Amazon Announces New Kindle With 'Paperwhite' Display

Amazon Announces New Kindles

Amazon has announced a new line-up of Kindle E-readers.

The updated touchscreen Kindle has a backlit 'Paperwhite' E-ink screen, a higher resolution, a greater selection of fonts.

Amazon said the new screen has a 25% greater range of contrast than the old device, with 62% more pixels. The device will have an eight-week battery, the company added.

The book will also calculate how long a book will take you to read, based on your reading speed and the length of the title.

The Paperwhite device will cost $119 in the United States but will not initially launch in the UK.

Instead the UK will see only the slightly upgraded entry-level Kindle, available for £69, which is smaller and lighter and will add new fonts and crisper text.

Amazon's 2012 Keynote

Amazon's New Kindles

The company also announced a new line-up of tablet devices with an upgraded Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD.

Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos said the device was the best Kindle the company has ever made.

He said: "Perfect in the bedroom, perfect in direct sunlight. People are going to love this device, and they're going to love the light. In fact, they're going to love it so much they're going to leave it on all the time."

The online superstore also used the event in LA to unveil new initiatives to boost its self-publishing programme, to help authors to get their work onto its store.

'Kindle Serials' will allow authors to sell subscriptions for fiction and non-fiction works, which will be released over a long period of time - similar to how authors like Charles Dickens originally published some of their most famous works.

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