JoltVib

While the Kindle Fire tablet stole the show at Amazon's recent press event (and the Kindle Touch took whatever scraps of attention were left), something else amazing happened: the company announced and shipped a $79 e-reader, the cheapest Kindle to date and the first to break the $100 barrier. Depending on what you drive and where you live, that's not much more than a tank of gas for a legitimate Kindle with access to library lending, Whispersync via Wi-Fi, and — of course — the full Kindle Store. Of course, "cheap" is often the enemy of "good," so we needed to spend some time reading our favorite technical specifications for wireless standards (seriously) to put the latest model to the test.

For $79, you really can't go wrong

The ultimate goal for any e-reader is to melt away, to become invisible and leave only words on a digital page behind. Thanks to an almost impossibly small, thin, and light shell, Amazon's latest (and cheapest) Kindle nearly pulls it off. I suspect that the Kindle Touch will be the better value with its audio support and simpler interface for just $20 more, but in the meantime, for $79, you really can't go wrong.

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