Old Kindle Gets A New Name (And A New Price): The $69 Kindle With Better Page Turns, More Fonts

Ingrid Lunden

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... → Learn More

Thursday, September 6th, 2012
69 kindle

At Amazon’s press conference today in Santa Monica, the company is unveiling new devices, but to help sales along through the range, it’s also dropping the price of at least one of the old ones.

The older, $79 Kindle is getting discounted by $10 and picking up a new name and a few other extras in honor of the occasion. It is now called “The $69 Kindle.”

This makes it the cheapest device yet in the Kindle range of e-readers and tablets.

Shipping from September 14, it will feature improved page turns and more fonts.

The announcement was made as CEO Jeff Bezos introduced a line of new devices. No word on how the current stock has sold yet, although some wider proclamations made on the current state of the market:

“Last year there were more than two dozen Android tablets launched into the marketplace, and nobody bought them,” said Bezos today.

The company has been notoriously quiet about giving hard numbers for how the Kindle has sold. In December last year, it revealed that it was selling all Kindles, including the Fire tablet, at a rate of over 1 million per week.

More to come.