Kindle Paperwhite, the new e-reader from Amazon, was officially announced on Thursday by CEO Jeff Bezos at an event in Santa Monica. The new Kindle Fire 2 is back-lit and has a higher resolution than the company's previous e-readers.
The Seattle online retailer said its newest Kindle is thinner than a magazine at 9.1 millimeters and weighs 7.5 ounces.
The new Kindle will be available for $119, with a 3G model available for $179-both are scheduled to launch in the US on October 1.
The Kindle Paperwhite also has a long-lasting battery, with Amazon saying the device can stay on for up to eight weeks even if its back light is powered on.
The device is essentially comprised of three display stacks: a patented light guide, capacitive touch, and a paperwhite display. The Kindle Paperwhite display includes 62 percent more pixels at 212 pixels per inch to offer what might be the closest any e-reader has come to actually replicating the look of paper pages.
Kindle Paperwhite follows in the footsteps of Barnes & Noble's Nook Simple Touch, which introduced a model with a frontlight (called a GlowLight) back in April, and the Kobo Glo, a frontlit e-reader with a 1024x768 resolution that Kobo announced just this morning.
The fourth-generation Kindle that was introduced last year remains the entry-level model, and is now available for $69 starting on September 14 and will also get some slight UI upgrades.
