Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7″ Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi

Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more, plus Amazon’s revolutionary, cloud-accelerated web browser

• Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
• Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle – same as an iPad
• Fast, powerful dual-core processor
• Favorite children’s books, graphic novels, and magazines in rich color
• Amazon Prime Members enjoy unlimited, instant streaming on thousands of popular movies and TV shows. Learn More
• Amazon Prime Members choose from thousands of books to borrow for free. Learn More

Revolutionary Cloud-Accelerated “Split Browser”

Modern websites are complex. A typical web page requires 80 files served from 13 different domains. This takes a regular browser hundreds of round trips, and adds seconds to page load times.

Amazon Silk is different in a radical new way. When you use Silk, without thinking about it or doing anything explicit, you’re calling on the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud (AWS). We’ve refactored and rebuilt the browser software stack to push pieces of the computation into the AWS cloud. This lets Silk do more work, more quickly, and all at once. We call this “split browser” architecture.

Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity and the location of any cached content.

Shorter Transit Times

Amazon EC2 is always connected to the backbone of the Internet where round-trip latency is 5 milliseconds or less to most web sites rather than the 100 milliseconds that’s typical over wireless connections. AWS also has peering relationships with major internet service providers, and many top sites are hosted on EC2. This means that many web requests will never leave the extended infrastructure of AWS, reducing transit times to only a few milliseconds.

Computing Power in the Cloud

EC2 servers have massive computational power. On EC2, available CPU, storage, and available memory can be orders of magnitudes larger than on mobile devices. Silk uses the power and speed of the EC2 server fleet to retrieve all of the components of a website simultaneously, and delivers them to Kindle Fire in a single, fast stream. Transferring computing-intensive tasks to EC2 helps to conserve your Kindle Fire battery life.

Persistent Connections

A typical web request begins with resolving the domain names associated with the server and establishing a TCP connection to issue the http request. Establishing TCP connections for each request consumes time and resources that slow down traditional browsers. Silk keeps a persistent connection open to the backend server on the AWS cloud so that there is always a connection at the ready to start loading the next page. In addition, the Silk backend server keeps persistent connections open to the top sites on the web. This approach further reduces latency that would otherwise result from constantly establishing connections. Further, the connection between Silk and the backend infrastructure uses a pipelined, multiplexing protocol that can send all the content over a single connection.

Page Indexes

Traditional browsers must wait to receive the HTML file in order to begin downloading the other page assets. Silk is different because it learns these page characteristics automatically by aggregating the results of millions of page loads and maintaining this knowledge on EC2. While another browser might still be setting up a connection with the host server, Silk has already pushed content that it knows is associated with the page to Kindle Fire before the site has even instructed the browser where to find it.

Machine Learning

Finally, Silk leverages the collaborative filtering techniques and machine learning algorithms Amazon has built over the last 15 years to power features such as “customers who bought this also bought…” As Silk serves up millions of page views every day, it learns more about the individual sites it renders and where users go next. By observing the aggregate traffic patterns on various web sites, it refines its heuristics, allowing for accurate predictions of the next page request. For example, Silk might observe that 85 percent of visitors to a leading news site next click on that site’s top headline. With that knowledge, EC2 and Silk together make intelligent decisions about pre-pushing content to the Kindle Fire. As a result, the next page a Kindle Fire customer is likely to visit will already be available locally in the device cache, enabling instant rendering to the screen.

Elegant, Easy-to-use design
Lose Yourself in Your Reading
The most elegant feature of a physical book is that it disappears while you’re reading. Immersed in the author’s world and ideas, you don’t notice a book’s glue, the stitching, or ink. Our top design objective is to make Kindle Touch disappear — just like a physical book — so you can get lost in your reading, not the technology.

Ergonomic Design
Kindle Touch is easy to hold and read. We designed it with long-form reading in mind. When reading for long periods of time, people naturally shift positions and often like to read with one hand. Kindle Touch has a new ergonomic design so it can be held comfortably however you choose to read.

Touch Controls and Virtual Keyboard
Kindle Touch features a full touchscreen display that puts page turns, navigation and note-taking at your fingertips. Tap unknown words to call up definitions in the dictionary, highlight sections of text to send to a friend, or search, shop and type with a virtual keyboard that appears on screen just when you need it.

New Touch Experience – EasyReach
Amazon invented a new type of touch experience that eliminates the fatigue caused by continuously swiping to turn the page, and that allows readers to hold Kindle with either hand while still turning pages comfortably. With EasyReach, Kindle Touch users can effortlessly page forward in a book or a periodical while holding the device with either hand. Tapping on most of the screen area will page forward, the most common action done when reading; tapping in a narrow area near the left edge of the device turns to the previous page; and tapping on the top part of the screen brings up the toolbars for further options. This is another way that Kindle helps readers get lost in the author’s world.

