Amazon Brings PDF Support, Bettery Power Management to Kindle
0When Kindle DX was released, a lot of Kindle owners complained about Amazon offering native PDF support only on Kindle DX and not Kindle 2.0. That has changed as Amazon has introduced a new upgrade for Kindle to give your e-book reader its very own PDF reader. The new Kindle 2.0 units will ship with native support for PDF. That’s not all. Amazon has also improved power management on Kindle 2.0 to make it possible to get up to 7 days of battery life even when you keep your wireless service on at all times. Here is what Amazon had to say about these new features:
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced two new enhancements to the latest generation Kindle—85 percent more battery life and a native PDF reader. Kindle now has battery life of up to seven days even with wireless turned on, a significant improvement from the previous battery life of four days.
So Amazon may not be giving us a huge discount for the holiday season (not yet anyway), but it does finally provide native support for PDF documents on Kindle 2.0. It should have done it months ago, but better late than never. If you happen to own a Kindle 2.0, you may still get these new capabilities through a firmware upgrade:
Amazon also announced today that previous purchasers of the new Kindle will also receive the 85 percent battery life improvements with wireless on, and native PDF support via a firmware update automatically delivered via Whispernet wireless. Native PDF support will also be available for some earlier versions of Kindle via an automatic Whispernet wireless firmware update.
I have a hunch that Kindle 2.0 owners will have no trouble getting these upgrades. But how about Kindle 1.0 owners? Maybe it’s time to upgrade to Kindle 2.0. Or maybe Amazon saves itself conversion troubles and offers PDF support on all Kindles. Either way, Amazon has waited too long to offer these features. It was a bonehead move on Amazon’s part not to support PDF on Amazon Kindle. Let’s hope the company doesn’t make similar mistakes with Kindle 3.
