Amazon announced some major changes to their Kindle e-book reader today. Specifically, it stated that they’ve worked out a way to increase battery life by 85%. That means that the new firmware update will allow you to leave your Kindle on (with the wifi active) for about 7 days before you need to recharge. Additionally, the Kindle will now support Adobe’s PDF format natively. Previously, you had to convert PDFs in order to view them on the Kindle.
In addition to the PDF functionality and improved battery life; the firmware update also adds the ability to manually control your screen rotation and makes it possible to convert your PDF files to the Kindle format. To read more about this update or to download it manually go here.
[via ZDNet]
I think the bigger news is going to be the addition of wifi to the kindle.
i agree with you !!
i love me some kindle
Kindle has wifi? You’re joking.
Did some investigating and I think you mean “wireless” instead of “wifi.”
The Kindle defiantly does not have wifi.
85%!? Here’s someone who thinks their old firmware had tons of unoptimised code.
Finally! Kindle is now a good reader!!!
i might buy this now.
Just a note that it’s not actually “Adobe’s” PDF format. It was released as an ISO standard back in 2008. Adobe relinquished control of PDF to ISO, who is now in charge of publishing the specifications for the current version and for updating and developing future versions.
+1
So this firmware update for new kindle 2 only, or for any Kindle 2 purchased before can still get the update??
I’m lost as to why someone would want one of these, when a netbook can do so much more!
for me its about readability the screen and text is so much nicer to read off of. staring at laptop/lcd’s/or netbook, all day put a lot of strain on my eyes. Not sure if its all in my head, or if this is a valid reason.
It’s a very valid, but the biggest advantage is the battery life. How long will a netbook last, 2-3 hours? You can read a Kindle for literally 5 days straight.
bu..bu..but..what about ePub? and .doc? and .txt?
Competition, got to love it. Have to wonder if native .pdf support would have shown up so quickly if not for the arrival of the Nook. Almost immediately after its arrival we’ve gotten a cheaper price and PDF support.
yay! glad to hear I can now use PDF on my Kindle 2! I’m going to make sure my firmware update gets downloaded tonight.
I really sucks that they left the Kindle 1 users hang out to dry.
+1
It’s a shame to see the early adopters get left behind. In this case, the Kindle 1 early adopters are their most loyal users.
awesome news. kindle +1
nice i like it
It’s about time they added PDF support. Glad to see better battery life too. Another price drop and I’m buying a Kindle.
I thought there might be a chance of a drop for Black Friday at least, but I haven’t seen jack.
I’m really interested into a Kindle-like, but I’m waiting for an affordable color version.
With pdf support..how will you get your pdf’s to the kindle? I have not purchased one yet and was not sure how that would work?
Leo
>>With pdf support..how will you get your pdf’s to the kindle? I have not purchased one yet and was not sure how that would work?
You either e-mail the PDF to your Kindle e-mail address or you connect the Kindle to your computer via USB and manually move it from the computer to the Kindle. It’s actually pretty easy to do.
I manually downloaded the firmware upgrade to my Kindle last night and immediately transferred some PDFs to my Kindle to try it out.
Transferring is easy but keep in mind the Kindle just reads the PDF file as it is. You can’t adjust font size or anything. When i have my Kindle in Portrait orientation, the font size on the PDF I tried last night was very tiny and hard to read. Wen I rotated the Kindle to Landscape orientation, fone was still smaller than I usually like on my Kindle but it was readable.
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