As expected a new, no two new Kindles just arrived at amazon.com and will ship from August 27th on.

You now can choose between a $139 WiFi only (available in graphite) and a $189 Free 3G + WiFi (availabele in graphite or bright-white) version of the 6 inch Kindle.

So, the Kindle got WiFi – finally, that is good news, but rises the question, why the more expensive Kindle DX did not get it?

Here are the new features:

• New, High-Contrast E-Ink Screen – 50% better contrast than any other e-reader. The clearest text and sharpest images.
• New and Improved Fonts – New crisper, darker fonts
  • Kindle now has three font styles -  standard Caecilia font, a condensed version of Caecilia, and a sans serif option
  • Support for New Characters -  Cyrillic (such as Russian), Japanese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Korean characters in addition to Latin and Greek scripts
• New Sleek Design – 21% smaller body while keeping the same 6″ size reading area
• 17% Lighter – Only 8.5 ounces, weighs less than a paperback
• Battery Life of Up to One Month – A single charge lasts up to one month with wireless off
• Built-In Wi-Fi – Shop and download books in less than 60 seconds
• 20% Faster Page Turns – Seamless reading
• Enhanced PDF Reader – With dictionary lookup, notes, and highlights
• New WebKit-Based Browser – Browse the web over Wi-Fi (experimental)

So the new Kindle is nearly 20% smaller and lighter, that is really fine, since the older Kindle 2 had a quite bad frame-display ratio in my opinon. It seems to me, that the weight loss might be due to a new plastic backside, where the old Kindle had an aluminum back. They also changed the keyboard layout -  five-way controls joystick has been replaced by a new five-way button at a slightly altered position. The page turn buttons have been reduced in size.

About the new display everything is already said,  since the Kindle DX graphite recently also got this enhanced version of the E-Ink screen.

Nevertheless the smaller Kindle 3 has some advantages over the also new Kindle DX graphite. First there are page turn buttons on both sides of the display, which is really nice while reading so it does not matter in which hand you hold your Kindle. It got WiFi, the more expensive and more targeted to business users Kindle DX does not that seems a bit strange to me.

Most annoying – the new Kindle 3 got an improved PDF viewer with dictionary lookup, notes and highlights.

At least this last point is just a matter of software so it can be added to the DX as well, even to the older model. So I want that! Now!

Whereas Wi-Fi is nice but not really nesseccery when you have free 3G.

Anyhow a nice new reading device from Amazon.

For more information see: User documentation page.