Today Amazon announced the Kindle Paperwhite, a $119 e-reader that’s shipping October 1st, with preorders available today. A version with 3G will also be available for $179. The big seller here is the new high-contrast touch-sensitive display; whites are whiter, blacks are blacker. The thing can even get 8 weeks of battery life with the light on. Wowzers. Three’s also this cool feature called X-Ray which lets you keep track of characters in novels. Handy for those particularly complicated books, eh?
The announcement is ongoing, but based on this shot of a demo, it’s looking like the device runs Android. Still waiting on confirmation… In the meantime, follow our liveblog!
Even if this one doesn’t end up running Android, Paperwhite is likely to find its way into an Android device from Amazon at some point. It’s got something they’re calling a “nanoimprrinted light guide” to help figure out just exactly how much light to emit given ambient conditions.