bar across the top/bottom of the screen.
@Zz – expandable memory would certainly improve the situation, allowing music lovers the option of a larger library, whilst keeping the cost down for everyone else.
My last, but certainly not least, request would be to make the Kindle more open. Amazon are not the only book store out there, and they don’t have the largest collection of ebooks. We are starting to see libraries stocking ebooks, and it would be nice to be able to lend my ebook to my family when I’ve finished reading it, just like we did in the old days. Essentially, I’m bored of buying locked-down devices: I know it’s meant to make for a more stable, smother, less-glitchy user experience, but open-source achieves the same thing, with a vastly-improved end result, and I wouldn’t have to be the jailbreaking/rooting go-to guy!
@ Davii – Kindle lending is available but limited. What I am more excited by is the introduction of Kindle books in libraries. It is coming to the US this year so hopefully the UK Kindle store will follow suit soon.
I think the Kindle 3 is pretty well thought out, though it is my first foray into e-readers. I think the following things would make Kindle better:
1. Better ‘paging’ – perhaps settings to control whether to use a percent bar, position bar or page number. Pages numbers is a hard one though, this will change depending on text and font size so would end up being meaningless- page 100 to me mightn’t be the same as page 100 to you.
2. A clock – I often get lost in a book and forget how long I’ve been reading.. It would be great to not have to look up from kindle to keep checking the time. Would be great if I could set a reminder to let me know when I had read for a certain amount of time. For example, I read during my lunchbreak at work. If I could set the kindle to let me know when 45 mins had passed it would mean I didn’t have to clock watch and could get stuck in to my book.
3. Better organising of collections and libraries on the kindle itself. This is the one thing I can’t stand about the kindle. I want far better searching/sorting/filtering of books and collections on the device. For example, organising collections alphabetically isn’t possible as far as I can see without some sort of workaround.
4. Better (or just any) computer-based Kindle management software for the device itself – The ability to manipulate books and collections on device itself from an actual computer would be amazing. There are one or two third party apps but I’d like official branded support software.
5. The ability to store books in proper folders on the Kindle rather than all books going into one folder structure. This would make it easier to manage and backup my kindle content that hasn’t been purchased from amazon itself.
6. A basic address book to store all my numbers in.
7. a calculator. always handy
8. to do lists/ general note-taking would be nice, but I doubt I would use it that often.
9. The screen should be slightly larger, its not quite the same size as the average paperback.
10. Larger memory would be ok but I’m not missing it at present. maybe in time.
Knowing what you want from device should also be balanced with what you don’t want. These are the things that shouldn’t be on a reading device in my opinion. I don’t want:
1. touch screen
2. better media management i.e. music, photos, vids etc
3. colour
4. email or web browsing
5. music can be removed
6. built in lighting
7. games
8. anything that makes the device heavier, slower, thicker, lessens battery life, or makes it more expensive.
I think of my kindle as a books on steroids, any of the above moves us towards a tablet, and I don’t want one of those.
hanging on for my birthday present of the new Kindle 4!
Eagerly waiting for the new Kindle 4 e-reader.
Who needs colour? I’m not reading picture books! Just bring on the touch screen and get rid of that ugly keyboard and i’ll buy one… how long will I have to wait?!?
please let me know when the new one is out. Keen to get my hands on it..
i think they will go with color e ink
Auto rotate with the device would be nice.
A toggle button for zoom.
A calculator simple address and note pad
Simple voice recorder
A pastel colour screen would be good for viewing maps diagrams and web content
Move one set of page buttons up by about 1 inch
Surprised no one has mentioned a way of having “profiles” so people can easily share a Kindle. My wife uses large fonts, and has a different reading list to me. We tend to read at different times, so a Kindle each is an extravagence.
I really want to see something along the lines of the Microsoft Courier, dual screen opening out to give it more of a traditional book feel. Hell i’d love to see a front screen on it too, which displays the cover art of what your currently reading. Maybe even a touch screen with a styles so you can write notes on it about the book your reading(studying if your a student like me) would massively reduce my bag weight walking to uni thats for sure! Having said that alot of the books I use for uni are full of colour diagrams and what not so a colour eink screen would be a delight.
Oh well have to wait and see!
Card slot and a better failure rate. Am holding off deciding what to buy at the moment. Reading sites like this to help me decide.
girly and funky colour options for the casing instead of the dull grey…..
Slightly smaller unit but with same sized screen. Hide the keyboard. Definitely touch screen – I keep going to touch mine!
)
i would like them to make the kindle waterproof ! i read in the bath more than anywhere else and would love to be able to use a kindle
I would like to use Kindle not a reading tool but something also for study. i’m still waiting for Kindle4 as i expect touch screen as a key characteristic for highlighting. a bigger screen is fine for pdf files. color screen maybe a little bit useless. i believe there is a market for students and researchers. btw, i don’t like more entertainment elements added because when study, i always avoid being distracted – a reason that i won’t buy ipad even with an e-ink screen.
Perfect PDF support and immediate display responding immediately with a scroll wheel!
I suggest a colour screen, PPT presentations with MP3, digital diary option, multiple languages voice options and different USB ports as well.
I wouldn’t mind colour screen, though it’s certainly not essential and having said that, I would not mind AT ALL if it was the subdued “eInk” variety of colours. It would be more fitting for it to have a certain unique eInk look to set it apart anyway. TouchScreen is another thing that would be alright but not really essential to me.. this is an eReader.. not a smart phone or tablet PC.. if I wanted it that badly, I’d get a tablet PC.. but I don’t.
I’d like to see the full integration of Audio and Written books as well as the possibility of simple animation and drawings, not video, added to incorporate an ever emerging eBook technology.
The Kindle 3 is currently the best eReader in my opinion.. I just hope that whatever changes they do make, doesn’t ruin that.