Amazon has announced a new Kindle, the Kindle Voyage (odd name…) that is due to ship in November. (Amazon.com, Amazon UK) A bit smaller than the Kindle Paperwhite, this device boasts a higher screen resolution (300 ppi compared to 212 pip for the Paperwhite), and an adaptive light, so the screen light will vary according to your ambient lighting. There are also page-turn buttons in the device’s frame, on either side of the page, which provide haptic feedback.
This device is a bit lighter than the Paperwhite, but also more expensive: at $199, that’s a big step up from the $119 Paperwhite. (The difference is less here in the UK; the Paperwhite is £109, and the Voyage £169.) It’s not clear whether many people will pay $200 for an ebook reader, but I’m pretty sure that there are enough die-hard Kindle users who will welcome the new device.
One question I have is this: will it have better fonts? I’ve written about how I’d like to see more fonts, and sizes, on the Kindle and in Kindle apps, and seeing the company making a screen with a much better resolution makes me think that this will, for the most part, be wasted if they continue using the same clunky fonts.
We won’t know for a month or so, but I sincerely hope that Amazon makes e-reading a better experience through improved fonts. It’s one of the things I dislike about the Kindle; the fact that the fonts just aren’t very book-like.