Amazon Drops Word On The Kindle Touch At Their Live Event [Kindle Touch Is An eReader Without A Keyboard, Uses An IR Touch System To Turn Pages & Interact With Material]

Posted on TFTS by Steve Anderson on Wednesday, 28. September 2011 under: Computers & Computing, PCs, Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets

Turns out it wasn’t just about the Kindle Fire today at Amazon’s live show, folks, as they also dropped the dime on a new class of Kindle ereader that lets it get into the same class as the Kobo and Nook ereaders. We’re talking here about the Kindle Touch, and this one’s going to be significantly different from the Kindle experience you may already know.

The Kindle Touch is said to come with an IR touch system, in much the same way that the Kobo and Nook ereaders do, such that you no longer need a keyboard to interact with your ebooks. This in turn reportedly slims down the device by taking the keyboard out of the equation and leaving you with a smaller, slimmer profile. It’s also packing an e-ink display as well as what’s described by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who’s currently showing the device off at the live show, as an “extra long” battery life, though what “extra long” equates to in hours is a bit unclear and likely changes a bit depending on the user.

The touch system works on what’s called the “easy reach” system, in which you tap a strip on the right side of the page to go forward in page count, and tap the left side to back up. Tapping in the middle brings up the menu, so as long as you make it pretty clear you’re on the left or right, you shouldn’t accidentally get the menu. And of course, it also offers the X-Ray system, which will essentially provide context for what you happen to be reading by linking to external sources as you read. For instance, they showed off “Remains of the Day” and then went to a quick bit about the Treaty of Versailles on Wikipedia while reading the book.

And the best news on this has to be the price: the Kindle Touch is selling for just $99, or you can upgrade to lifetime 3G access via the Kindle Touch 3G for $149, and that gives you lifetime, unlimited access in 100 different countries, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to be somewhere where you can get your favorite ebooks.

Amazon’s come out with a lot of terrific new hardware today, but what do you think was the real showstopper? Head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!

What new Kindle device are you buying? Kindle Keyboard, Kindle, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G or Kindle Fire (vote in our poll)?