Never Gets Hot
Unlike a laptop, Kindle Touch never gets hot so you can read comfortably as long as you like.
Wireless Capability
Built-in Wi-Fi
Kindle Touch automatically detects nearby Wi-Fi networks at school, home, or your favorite café. At a hotel or café that requires a password? Simply enter the password and connect to the network. Once you have added a Wi-Fi network, Kindle Touch will automatically connect to that network the next time you’re near the hotspot.

Free Access at AT&T Hotspots
Enjoy free Wi-Fi access at AT&T hotspots across the U.S. for shopping and downloading Kindle content — no AT&T registration, sign-in, or password required.
Reading on Kindle
Adjustable Text Sizes, Font Choices Kindle Touch has eight adjustable font sizes to suit your reading preference. You can increase the text size of your favorite book or periodical with the push of a button. If your eyes tire, simply increase the font size and continue reading comfortably. Kindle Touch also has three font styles to choose from – all optimized and hand-tuned to provide the best reading experience.

Custom Fonts
Kindle Touch uses hand-built, custom fonts and font-hinting to make words and letters more crisp, clear, and natural-looking. Font hints are instructions, written as code, that control points on a font character’s line, improving legibility at small font sizes where few pixels are available. Hinting is a mix of aesthetic judgments and complicated technical strategies. We’ve designed our proprietary font-hinting to optimize specifically for the special characteristics of electronic ink.

Fast Page Turns
Kindle Touch has fast page turns. We’ve done this by fine-tuning Kindle Touch’s proprietary waveform, the series of electronic pulses that move black and white electronic ink particles to achieve an optimal display of images and text.

Support for Non-Latin Characters
Kindle Touch supports the display of non-Latin characters, so you can read books and documents in the translation that’s right for you. Kindle Touch displays Cyrillic (such as Russian), Japanese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Korean characters, in addition to Latin and Greek scripts.

Full Image Zoom
Images and photos display crisply on Kindle Touch and can be zoomed to the full size of the screen.

Real Page Numbers
Easily reference and cite passages or read alongside others in a book club or class with real page numbers. Using the computing fabric of Amazon Web Services, we’ve created algorithms that match specific text in a Kindle book to the corresponding text in a print book, to identify the correct, “real” page number to display. Real page numbers are available on tens of thousands of our most popular Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions. Page numbers are displayed when you touch the top of your screen.

Carry and Read Your Personal Documents
Kindle Touch makes it easy to take your personal documents with you, eliminating the need to print. You and your approved contacts can e-mail documents – including Word, PDF and more – directly to your Kindle and read them in Kindle format. Your personal documents will be stored in your Kindle library on Amazon and ready to download conveniently anywhere at any time. You can add notes, highlights and bookmarks, which are automatically synchronized across devices along with the last page you read using our Whispersync technology.

Protect and Illuminate Your Kindle Touch

Our sleek, form-fitted leather cover was designed to be the perfect companion for Kindle Touch. The premium leather exterior looks and feels great, while the soft microfiber interior protects your device from scuffs and scratches. No matter where you take your Kindle Touch, you’ll never be without illumination thanks to the integrated reading light. Our innovative design allows the built-in LED light to draw its power from Kindle, so no batteries are required.

Never Be Without a Light

An integrated LED reading light lets you read comfortably anytime, anywhere. The high-quality LED light is designed specifically for Kindle’s paper-like display, adding brightness without adding glare.

Amazon Kindle Touch Lighted Leather Cover

A permanent part of the cover, the reading light is located just above your Kindle Touch and is optimally positioned to provide an even light across the screen. When needed, simply flip the light out and it automatically illuminates, eliminating the need for a separate power switch. To turn the light off, just snap it back into place or close the cover. Since the light draws its power from Kindle, no batteries are needed.

How It Works

Our innovative cover interfaces seamlessly with your Kindle Touch, securing your device while providing easy access to the home button and power switch. Two small connectors draw power from the device to power the attached light.

Our cover is designed specifically for yourKindle Touch and secures your device without any hinges or straps. Simply place your Kindle into the form-fitted interior of the cover and then gently press the device into place.

Read Comfortably with One Hand

Reading with the cover on, you can easily access Kindle’s home button and power switch, while the rounded edges offer a perfect fit in your hands. The reading light is easily accessible when the cover is open and the cover is designed to fold back, so you can read comfortably with just one hand.

On the Go

Thin, lightweight, and durable, this cover is perfect for taking Kindle Touch wherever you go. The stylish, genuine leather exterior and form-fitting interior provide ultimate fit and protection. You’ll also never be without a reading light, and since the light draws its power from Kindle Touch, no batteries are needed.